0:00:00.690,0:00:03.666
It was the spring of 2011,

0:00:03.690,0:00:06.492
and as they like to say[br]in commencement speeches,

0:00:06.516,0:00:10.080
I was getting ready[br]to enter the real world.

0:00:10.727,0:00:13.359
I had recently graduated from college,

0:00:13.383,0:00:16.123
and moved to Paris to start my first job.

0:00:16.990,0:00:20.862
My dream was to become[br]a war correspondent,

0:00:20.886,0:00:23.043
but the real world that I found

0:00:23.067,0:00:27.347
took me into a really different[br]kind of conflict zone.

0:00:28.974,0:00:30.998
At 22 years old,

0:00:31.022,0:00:33.925
I was diagnosed with leukemia.

0:00:34.927,0:00:38.212
The doctors told me[br]and my parents, point-blank,

0:00:38.236,0:00:42.701
that I had about a 35 percent chance[br]of long-term survival.

0:00:44.006,0:00:48.823
I couldn't wrap my head around[br]what that prognosis meant.

0:00:48.847,0:00:53.950
But I understood that the reality[br]and the life I'd imagined for myself

0:00:53.974,0:00:55.124
had shattered.

0:00:55.744,0:01:00.750
Overnight, I lost my job,[br]my apartment, my independence,

0:01:00.774,0:01:04.546
and I became patient number 5624.

0:01:06.680,0:01:10.229
Over the next four years[br]of chemo, a clinical trial

0:01:10.253,0:01:12.133
and a bone marrow transplant,

0:01:12.157,0:01:14.468
the hospital became my home,

0:01:14.492,0:01:17.487
my bed, the place I lived 24/7.

0:01:18.111,0:01:21.860
Since it was unlikely[br]that I'd ever get better,

0:01:21.884,0:01:24.811
I had to accept my new reality.

0:01:25.276,0:01:27.627
And I adapted.

0:01:28.196,0:01:31.791
I became fluent in medicalese,

0:01:31.815,0:01:36.513
made friends with a group[br]of other young cancer patients,

0:01:36.537,0:01:40.871
built a vast collection of neon wigs

0:01:40.895,0:01:46.702
and learned to use[br]my rolling IV pole as a skateboard.

0:01:47.943,0:01:51.022
I even achieved my dream[br]of becoming a war correspondent,

0:01:51.046,0:01:53.713
although not in the way I'd expected.

0:01:54.220,0:01:55.974
It started with a blog,

0:01:55.998,0:01:58.335
reporting from the front lines[br]of my hospital bed,

0:01:58.359,0:02:02.185
and it morphed into a column[br]I wrote for the New York Times,

0:02:02.209,0:02:03.942
called "Life, Interrupted."

0:02:04.784,0:02:05.935
But --[br](Applause)

0:02:05.959,0:02:07.111
Thank you.

0:02:07.135,0:02:09.195
(Applause)

0:02:09.620,0:02:11.890
But above all else,

0:02:11.914,0:02:15.072
my focus was on surviving.

0:02:15.863,0:02:18.490
And -- spoiler alert --

0:02:18.514,0:02:20.609
(Laughter)

0:02:20.633,0:02:22.761
I did survive, yeah.

0:02:22.785,0:02:27.815
(Applause)

0:02:27.839,0:02:30.704
Thanks to an army of supportive humans,

0:02:30.728,0:02:34.537
I'm not just still here,[br]I am cured of my cancer.

0:02:34.921,0:02:36.082
(Applause)

0:02:36.106,0:02:37.258
Thank you.

0:02:37.282,0:02:39.346
(Applause)

0:02:39.370,0:02:43.503
So, when you go through[br]a traumatic experience like this,

0:02:43.527,0:02:45.174
people treat you differently.

0:02:45.614,0:02:49.684
They start telling you[br]how much of an inspiration you are.

0:02:50.136,0:02:52.522
They say you're a warrior.

0:02:52.546,0:02:54.490
They call you a hero,

0:02:54.514,0:02:57.466
someone who's lived[br]the mythical hero's journey,

0:02:57.490,0:02:59.575
who's endured impossible trials

0:02:59.599,0:03:02.926
and, against the odds,[br]lived to tell the tale,

0:03:02.950,0:03:06.817
returning better and braver[br]for what you're been through.

0:03:07.839,0:03:12.445
And this definitely lines up[br]with my experience.

0:03:12.469,0:03:14.723
Cancer totally transformed my life.

0:03:14.747,0:03:17.715
I left the hospital knowing[br]exactly who I was

0:03:17.739,0:03:19.802
and what I wanted to do in the world.

0:03:19.826,0:03:22.515
And now, every day as the sun rises,

0:03:22.539,0:03:25.117
I drink a big glass of celery juice,

0:03:25.141,0:03:27.966
and I follow this up[br]with 90 minutes of yoga.

0:03:28.649,0:03:34.545
Then, I write down 50 things[br]I'm grateful for onto a scroll of paper

0:03:34.569,0:03:39.481
that I fold into an origami crane[br]and send sailing out my window.

0:03:39.505,0:03:41.172
(Laughter)

0:03:41.196,0:03:44.327
Are you seriously believing any of this?

0:03:44.351,0:03:46.433
(Laughter)

0:03:46.457,0:03:48.280
I don't do any of these things.

0:03:48.304,0:03:49.411
(Laughter)

0:03:49.435,0:03:53.636
I hate yoga, and I have no idea[br]how to fold an origami crane.

0:03:55.355,0:03:57.437
The truth is that for me,

0:03:57.461,0:04:02.337
the hardest part of my cancer experience[br]began once the cancer was gone.

0:04:03.538,0:04:07.299
That heroic journey[br]of the survivor we see in movies

0:04:07.323,0:04:09.633
and watch play out on Instagram --

0:04:09.657,0:04:10.815
it's a myth.

0:04:10.839,0:04:13.410
It isn't just untrue, it's dangerous,

0:04:13.434,0:04:16.829
because it erases the very real[br]challenges of recovery.

0:04:17.529,0:04:23.141
Now, don't get me wrong --[br]I am incredibly grateful to be alive,

0:04:23.165,0:04:26.667
and I am painfully aware[br]that this struggle is a privilege

0:04:26.691,0:04:28.771
that many don't get to experience.

0:04:29.284,0:04:31.790
But it's important that I tell you

0:04:31.814,0:04:37.085
what this projection of heroism[br]and expectation of constant gratitude

0:04:37.109,0:04:39.466
does to people who are trying to recover.

0:04:39.886,0:04:44.236
Because being cured is not[br]where the work of healing ends.

0:04:44.784,0:04:46.632
It's where it begins.

0:04:47.704,0:04:51.895
I'll never forget the day[br]I was discharged from the hospital,

0:04:51.919,0:04:54.109
finally done with treatment.

0:04:54.997,0:05:00.810
Those four years of chemo[br]had taken a toll on my relationship

0:05:00.834,0:05:02.720
with my longtime boyfriend,

0:05:02.744,0:05:04.802
and he'd recently moved out.

0:05:05.498,0:05:09.378
And when I walked[br]into my apartment, it was quiet.

0:05:09.831,0:05:10.981
Eerily so.

0:05:12.192,0:05:14.887
The person I wanted to call[br]in this moment,

0:05:14.911,0:05:18.410
the person who I knew[br]would understand everything,

0:05:18.434,0:05:20.100
was my friend Melissa.

0:05:20.498,0:05:22.550
She was a fellow cancer patient,

0:05:22.574,0:05:25.198
but she had died three weeks earlier.

0:05:26.515,0:05:29.491
As I stood there in the doorway[br]of my apartment,

0:05:29.515,0:05:31.396
I wanted to cry.

0:05:31.420,0:05:34.302
But I was too tired to cry.

0:05:34.728,0:05:36.577
The adrenaline was gone.

0:05:36.601,0:05:39.371
I had felt as if the inner scaffolding

0:05:39.395,0:05:41.832
that had held me together[br]since my diagnosis

0:05:41.856,0:05:43.497
had suddenly crumbled.

0:05:44.173,0:05:51.082
I had spent the past 1,500 days[br]working tirelessly to achieve one goal:

0:05:51.106,0:05:52.487
to survive.

0:05:52.511,0:05:54.416
And now that I'd done so,

0:05:54.440,0:06:00.071
I realized I had absolutely[br]no idea how to live.

0:06:01.996,0:06:04.036
On paper, of course, I was better:

0:06:04.060,0:06:06.163
I didn't have leukemia,

0:06:06.187,0:06:08.040
my blood counts were back no normal,

0:06:08.064,0:06:10.841
and the disability checks[br]soon stopped coming.

0:06:11.244,0:06:12.482
To the outside world,

0:06:12.506,0:06:17.006
I clearly didn't belong in the kingdom[br]of the sick anymore.

0:06:17.871,0:06:21.823
But in reality, I never felt[br]further from being well.

0:06:22.688,0:06:27.402
All that chemo had taken[br]a permanent physical toll on my body.

0:06:27.949,0:06:31.069
I wondered, "What kind of job can I hold

0:06:31.093,0:06:35.156
when I need to nap for four hours[br]in the middle of the day?

0:06:35.180,0:06:37.641
When my misfiring immune system

0:06:37.665,0:06:41.013
still sends me to the ER[br]on a regular basis?"

0:06:41.657,0:06:45.491
And then, there were the invisible,[br]psychological imprints

0:06:45.515,0:06:47.665
my illness had left behind:

0:06:47.689,0:06:50.332
the fears of relapse,

0:06:50.356,0:06:52.258
the unprocessed grief,

0:06:52.282,0:06:57.922
the demons of PTSD that descended upon me[br]for days, sometimes weeks.

0:06:58.921,0:07:01.175
See, we talk about reentry

0:07:01.199,0:07:04.524
in the context of war and incarceration.

0:07:04.548,0:07:06.442
But we don't talk about it as much

0:07:06.466,0:07:10.767
in the context of other kinds[br]of traumatic experiences, like an illness.

0:07:11.911,0:07:15.815
Because no one had warned me[br]of the challenges of reentry,

0:07:15.839,0:07:18.616
I thought something must be wrong with me.

0:07:18.640,0:07:20.815
I felt ashamed,

0:07:20.839,0:07:24.125
and with great guilt,[br]I kept reminding myself

0:07:24.149,0:07:26.440
of how lucky I was to be alive at all,

0:07:26.464,0:07:29.375
when so many people[br]like my friend Melissa were not.

0:07:30.387,0:07:33.982
But on most days, I woke up[br]feeling so sad and lost,

0:07:34.006,0:07:35.725
I could barely breathe.

0:07:36.204,0:07:41.008
Sometimes, I even fantasized[br]about getting sick again.

0:07:41.683,0:07:42.835
And let me tell you,

0:07:42.859,0:07:46.763
there are so many better things[br]to fantasize about

0:07:46.787,0:07:49.509
when you're in your twenties[br]and recently single.

0:07:49.533,0:07:51.455
(Laughter)

0:07:51.479,0:07:55.375
But I missed the hospital's ecosystem.

0:07:55.399,0:07:58.812
Like me, everyone in there was broken.

0:07:58.836,0:08:03.208
But out here, among the living,[br]I felt like an impostor,

0:08:03.232,0:08:06.136
overwhelmed and unable to function.

0:08:06.692,0:08:11.057
I also missed the sense of clarity[br]I'd felt at my sickest.

0:08:11.581,0:08:16.646
Staring your mortality straight in the eye[br]has a way of simplifying things,

0:08:16.670,0:08:20.193
of rerouting your focus[br]to what really matters.

0:08:20.686,0:08:23.027
And when I was sick,[br]I vowed that if I survived,

0:08:23.051,0:08:24.553
it had to be for something.

0:08:24.577,0:08:27.974
It had to be to live a good life,[br]an adventurous life,

0:08:27.998,0:08:29.308
a meaningful one.

0:08:29.927,0:08:32.386
But the question, once I was cured,

0:08:32.410,0:08:34.053
became: How?

0:08:34.712,0:08:39.630
I was 27 years old[br]with no job, no partner, no structure.

0:08:39.654,0:08:44.021
And this time, I didn't have treatment[br]protocols or discharge instructions

0:08:44.045,0:08:45.844
to help guide my way forward.

0:08:46.773,0:08:52.698
But what I did have was an in-box[br]full of internet messages

0:08:52.722,0:08:54.011
from strangers.

0:08:54.895,0:08:56.050
Over the years,

0:08:56.074,0:08:58.720
people from all over the world[br]had read my column,

0:08:58.744,0:09:02.997
and they'd responded with letters,[br]comments and emails.

0:09:04.046,0:09:08.754
It was a mix, as is often[br]the case, for writers.

0:09:09.773,0:09:12.408
I got a lot of unsolicited advice

0:09:12.432,0:09:16.075
about how to cure my cancer[br]with things like essential oils.

0:09:17.281,0:09:20.304
I got some questions about my bra size.

0:09:20.687,0:09:22.527
But mostly --

0:09:22.551,0:09:23.654
(Laughter)

0:09:23.678,0:09:28.416
mostly, I heard from people who,[br]in their own different way,

0:09:28.440,0:09:30.922
understood what it was[br]that I was going through.

0:09:31.696,0:09:34.537
I heard from a teenage girl in Florida

0:09:34.561,0:09:36.871
who, like me, was coming out of chemo

0:09:36.895,0:09:40.863
and wrote me a message[br]composed largely of emojis.

0:09:41.649,0:09:47.053
I heard from a retired art history[br]professor in Ohio named Howard,

0:09:47.077,0:09:48.501
who'd spent most of his life

0:09:48.525,0:09:51.980
struggling with a mysterious,[br]debilitating health condition

0:09:52.004,0:09:54.591
that he'd had from the time[br]he was a young man.

0:09:55.321,0:10:00.002
I heard from an inmate[br]on death row in Texas

0:10:00.026,0:10:02.490
by the name of Little GQ --

0:10:02.514,0:10:04.609
short for "Gangster Quinn."

0:10:05.442,0:10:07.728
He'd never been sick a day in his life.

0:10:07.752,0:10:10.893
He does 1,000 push-ups[br]to start off each morning.

0:10:10.917,0:10:13.523
But he related to what[br]I described in one column

0:10:13.547,0:10:15.734
as my "incanceration,"

0:10:15.758,0:10:19.943
and to the experience of being confined[br]to a tiny fluorescent room.

0:10:21.458,0:10:25.593
"I know that our situations[br]are different," he wrote to me,

0:10:25.966,0:10:30.212
"But the threat of death[br]lurks in both of our shadows."

0:10:31.819,0:10:35.962
In those lonely first weeks[br]and months of my recovery,

0:10:35.986,0:10:39.863
these strangers and their words[br]became lifelines,

0:10:39.887,0:10:42.743
dispatches from people[br]of so many different backgrounds,

0:10:42.767,0:10:44.741
with so many different experiences,

0:10:44.765,0:10:46.792
all showing me the same thing:

0:10:49.250,0:10:51.909
you can be held hostage

0:10:51.933,0:10:54.917
by the worst thing[br]that's ever happened to you

0:10:54.941,0:10:58.347
and allow it to hijack[br]your remaining days,

0:10:58.371,0:11:01.243
or you can find a way forward.

0:11:02.960,0:11:06.783
I knew I needed to make[br]some kind of change.

0:11:06.807,0:11:09.698
I wanted to be in motion again

0:11:09.722,0:11:14.416
to figure out how to unstuck myself[br]and to get back out into the world.

0:11:14.918,0:11:19.124
And so I decided to go on[br]a real journey --

0:11:19.791,0:11:22.997
not the bullshit cancer one

0:11:23.021,0:11:26.237
or the mythical hero's journey[br]that everyone thought I should be on,

0:11:26.261,0:11:29.482
but a real, pack-your-bags[br]kind of journey.

0:11:30.586,0:11:34.138
I put everything I owned into storage,

0:11:35.621,0:11:38.600
rented out my apartment, borrowed a car

0:11:38.624,0:11:43.683
and talked a very a dear[br]but somewhat smelly friend

0:11:43.707,0:11:44.866
into joining me.

0:11:44.890,0:11:47.342
(Laughter)

0:11:47.366,0:11:52.917
Together, my dog Oscar and I[br]embarked on a 15,000-mile road trip

0:11:52.941,0:11:54.512
around the United States.

0:11:55.175,0:12:00.080
Along the way, we visited some[br]of those strangers who'd written to me.

0:12:00.826,0:12:02.381
I needed their advice,

0:12:02.405,0:12:04.624
also to say to them, thank you.

0:12:05.276,0:12:10.196
I went to Ohio and stayed with Howard,[br]the retired professor.

0:12:11.085,0:12:14.226
When you've suffered a loss or a trauma,

0:12:14.250,0:12:16.680
the impulse can be to guard your heart.

0:12:17.069,0:12:21.300
But Howard urged me[br]to open myself up to uncertainty,

0:12:21.324,0:12:25.884
to the possibilities[br]of new love, new loss.

0:12:26.561,0:12:29.371
Howard will never be cured of illness.

0:12:29.395,0:12:32.641
And as a young man, he had no way[br]of predicting how long he'd live.

0:12:32.665,0:12:35.490
But that didn't stop him[br]from getting married.

0:12:35.839,0:12:37.783
Howard has grandkids now,

0:12:37.807,0:12:41.370
and takes weekly ballroom dancing[br]lessons with his wife.

0:12:41.807,0:12:43.125
When I visited them,

0:12:43.149,0:12:46.782
they’d recently celebrated[br]their 50th anniversary.

0:12:47.815,0:12:50.323
In his letter to me, he'd written,

0:12:50.347,0:12:53.252
"Meaning is not found[br]in the material realm;

0:12:53.276,0:12:57.363
it's not in dinner, jazz,[br]cocktails or conversation.

0:12:57.387,0:13:01.459
Meaning is what's left[br]when everything else is stripped away."

0:13:02.753,0:13:07.326
I went to Texas, and I visited[br]Little GQ on death row.

0:13:07.999,0:13:11.352
He asked me what I did[br]to pass all that time

0:13:11.376,0:13:13.497
I'd spent in a hospital room.

0:13:14.355,0:13:18.585
When I told him that I got[br]really, really good at Scrabble,

0:13:18.609,0:13:22.035
he said, "Me, too!" and explained how,

0:13:22.059,0:13:25.398
even though he spends most of his days[br]in solitary confinement,

0:13:25.422,0:13:29.427
he and his neighboring prisoners[br]make board games out of paper

0:13:29.451,0:13:32.412
and call out their plays[br]through their meal slots --

0:13:33.474,0:13:39.379
a testament to the incredible tenacity[br]of the human spirit

0:13:39.403,0:13:43.025
and our ability to adapt with creativity.

0:13:44.426,0:13:46.362
And my last stop was in Florida,

0:13:46.386,0:13:49.873
to see that teenage girl[br]who'd sent me all those emojis.

0:13:50.585,0:13:53.727
Her name is Unique, which is perfect,

0:13:53.751,0:13:57.919
because she's the most luminous,[br]curious person I've ever met.

0:13:58.831,0:14:01.761
I asked her what she wants[br]to do next and she said,

0:14:01.785,0:14:03.674
"I want to go to college and travel

0:14:03.698,0:14:06.831
and eat weird foods like octopus[br]that I've never tasted before

0:14:06.855,0:14:08.375
and come visit you in New York

0:14:08.399,0:14:10.303
and go camping, but I'm scared of bugs,

0:14:10.327,0:14:12.047
but I still want to go camping."

0:14:13.768,0:14:16.196
I was in awe of her,

0:14:16.220,0:14:21.490
that she could be so optimistic[br]and so full of plans for the future,

0:14:21.514,0:14:23.431
given everything she'd been through.

0:14:24.180,0:14:25.855
But as Unique showed me,

0:14:25.879,0:14:30.736
it is far more radical[br]and dangerous to have hope

0:14:30.760,0:14:32.826
than to live hemmed in by fear.

0:14:34.699,0:14:39.080
But the most important thing[br]I learned on that road trip

0:14:39.104,0:14:43.283
is that the divide between[br]the sick and the well --

0:14:43.307,0:14:44.680
it doesn't exist.

0:14:45.149,0:14:47.275
The border is porous.

0:14:47.585,0:14:49.950
As we live longer and longer,

0:14:49.974,0:14:53.831
surviving illnesses and injuries[br]that would have killed our grandparents,

0:14:53.855,0:14:55.180
even our parents,

0:14:55.204,0:14:59.932
the vast majority of us will travel[br]back and forth between these realms,

0:14:59.956,0:15:03.353
spending much of our lives[br]somewhere between the two.

0:15:04.059,0:15:07.162
These are the terms of our existence.

0:15:08.228,0:15:12.426
Now, I wish I could say[br]that since coming home from my road trip,

0:15:12.450,0:15:14.577
I feel fully healed.

0:15:14.601,0:15:15.751
I don't.

0:15:16.601,0:15:19.227
But once I stopped expecting myself

0:15:19.251,0:15:23.229
to return to the person[br]I'd been pre-diagnosis,

0:15:23.253,0:15:28.357
once I learned to accept my body[br]and its limitations,

0:15:28.381,0:15:30.613
I actually did start to feel better.

0:15:31.405,0:15:35.254
And in the end, I think that's the trick:

0:15:35.278,0:15:38.798
to stop seeing our health as binary,

0:15:38.822,0:15:40.509
between sick and healthy,

0:15:40.533,0:15:42.036
well and unwell,

0:15:42.060,0:15:43.758
whole and broken;

0:15:43.782,0:15:48.222
to stop thinking that there's some[br]beautiful, perfect state of wellness

0:15:48.246,0:15:49.788
to strive for;

0:15:49.812,0:15:53.695
and to quit living in a state[br]of constant dissatisfaction

0:15:53.719,0:15:55.065
until we reach it.

0:15:56.605,0:16:02.344
Every single one of us[br]will have our life interrupted,

0:16:02.368,0:16:04.574
whether it's by the rip cord[br]of a diagnosis

0:16:04.598,0:16:09.038
or some other kind of heartbreak[br]or trauma that brings us to the floor.

0:16:10.384,0:16:15.522
We need to find ways to live[br]in the in-between place,

0:16:15.546,0:16:19.665
managing whatever body[br]and mind we currently have.

0:16:20.776,0:16:27.406
Sometimes, all it takes is the ingenuity[br]of a handmade game of Scrabble

0:16:27.430,0:16:31.652
or finding that stripped-down[br]kind of meaning in the love of family

0:16:31.676,0:16:34.268
and a night on the ballroom dance floor

0:16:34.292,0:16:37.212
or that radical, dangerous hope

0:16:37.236,0:16:41.357
that I'm guessing will someday[br]lead a teenage girl terrified of bugs

0:16:41.381,0:16:42.531
to go camping.

0:16:43.832,0:16:45.697
If you're able to do that,

0:16:45.721,0:16:49.641
then you've taken the real hero's journey.

0:16:49.665,0:16:54.045
You've achieved what it means[br]to actually be well,

0:16:54.069,0:17:00.730
which is to say, alive in the messiest,[br]richest, most whole sense.

0:17:01.173,0:17:02.923
Thank you, that's all I've got.

0:17:02.947,0:17:05.709
(Applause)

0:17:05.733,0:17:06.889
Thank you.

0:17:06.913,0:17:10.095
(Applause)