No-Man’s-Land

A few days ago I got my 12 month CML reading. It was a good report, not ideal, but still good. Due to a lab malfunction, the results took much longer than anticipated. Man, what a lesson in patience.

I’d love to tell you how un-phased I was, that I was cool as a cucumber, and not worried at all. That would be a lie. I felt like I was walking through a mental marsh for 2 weeks. All the various outcomes, and their implications, were on loop inside my brain.

A unique aspect of CML is that even if I got an ideal response (“remission”), I would still have to be on the medication for the foreseeable future. Knowing this made me think it was possible to not care about the results, because nothing would change, right? This apathetic mindset seemed enticing. Because not caring would free me up to move on, worry-free.

But, at the same time, I knew I cared deeply. I couldn’t feign apathy. The second my blood hit the tube I wanted the results. Which meant the smothering worry and intense focus on the number would continue.

I felt stuck in this place, like I had to choose a side.

You ever feel like a message finds you at just the right time? I read the following passage, from Pema Chödrön’s When Things Fall Apart, on a day last week when I was feeling particularly uneasy about my impending results.

When we feel squeezed, there’s a tendency for mind to become small. We feel miserable, like a victim, like a pathetic, hopeless case. So believe it or not, at that moment of hassle or bewilderment or embarrassment, our minds could become bigger. Instead of taking what’s occurred as a statement of personal weakness or someone else’s power, instead of feeling we are stupid or someone else is unkind, we could drop all the complaints about ourselves and others. We could be there, feeling off guard, not knowing what to do, just hanging out there with the raw and tender energy of the moment. This is the place where we begin to learn the meaning behind the concepts and the words.

I realized that I wasn’t stuck at all. That I didn’t need to choose. I could live right in the middle of apathy and caring deeply about the results. In fact, it was right where I needed to be. 

We believe that it has to be this way or that way, right or wrong, good or bad, happy or sad, anxious or patient. This way of thinking makes things so cramped and stuffy. Holding contradictory beliefs about ourselves leaves us feeling lost and confused. There’s comfort in choosing sides. But the “security” of committing to beliefs about ourselves causes the pressure to rise. It keeps rising and rising each time we buy in. All while being funneled into this suffocatingly rigid place. Eventually, we get to the point where things have to go our way. These are tense, potentially explosive conditions.

So, I’m trying to open and relax with the idea that it’s okay to be in no-man’s-land. It’s possible to care and also not care. It’s possible to be peacefully anxious. It’s possible to be worried but calm. Being in-between two opposing ideas about ourselves is okay, we don’t have to choose. In fact, I think we could all learn a little something about what patience really means if we choose less.

Thanks for reading!