Electra & AML: One Year On

(See all posts related to Electra's ongoing treatment)

One year ago today, the world darkened a little bit as one of its beloved daughters was taken away. One year ago today, a final breath was drawn, final goodbyes were said and the end was reached for someone who should've had decades left before that moment. One year ago today friends, family and a boyfriend felt a profound loss. One year ago today, Electra quietly slipped away.

It has been a tumultuous year since then, as you can imagine. This experience has affected more people than I could count and in no doubt very different ways, but I hope that anyone reading this will excuse me for focusing on myself with this post; though I have some insight into how others are thinking and dealing with this loss, I can only truly speak for myself. And as this blog has been-to various extents-a form of catharsis for me, I want to reflect on that here.

The past year for me has been one of growth. I have been through myriad emotions and coping mechanisms: I was angry, I was depressed, I drank too much and flitted between partying and wallowing. I saw a therapist and talked with friends. I ate and drank and worked out. I bought crap I didn't need and spent many hours just thinking and reflecting, while spending an equal number just denying to myself and others that there was anything amiss. But I also loved and revelled. I spent time with friends and colleagues and started dating again. I reintegrated myself with London and its unique blend of vigor, frenetic energy and artistic and cultural variety. I started a new role at work, travelled to the Ukraine and started looking at where to travel to next.

And you know what? After 15 months of watching a loved one die; after months of struggling to come to terms with the unfairness of life and death; after the most trying and deflating and punishing year of my life, I'm actually in a pretty great place. I'm happy with where I am and where I'm going. I genuinely feel like I've come out the other side as a better person and am ready to take on life once again.

I did not get here alone. I have around me the best friends and family anyone could dream of. The outpouring of love and compassion I have felt is unparalleled. I have never wanted for a sympathetic ear or a distracting night at the pub (pro-tip: for all the complaints I periodically level at the British, my goodness do they get the pub right as a concept). I know that for much of this time, I wasn't a great friend: whether I was distraught or angry (at myself, the world or others) or just emotionally unavailable, I know that I wasn't always the best companion and for that I apologise. But the support never wavered for an instant. I got love and tenderness at the right times and a kick in the ass when I needed it. And I love you all for that.

So, where am I now? Well, I'm at the threshold to whatever comes next and-for a change-I'm pretty damn enthusiastic, optimistic and happy about that. I love where I live, I am busy pretty much all the time, I have no end of little projects I want to work on and things I want to do. But more than that, for possibly the first time in my life, I feel like I know what I want: I want to feel passion. I want to be excited, about the people in my life, about my job (ah, to dream the dream), about where I'm going next and what I'm doing next. That element has been missing for some time, but it's being rekindled. And for the first time, I actually feel pretty confident that I can achieve this, can get to where I want to be. I know it seems obvious, but to me that's huge. Paths feel open to me that I wouldn't have dreamed of before, and I finally feel like I know my priorities.

Electra is gone but never forgotten. She changed my life and my person for the better and I will always be thankful for that. But one year on, my life continues. I will pay her the best tribute I can imagine: to live my life fully and openly. To dream and strive and challenge myself. To work to better myself and my world and grasp at any opportunity I can. To fall in love again and make a meaningful life. Electra loved openly and wholeheartedly and it would do her memory a great disservice to not embrace that joie-de-vivre with my whole being. She was as interested in the world and its plethora of secrets, intricacies and contradictions as I am and this will be her legacy to me: a drive to always explore and to believe that I can. One of my favourite comic strips of all time is Calvin and Hobbes, which ended on one of the most beautiful strips I've ever seen:

One year ago today, Electra's last breath left her body and she lay still forever. But she has only died once. Banksy, the British street artist once said that you die twice: once when you stop breathing and once when someone says your name for the last time. I like that and by that measure, Electra still lives, as the Hobbes to my Calvin. She showed me the magic in the world, and will be with me as I explore it.

Why we take risks

"I haven't failed; I've found 10,000 ways that don't work."

-Thomas Edison

Growth. It's a hard thing to pin down, how we change, adapt, and grow. It's a process that happens organically; one over which we have no direct control. We develop in ways we never would have predicted and could never have directed. It is a combination of who we are, and the experiences we encounter that change us; while we cannot change how those experiences will alter who we are, we do have some control over which experiences we encounter.

Every day we are presented with choices; every day we are presented with risks. And with every risk comes a gut reaction. Our instincts leads us in one direction. But just as we no longer rely on a purely "fight or flight" instinct to decide on the best course of action in every scenario, neither can we delegate to our gut reactions every daily decision, every risk-taking.

Just like fear, risk is good, but often scary. A lot of the time, we let our fear make our decisions for us; we avoid risk, because we're too scared of the outcome to take chances. But, as with fear, it would often be to our advantage to take more risks. Because we learn from each experience, whether or not it achieves the goals we'd hoped for. To paraphrase Robert Frost, when we take the road less traveled, we are all the better for it. Because we have a width and depth of experiences unparalleled by those who choose safety by default.

Our experiences are a map from who we were to who we are and will be; we are the people that our experiences have made us into. And with a richer mosaic of experiences, we become more-developed, more-diverse people. We cannot learn about ourselves and our world without experiencing many things; more specifically, we cannot grow without experiencing some failure, some disappointment.

We will often shy away from risk for fear of being hurt. This is doubly true with emotional risk, as it is those cuts which go deepest. But the irony is that it is those experiences that most augment ourselves, making us into better, stronger people. It is all too easy to shut out everything new, everything we "think" we don't like; it's much harder to try something we have convinced ourselves we won't like and see what happens. It seems counterintuitive that getting hurt can make you stronger, that failing can make you more likely to succeed in the future; but this is the very nature of personal growth.

I should clarify by saying that not every risk should be taken. Jumping out of an airplane without a parachute, while undoubtedly an eye-opening experience, is a risk with very significant downsides and little benefit. But when an opportunity presents itself that we find ourselves greeting with apprehension, it is important to consider that this might just be one of those risks that we need to lead us down the path of enlightenment and improvement. And those are the risks we should always take. Because without it, we will never grow, and will forever live in the shadow of what might have been, had we merely had the force of will to try. When we try new things, we never wonder "what if", because we already know the answer.

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream."

-Mark Twain