The Lifegiving Benefits of Befriending Our Mortality

A new poem for national poetry month

Sweet Community,

As National Poetry Month nears its end, I thought it would be the perfect time to share a very new (and very long) poem I wrote about befriending my mortality and the countless ways that process has increased the joy in my life. If you’ve been subscribed to Things That Don’t Suck for some time, you will notice that many of the lines in this piece are familiar. One of the added gifts of writing this newsletter is it commonly inspires new poems. Yay for that!  

If you prefer to listen to the poem, you can listen below. Thank you for being here everyone.

….

At first I thought it was a stomach bug, 

but when it started feeling like a stomach anaconda, 

my doctor convinced me to get a cat scan. 

I’d been a lifelong hypochondriac with debilitating panic attacks 

and a chronic fear of death, so was already trembling 

when the scan technician said, “Andrea,

do you mind pulling down your pants a bit

so we can get a view of your pelvis?”

I knew my doctor hadn’t ordered a scan of my pelvis. 

There was so much sweat on my palms 

I could feel my lifelines drowning. 

The technician broke protocol and walked me out to my car. 

We stopped twice on the way so I could hyperventilate in his arms. 

The next morning my phone buzzed in my pocket.

Several large masses on ovaries. Malignancy suspected. 

I couldn’t feel my hands. They’d gone numb 

from trying to hold onto everyone I had ever loved. 

-

This is the beginning of a nightmare, I thought.

A diagnosis my doctors would later declare incurable. 

My worst fear come true. But stay with me y'all-

because my story is one about happiness 

being easier to find once we finally realize 

we do not have forever to find it. 

About mortality being the seed of our bliss 

though I know from conversations with friends 

we were all taught the opposite. 

Andrea, are you sure you’re not being toxically positive?

Please, let your misery come out of the closet.

No need to wear this straight jacket of joy everywhere you go.

-

I will never deny how badly I want to live. 

I have a measly wrinkle collection compared to my dream goal.

I would absolutely love to be a before-picture. 

This world looks at super models the way I now look 

at ninety year olds who have hair so silver 

they could tinsel their own trees, so many 

laugh lines their faces look like roadmaps to heaven.

-

But I did not meet this life until I met its brevity. 

Did not meet my voice until I knew every word 

could be my last. I did not know what prayer was 

until I started praying for what I already have. 

-

Praying for what I already have is 

the reason I have spent three years now

saying my heart is an heirloom 

I didn’t inherit until I was told I could die soon. 

And no, I am not on death’s door 

but I am in the neighborhood, just like you 

strolling through the cul de sacs, waving 

at eternity’s porch light, knowing the afterlife 

has a really big welcome mat, and maybe 

we’ll be welcomed soon or when we’re much much older, 

but this is what I know for certain–

warming up to the idea of a promised tomorrow 

is the surest way to give today the cold shoulder. 

-

For decades I gave my days the cold shoulder

and that is no longer something I am willing to do

with my one wild and precious life. If I’m to be 

what Mary Oliver called a bride married to amazement, 

I can’t file for divorce from amazement 

when receiving an audit notification 

just twelve hours out of surgery, or

when my dentist takes out the wrong tooth

and still insists on charging me,

or when I’m getting caught in two tornadoes 

on the way home from chemotherapy

when just weeks before I thought I was cancer free

(all of this happened, y’all, so I hope 

you can’t help but laugh with me)

I whisper the words my therapist said 

years ago, The only thing we have control over in this life 

is where we put our attention.

-

In the darkness I put my attention on the the moon 

spilling through the skylight above my bed,

to kiss my love’s forehead, to turn our ears toward 

the windchimes on the apple tree outside our window. 

Life is so sweet, I have said to her seven thousand times 

since I was diagnosed, and only then realized

I’d been bitter before, living like I was owed my days, 

owed the sunray that traveled 94 million miles 

to warm the hardwood floor where my 3 puppies dream, 

owed a strangers kind eyes 

turning my social anxiety into butterflies.

-

When I speak of the sweetness of this life

I don’t mean my butterflies never cry.

I don’t mean my heartbeat never aches.

I mean I am learning the infinite difference 

between saying I fear death and saying death isn’t fair

if it finds me soon. A short life 

doesn’t always equate to a life cut short. 

A long life doesn’t always equate to a full one. 

-

My life is so now full it is overflowing with

how many beautiful things can be seen in a single second, 

how it is possible to blow up a second like a balloon 

and fit infinity inside of it, until I am bursting

with laughter when anyone calls me an old soul

because I can’t help but feel like this is my first time here

marveling at the steam rising from a cup of coffee, 

or two wild geese stopping traffic as they mosey across the road,

or my own breath and another birthday candle 

to celebrate the holiday of having a body. 

-

At the end of our lives don’t we want to

say we celebrated the holiday of having bodies? 

Don’t we want to know we lived like we never forgot 

we were born astonished and were never intended

to grow out of our awe?

-

Awe is the most powerful medicine in the world. 

I have never felt awe and shame at the same time, 

awe and loneliness at the same time, 

awe and judgment at the same time, 

and nothing wakes us to awe more than life’s brevity. 

which is to say forming an intimate relationship

with our mortality could not only save us, 

it could save our world. If you don’t 

believe me, tell me the last time you saw 

anything bite with its’ jaw dropped. 

-

I know the culture we live in.

I know mortality isn’t small talk.

But I wish it was.  Because it is the seed

of connection, the seed 

of true healing, and the seed of love. 

….
Thank you for reading, sweet friends! And because this community is so very special to me, it would bring me so much happiness if you would offer suggestions on a potential title for this piece. I thought about titling it before I sent it your way, then realized it would mean so much more to me if it was titled by one of you. Please leave your title ideas in the comments. Thank you so much!

Love, Andrea 🖤

Thank you for being here.

News & Updates:

△ I am beyond thrilled and beyond grateful and so excited to share that Tig Notaro will be the special guest at my upcoming Denver shows at the Paramount Theatre on May 30th and 31st. There are not many seats left, so go grab them. And if you already have tickets, we can’t wait to see you!