I WANT MY ROCKSTARS DEAD.

Tomorrow

I try hard to keep my personal business off of the Internet. I don’t think airing details of your private things is an admirable quality, especially considering it will almost definitely affect somebody else. But here’s my attempt.

I also believe that the swarms of collegiate women on the Internet don’t truly know what karma is. The idea is much more complex than “what goes around comes around”. One good bad action does not equate to a future bad consequence. And vice versa.

I do not believe in this definition that has become such commonality. I’ve done a lot of good things. I’ve done a lot of bad things. My life has remained, ultimately, stagnant. (The term “stagnant” generally carries some negative undertones, however in this case I’d prefer nothing more.)

People who view karma as getting a flat tire because you called somebody a bitch last weekend are largely missing the entire point of the very religions that defined the word: the total sum of one’s positive or negative actions ultimately determines their fate, their role in reincarnation, or bringing about some kind of inevitable result. The girl with the flat tire is not experiencing a result, but merely a manifestation of an ignorant idea. 

Tomorrow, I will find out if I believe in karma in its truest definition. After months of medical anomalies, followed by a treacherous month of attempted diagnosis, one of the closest people in my life was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  I cried a lot. Then I drank a lot of whiskey and tequila, and came out of a blackout with hundreds of dollars on a blackjack table. I cried more. Then I went home and fell asleep and cried for the rest of the week.

You see, this person virtually raised me when my parents were too busy trying trying to make ends meet so we could get out of our 800 square foot shack that we called home. She’s responsible for the lighter side of me. The side that jokes and laughs and tries to free itself for the stoic, emotionless, rationalized person on the other side. The side of me concerned with fun, and smiling, and laughter. She taught me a lot about family values. She continues to do so through her battle with a nasty illness. 

She grew up while my parents were nurturing their new marriage and about to begin a family. I grew up while she was doing the same. The cycle so appears that her kids will be raised while I am starting my own endeavors. Her two daughters are less than four years of age, and they are the only two people left in my family with any preservation of innocence. I’m thankful for it but it also bothers me in a way. They are so incredibly fortunate to not understand what their mother is going through. However, they also will never truly appreciate what a soldier their mother has been. 

At 5 am tomorrow, our family will congregate to go to Mt. Sinai in New York City, where a surgeon will perform the Whipple Procedure to remove the cancer. It is one of the most extensive surgeries in the medical field. The road to recovery will be immensely difficult, but this is the result that our family has been waiting for: the ability to operate. This possibility did not always exist. 

Scores of people from the area have supported her family in the most miraculous of ways. An organization decorated their house for Christmas. Another organization donated all the food that we ate at Thanksgiving. A man saw my aunt’s family eating dinner at a New York City restaurant and picked up the several-hundred dollar bill. He had never met them. Friends of mine from high-school organized a tournament at a local bar that raised over ten-thousand dollars. People will not stop giving.

It has taught me so much. It has improved my worldview. It has helped me get out of a pretty negative place. Many of you have inquired about it to me. Many have just shown support. For that, I thank each and every single one of you. 

But if you believe in anything, be it goodness, karma, god, prayer, or whatever, do it for one more day. Help me to believe any of the things I’ve lost any semblance of faith in. If you have a god, pray to it. Otherwise, think good things and send some legitimate karma my family’s way.