Monday, July 19, 2010

Softening up my tin heart

For every moment of weakness over something as inconsequential as hair, I have a parallel moment of feeling like a bitch in battle, willing to do whatever it takes to beat this thing down - be it growing wheatgrass on my windowsill to put into some disgusting shakes, giving up every bad food I've ever loved, or meeting with a swami eight times a week to work it out in Sanskrit.

Part of this feeling like I'll do whatever the fuck it takes comes from my girls, my man, my family and close friends, but there's also a big part that comes from this bloody inspiring place that I work. Let me be honest here, folks, I'm not a neurosurgeon, an aid worker in a third world country, a single mother of six working three jobs or even the CEO of a small business. I'm a regular office worker who, until last month, worked incredibly hard to do good work for people I care about. And the niceness I've gotten from the place over the past several weeks has smacked me upside the head and made me realize that it's deep out there, man.

It's not that when I got diagnosed I expected to get a "good luck with that, talk to you when you come back!" response from work, but honestly, the generosity and pure kindness I have had delivered in truckloads from my cross-country friends, teammates and even casual colleagues - including ones that no longer work there - has blown me away and continues to make me blink like an idiot every day. It has made leaving so abruptly less painful and made the idea of eventually returning so less scary than it could be.

This shizz has already changed my little robot brain considerably, and I expect it will continue to do so as I go through each stage of the next several months, but knowing that I have this unexpected cheering section and I didn't have to pay them to say nice things to me makes me want to do my rock solid air drums to Always Something There to Remind Me. Yep... I'm dorkier than you can ever imagine.

4 comments:

  1. You are admired from coast to coast Carissa!! This doesn't surprise me at all.

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  2. What is given is returned in many different ways, babe.

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  3. We are all here rooting for you. You have always been supportive of us at work, and this is the least we can do.

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  4. Carissa, we are all rooting for you. Your story touches all of our hearts. Be strong and know you have a huge support network behind you..thinking of you often. Susan Antonopoulos

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