Awareness, Free Choice, and Living a Life of Adventure While You Still Can

Today I fell prey to one of those Facebook chain posts that purports to be done to bring awareness to breast cancer. This one, which is the 2014 version of the "post the color of your bra" one from years past, was asking me to choose a silly, nonsensical sentence from a list of silly nonsensical sentences and post it without explanation, so that when my friends comment, they too would then have to pick one and post. I had commented on a friend's post that he had "decided to stop wearing underwear" and "tag" I was instructed to do the same or pick another silly item as my status message.

Here's the thing - I hate being told what to do. If you don't know that about me already, just ask my mother, my husband, my kids, my close friends. They will all confirm that the quickest way to get me to balk at doing something is to tell me that I have to. I am a big proponent of free thought and self-actualization, so I am not a very good candidate for these chain-style letters, emails, and social media. I truly have no qualms with ignoring such directives and I don't for a second think that if I don't follow through with them that I am being a "spoiled sport" or that something bad will befall me. In fact, I even somewhat relish being the "end of the line" for these types of things. Maybe that is the rebel in me; my mom would, of course, say that I just like to be contrary.

These types of social media shenanigans are one of those things that the cynic in me - oh yes, I am cynical, to a fault - finds to be pointless and even slightly offensive. I don't for a second see how posting a chain-style statement and sucking my friends into doing so as well can in any way promote breast cancer awareness or support the research needed to end a disease that so many have experienced themselves or through loved ones. Breast cancer, any kind of cancer, is not a game to play practical jokes with and to electronically sucker punch your friends with. Or maybe my mother is right (gasp) and I just like to be contrary. The paranoid me, of course, thinks that these chain posts are really just some tool designed by hackers to crack passwords. The realist in me though knows that there are much better ways to promote breast cancer awareness.

Maybe it is because we just got home from a fabulous adventure trip to Hawaii - I mean just got home in the sense that the bags are still in the hallway and my kids are still sleeping off the exhaustion - in which we did a night swim with Manta Rays, surfed, stood on a lava-covered road, hiked Diamond Head, and viewed the Milky Way, nebulas, and Saturn's rings from 9,300 feet above sea level. Maybe it is because we are coming up on the second anniversary of the death of someone who I admired because of the way she and her family chose to deal with her breast cancer. Whatever the cause, my thoughts upon getting sucked into this chain post immediately went to a true source of breast cancer awareness and so I choose not to repost the chain post, but to share this instead.

One day I walked into Trapeze School New York/DC and there was this wildly crazy, beautifully tattooed woman in my class that seemed so familiar to me. It was one of those out of place, out of time moments, like when you were a kid and saw your teacher in the grocery store. It took me a while but I finally pinned down that I knew her from when I worked at PBS. We shared classes a few more times and she was always a hoot to fly with, and then I didn't see her again for a long time. What I didn't know at the time was that outside of her TSNY classes she was living a true life of adventure and an even bigger challenge against breast cancer. When I did see her again she was in a wheelchair and it was her last trip to TSNY to watch her husband and two young daughters take up where she could no longer fly.

I am not going to tell you Trisha's story, because it is hers and her family's, and because it is so interesting and already so well documented on her website (http://creekmoreworld.com/) that I could never do it justice with anything I have to say about it. Spend some time on the site - there is the open and touching story of Trisha's brave fight with cancer and some truly amazing adventure travel blogging as well. Her family has continued traveling and blogging about their travels to honor her death.

Okay, so I guess, in a way, that silly chain post has given me a vehicle to bring awareness to breast cancer, just not in the way it intended. It also gave me a chance to remember and reflect on another's brave journey and to contemplate my own next adventure. I hope you all will choose to live a life of adventure while you still can. Live well, my friends, and enjoy your time on this earth.

Tears of a Clown

It is said that laughter is the best medicine, but there are some things that even laughter can not make well. The suicide death of Robin Williams is a cruel reminder to us all that life is fragile.

Although someone may appear to the casual friend or even a close loved one to be happy and fortunate and carefree, each of us battles our own demons. Those battles can be fierce and unrelenting and they can rise up against us in our darkest moments when we have little left to give. Sadly, sometimes those battles are lost.

We all do the best we can to make our way in this world, each of us with our own challenges, privations, and complications. And yet, the tears of a clown are just as salty as those of everyone else. Please be kind to one another - you never know what someone else may be suffering, even as they try so very hard to be a good friend, or to make a difference, or to make us laugh.