Lately, I’ve been reconciling with the fact that I’ve been a quitter.
I quit field hockey.
I quit the gym.
I quit marriage.
I quit homeownership.
I’ve quit jobs.
And yes, I’ve quit people too, which is the one that aches the most.
Sure, I can reframe any of these so they don’t sting so hard. I’m trying to practice radical self-compassion instead of self-abuse. But it’s a process.
These last few weeks, as the (final, final) parts of selling the house have come together, I even found myself wondering if I should quit writing. This newsletter doesn’t finance my life. Aside from a picture book, I’ve never pitched a publisher. Maybe I’ve never fully committed.
Then yesterday I went in for my brain MRI.
If you’ve never been in that waiting room, the rule is silence. Everyone sits there, suffering side by side, not saying a word.
Silence has never been my thing.
This was my first MRI alone—by choice. (I have a whole league of people who would come with me to every appointment, but this time I wanted to go solo.) I changed into the standard hospital johnnies, laughed at how much effort I used to put into tying them to look like a wrap dress, and curled up criss-cross applesauce in the waiting room to write a postcard to Briggs.
That’s when another patient came out of the dressing room and said, “I love the way you’re sitting. I sit like that all the time.”
We started talking. She was there for a brain MRI too—her lung cancer had spread. Then a woman across the room chimed in—she’d overcome breast cancer twice.
And just like that, the silence broke. We shared stories of children lost to addiction, partners lost to COVID, brain tumors cut out more than a decade ago, Jimmy Kimmel, and Steven Colbert. I handed out Cancer Sharks stickers. We traded hugs. And for a little while, it felt like medicine.
Later, I got the news: clean scan. Just a beautiful brain. And a conversation with my neurologist that cracked open something I hadn’t let myself believe before—that Stage IV melanoma can be cured.
So yes, I’ve quit a lot of things. But somehow, miraculously, I haven’t quit living. And maybe—despite my faulty thinking’s best effort to convince me otherwise—I’ll quit cancer, too.
If it works for your schedule, I’d love to see Sunday, October 5, in Boston for a Moth-like storytelling event from some of the best tellers in the Greater Boston area.