中英文稿

2011年春天，?就像大學畢業(yè)典禮 演講里說的那樣，?我做好了面對現(xiàn)實 世界的準備。?我剛剛大學畢業(yè)，?搬到了巴黎， 開始了我第一份工作。?我的夢想是成為 一名戰(zhàn)地記者，?但現(xiàn)實世界把我 帶到了一個?很不一樣的矛盾世界。

22歲時，?我被診斷出了白血病。?醫(yī)生坦白地告訴 我和我的父母，?我有百分之三十五的幾率 可以活下去。?我不能理解和接受 那診斷書意味著什么。?但我明白我想象中的世界?已經(jīng)被動搖。?一夜之間，我失去了 工作，房子，自由，?我變成了病號5624。

在接下來4年里， 我接受了臨床化療，?做了骨髓移植，?醫(yī)院變成了我家，?還有我的床， 我一直呆著的地方。?自從覺得我的病 再也不會好了，?我接受了這個現(xiàn)實。?我習慣了，?我流利地說著 醫(yī)學名詞，?其他年輕的癌癥病人 成了我的朋友，?我收集五顏六色的假發(fā)，?把移動點滴架當成滑板。?我甚至改變了成為 戰(zhàn)地記者的夢想，?這其實出乎我的意料。?這是從一篇博客開始的，?從我病床記錄第一頁開始，?它慢慢變成了 紐約時報的一個專欄，?叫做“生命·摧毀”。

但是 --（掌聲）

謝謝。

關鍵是，?我的關注點是活下去。?并且 -- 我要劇透了哈 --

我活了下來。

感謝那些支持過我的人們，?我不僅僅還活著， 而且治好了癌癥。

謝謝。

所以當我們有過 這種痛苦的經(jīng)歷后，?別人會對你另眼相看。?他們會告訴你 你的故事多么鼓舞人心。?他們說你是一個戰(zhàn)士。?他們叫你英雄，?就好像你踏上了一段 神秘的危險旅程，?經(jīng)歷了各種考驗。?克服困難重重凱旋歸來， 開始講述關于自己的傳說，?并且因為所見所聞 變得更厲害、勇敢。?這跟我的經(jīng)歷 確實有點類似。

癌癥改變了我的生活。?我離開醫(yī)院， 清楚地認識自己，?知道我想做什么。?現(xiàn)在，每天日出時，?我會喝一大杯芹菜汁，?然后做一個半小時瑜伽。?然后，我會在一張紙上 寫下讓我感激的50件事，?折成一只紙鶴并讓它 從窗戶飛出去。

你們相信嗎？

我根本不會做 上述的任何事。

我討厭瑜伽， 也不會折紙鶴。?實際上，?我的癌癥經(jīng)歷中最難的 是癌癥被治好后的時光。?我們在電影和 Instagram上?看到那些幸存者們的英雄故事 --?他們都是個謎。?這些描述不僅不現(xiàn)實， 而且很危險。?因為他們掩飾了 康復過程中真實的挑戰(zhàn)。

不要誤會 -- 我非常感激 有活下來的機會，?我痛苦地意識到 與病魔抗爭是?一種大多數(shù)人都 沒有的幸運。?但我想告訴你們的是，?這種英雄主義的映射和 對持續(xù)感激的期待?對努力康復的病人來說， 意味著什么。?因為被治療好 不意味著康復結束，?而意味著開始。

我永遠都不會忘記出院那天，?結束治療時的感覺。?4年的化療淡化了?我和男友的感情，?他最近搬出去了。?當我走進家門時， 里面是寂靜的。?這只是個開始。?此時我最想打電話的人，?她會明白我說的一切，?是我的朋友梅麗莎。?她是一位病友，?但她三周前去世了。?我站在我家的門廊里，?我想哭。?但我累得哭不出來。?腎上腺素作用褪去，?我感覺心中那個?從我被確診第一天 支撐我的支架，?忽然坍塌。?在過去1500天里， 我只為一個目標努力：?活下去。?現(xiàn)在目標實現(xiàn)了，?我意識到我不知道 怎么繼續(xù)活下去。

紙面上看，我痊愈了：?我不再患白血病。?我的血樣檢查恢復正常，?我不再有異樣檢查。?對外人來說，?我再也不屬于那個 病號的世界了。?但實際上，我從未 感覺痊愈。?我所接受的化療在我身上 留下了永久的傷疤。?我心想，“什么工作?可以讓我在白天睡四個小時，?當我那不奏效的免疫系統(tǒng)?讓我去定時接受化療時？“?還有那無形的、 疾病留下的?心理印記：?對疾病復發(fā)的恐懼，?毫無掩飾的悲傷，?以及創(chuàng)傷后應激障礙 每次對我長達數(shù)天，有時數(shù)周的折磨。

當我們講到戰(zhàn)爭和關押，?我們總談到重新 融入這個社會。?但當我們說到痛苦的經(jīng)歷，?如疾病時，我們很少那么講。?因為沒有人曾警告過我 重新融入這個社會的困難，?所以我覺得是我的問題。?我感到很慚愧，?很有罪惡感， 并不停提醒自己?我能活下來已經(jīng)很幸運了，?許多像梅麗莎一樣的 病友都沒能撐下來。?但無數(shù)的日子里，我 悲傷而失落地醒來，?我?guī)缀鯚o法呼吸。?有時我甚至幻想著 又一次生病。?我想告訴你們，?在你二十多歲并單身時，?有更好的事物可以幻想。

但我懷念在醫(yī)院的時環(huán)境。?那里的每一個人都 像我一樣脆弱，?但在醫(yī)院外的健康人群中， 我覺得自己像個冒名頂替者，?不知所措，無法正常運作。?我也懷念我病情 最嚴重時的清晰感。?直視自己的死亡讓我 簡化一切其他事物，?重新把注意力集中在 真正重要的事情上。?生病時，我發(fā)誓 如果活下來了，?我一定會為了 一個目標而活。?這個目標是好好活著， 過上有冒險精神，?有意義的生活。?但在我痊愈后，?問題變成了：怎么做？?我27歲，沒工作， 沒伴侶，沒條理。?這時，沒有任何 治療協(xié)議或醫(yī)囑?指導我前進。

不過我有滿滿 一收件箱的信息，?來自陌生人。?多年來，?全世界的人們 讀到我的專欄，?他們通過信件、 評論和郵件回應。?那是個大雜燴，對作家 來說應該很常見。?我得到了很多自發(fā) 而不靠譜的建議，?比如怎樣用精油 治好我的癌癥。?還有些人問我 內衣碼數(shù)。?但是 --

總體來說，那些信息 都來自從不同角度?明白我正經(jīng)歷 什么樣的痛苦的人們。

我收到一封來自 佛羅里達的信，?那個小女孩也 剛接受化療，?她的信里有 很多表情貼。?我還收到住在俄亥俄州， 退休藝術史教授霍華德的信，?從他年輕時起，?他一生都與一種罕見的，?令人虛弱的疾病抗爭。?還有一封德州的 死囚的來信。?他署名是小GQ --?是“奎因匪徒”的簡稱。?他一生從沒真正病過。?他每天早上 做1000個俯臥撐。?但他對我在一次 專欄里所描述的?"癌癥關押“很有同感，?特別是被困在一個 沒什么亮光的小房間里。?“我知道我們處境 大不相同“，他寫道，?“但死亡的威脅都 潛伏在我們的影子中”。?在剛開始恢復的 那孤獨的幾個月里，?這些陌生人的聲音 成了我的生命線，?從無數(shù)經(jīng)驗、背景 完全不同的人?手中發(fā)出，?都說著的類似的話：?你可以被?你所遇到的 最壞的事困住，?讓它劫持走 你余下的日子，?但你也可以 找辦法前進。

我知道我需要改變。?我想重新振作起來，?找到走出困境的辦法， 回到正常的世界。?因此我決定踏上一次 真正的旅程 --?不是可惡的癌癥，?也不是那種人們認為我 應該經(jīng)歷的神秘英雄之旅，?而是真正的、 說走就走的旅行。?我把我的東西 放進儲物間，?外租了我的公寓， 借了輛車，?說服了一位可愛 但臭烘烘的朋友?跟我一起出門。

我和我的狗奧斯卡， 踏上了15000英里的?環(huán)美公路旅行。?路上，我們拜訪了那些 寫信給我的陌生人。?我需要他們的建議，?并想向他們說謝謝。?我去了俄亥俄州的 退休教授霍華德家過夜。?當我們遭受損失 或不幸時，?會有守衛(wèi)自己 心靈的沖動。?但霍華德鼓勵著我 擁抱未知，?坦然接受新的愛與失。?霍華德的病 從未被治好，?年輕時，他無法 預計自己還能活多久，?但這沒有阻止他 走進婚姻的殿堂。?他現(xiàn)在有幾個孫子了，?每周還和妻子去 上舞蹈課。?我拜訪他們時，?他們最近在慶祝 結婚50周年。?在給我的信里， 他寫道，?“意義不存在于 物質世界；?它不是晚餐，爵士樂， 雞尾酒或談話。?意義是所有東西都 被除去后剩下的一切“。

我去了德州， 拜訪了死囚小GQ。?他問我是怎么度過 生病時在醫(yī)院的?時光的。?我告訴他我變得很擅長 玩Scrabble文字游戲，?他說，“我也是！” 并向我展示，?即使他大部分時候 都被獨自關押，?他和他的鄰居們 用紙做成桌上游戲，?通過他們的送餐口 發(fā)出游戲挑戰(zhàn) --?這是人類頑強精神和?用創(chuàng)造力的適應環(huán)境 的證明。

我的最后一站 是佛羅里達，?我去見了那位給我發(fā)了 很多表情貼的女孩。?她的名字是尤妮克， （意譯：獨特的）?這太理想了，因為她是 我見過的最活潑好奇的人。?我問她下一步想做什么， 她說，?“我想上大學，旅行，?吃我從未嘗過的奇怪的 食物，比如章魚，?去紐約拜訪你，?然后去露營， 雖然我很怕蟲子，?但我還是想去露營”。?我不禁對她 產(chǎn)生一絲敬畏，?她是如此樂觀并 對未來如此期待，?即使她經(jīng)歷了那么多。?但就像尤妮克 讓我意識到的，?比起生活在 恐懼的陰影里，?希望是危險的。

但我從那次公路旅行 學到的最重要的是，?病人和健康人的區(qū)別。?它是不存在的。?他們的邊界充滿孔洞。?我們的平均壽命越來越長，?我們在那些可以奪取我們 祖父母，甚至父母生命的?疾病和傷害中活下來，?我們中的大多數(shù)人在 生病和健康狀態(tài)之間轉換，?生命大部分時間 都活在兩者中間。?這些是我們 存在的術語。

現(xiàn)在我想說的是， 那次旅行后，?我覺得我完全康復了。?其實我沒有。?但是我一旦 停止希望自己?重新成為被診斷出 白血病前的那個自己，?一旦我學會接受 我的身體和它的極限，?我的確感覺更好了。?最后，我想 竅門應該是：?不再把我們的健康狀況 看成由兩部分組成，?健康和有疾病的，?好和不好的，?完整和有缺陷的；?不再認為有一個 完美的健康狀況?是我們可以達到的；?不要再活在一個 不達到目標就總是不滿?的狀態(tài)下。

我們每一個人都會 有生活被打亂的時候，?無論那是一張診斷書，?還是別的令人心碎、 精神崩潰的事，?我們需要找到一個在 兩種狀態(tài)中間活著的辦法，?保持當下的身體和心態(tài)。?有時，這需要的只是手工制作 Scrabble的心靈手巧，?或只是簡簡單單的 家庭給予的愛，?亦或是夜晚在舞廳 翩翩起舞，?甚至是那危險的，?我猜測，有一天會讓那個 怕蟲子的小女孩去露營?的希望。

如果你能夠 做到這一點，?你就已經(jīng)踏上了 真正的英雄之旅。?你已經(jīng)達到了 健康的真正目的，?也就是：在最混亂，最豐富， 一切最完整的感覺中活著。

這就是我想分享 的全部了，謝謝。

謝謝。?（掌聲）

?

?

It was the spring of 2011,?and as they like to say in commencement speeches,?I was getting ready to enter the real world.?I had recently graduated from college?and moved to Paris to start my first job.?My dream was to become a war correspondent,?but the real world that I found?took me into a really different kind of conflict zone.

At 22 years old,?I was diagnosed with leukemia.?The doctors told me and my parents, point-blank,?that I had about a 35 percent chance of long-term survival.?I couldn't wrap my head around what that prognosis meant.?But I understood that the reality and the life I'd imagined for myself?had shattered.?Overnight, I lost my job, my apartment, my independence,?and I became patient number 5624.

Over the next four years of chemo, a clinical trial?and a bone marrow transplant,?the hospital became my home,?my bed, the place I lived 24/7.?Since it was unlikely that I'd ever get better,?I had to accept my new reality.?And I adapted.?I became fluent in medicalese,?made friends with a group of other young cancer patients,?built a vast collection of neon wigs?and learned to use my rolling IV pole as a skateboard.?I even achieved my dream of becoming a war correspondent,?although not in the way I'd expected.?It started with a blog,?reporting from the front lines of my hospital bed,?and it morphed into a column I wrote for the New York Times,?called "Life, Interrupted."

Thank you.

But above all else,?my focus was on surviving.?And -- spoiler alert --

I did survive, yeah.

Thanks to an army of supportive humans,?I'm not just still here, I am cured of my cancer.

Thank you.

So, when you go through a traumatic experience like this,?people treat you differently.?They start telling you how much of an inspiration you are.?They say you're a warrior.?They call you a hero,?someone who's lived the mythical hero's journey,?who's endured impossible trials?and, against the odds, lived to tell the tale,?returning better and braver for what you're been through.?And this definitely lines up with my experience.

Cancer totally transformed my life.?I left the hospital knowing exactly who I was?and what I wanted to do in the world.?And now, every day as the sun rises,?I drink a big glass of celery juice,?and I follow this up with 90 minutes of yoga.?Then, I write down 50 things I'm grateful for onto a scroll of paper?that I fold into an origami crane and send sailing out my window.

Are you seriously believing any of this?

I don't do any of these things.

I hate yoga, and I have no idea how to fold an origami crane.?The truth is that for me,?the hardest part of my cancer experience began once the cancer was gone.?That heroic journey of the survivor we see in movies?and watch play out on Instagram --?it's a myth.?It isn't just untrue, it's dangerous,?because it erases the very real challenges of recovery.

Now, don't get me wrong -- I am incredibly grateful to be alive,?and I am painfully aware that this struggle is a privilege?that many don't get to experience.?But it's important that I tell you?what this projection of heroism and expectation of constant gratitude?does to people who are trying to recover.?Because being cured is not where the work of healing ends.?It's where it begins.

I'll never forget the day I was discharged from the hospital,?finally done with treatment.?Those four years of chemo had taken a toll on my relationship?with my longtime boyfriend,?and he'd recently moved out.?And when I walked into my apartment, it was quiet.?Eerily so.?The person I wanted to call in this moment,?the person who I knew would understand everything,?was my friend Melissa.?She was a fellow cancer patient,?but she had died three weeks earlier.?As I stood there in the doorway of my apartment,?I wanted to cry.?But I was too tired to cry.?The adrenaline was gone.?I had felt as if the inner scaffolding?that had held me together since my diagnosis?had suddenly crumbled.?I had spent the past 1,500 days working tirelessly to achieve one goal:?to survive.?And now that I'd done so,?I realized I had absolutely no idea how to live.

On paper, of course, I was better:?I didn't have leukemia,?my blood counts were back to normal,?and the disability checks soon stopped coming.?To the outside world,?I clearly didn't belong in the kingdom of the sick anymore.?But in reality, I never felt further from being well.?All that chemo had taken a permanent physical toll on my body.?I wondered, "What kind of job can I hold?when I need to nap for four hours in the middle of the day??When my misfiring immune system?still sends me to the ER on a regular basis?"?And then there were the invisible, psychological imprints?my illness had left behind:?the fears of relapse,?the unprocessed grief,?the demons of PTSD that descended upon me for days, sometimes weeks.

See, we talk about reentry?in the context of war and incarceration.?But we don't talk about it as much?in the context of other kinds of traumatic experiences, like an illness.?Because no one had warned me of the challenges of reentry,?I thought something must be wrong with me.?I felt ashamed,?and with great guilt, I kept reminding myself?of how lucky I was to be alive at all,?when so many people like my friend Melissa were not.?But on most days, I woke up feeling so sad and lost,?I could barely breathe.?Sometimes, I even fantasized about getting sick again.?And let me tell you,?there are so many better things to fantasize about?when you're in your twenties and recently single.

But I missed the hospital's ecosystem.?Like me, everyone in there was broken.?But out here, among the living, I felt like an impostor,?overwhelmed and unable to function.?I also missed the sense of clarity I'd felt at my sickest.?Staring your mortality straight in the eye has a way of simplifying things,?of rerouting your focus to what really matters.?And when I was sick, I vowed that if I survived,?it had to be for something.?It had to be to live a good life, an adventurous life,?a meaningful one.?But the question, once I was cured,?became: How??I was 27 years old with no job, no partner, no structure.?And this time, I didn't have treatment protocols or discharge instructions?to help guide my way forward.

But what I did have was an in-box full of internet messages?from strangers.?Over the years,?people from all over the world had read my column,?and they'd responded with letters, comments and emails.?It was a mix, as is often the case, for writers.?I got a lot of unsolicited advice?about how to cure my cancer with things like essential oils.?I got some questions about my bra size.?But mostly --

mostly, I heard from people who, in their own different way,?understood what it was that I was going through.

I heard from a teenage girl in Florida?who, like me, was coming out of chemo?and wrote me a message composed largely of emojis.?I heard from a retired art history professor in Ohio named Howard,?who'd spent most of his life?struggling with a mysterious, debilitating health condition?that he'd had from the time he was a young man.?I heard from an inmate on death row in Texas?by the name of Little GQ --?short for "Gangster Quinn."?He'd never been sick a day in his life.?He does 1,000 push-ups to start off each morning.?But he related to what I described in one column?as my "incanceration,"?and to the experience of being confined to a tiny fluorescent room.?"I know that our situations are different," he wrote to me,?"But the threat of death lurks in both of our shadows."?In those lonely first weeks and months of my recovery,?these strangers and their words became lifelines,?dispatches from people of so many different backgrounds,?with so many different experiences,?all showing me the same thing:?you can be held hostage?by the worst thing that's ever happened to you?and allow it to hijack your remaining days,?or you can find a way forward.

I knew I needed to make some kind of change.?I wanted to be in motion again?to figure out how to unstuck myself and to get back out into the world.?And so I decided to go on a real journey --?not the bullshit cancer one?or the mythical hero's journey that everyone thought I should be on,?but a real, pack-your-bags kind of journey.?I put everything I owned into storage,?rented out my apartment, borrowed a car?and talked a very a dear but somewhat smelly friend?into joining me.

Together, my dog Oscar and I embarked on a 15,000-mile road trip?around the United States.?Along the way, we visited some of those strangers who'd written to me.?I needed their advice,?also to say to them, thank you.?I went to Ohio and stayed with Howard, the retired professor.?When you've suffered a loss or a trauma,?the impulse can be to guard your heart.?But Howard urged me to open myself up to uncertainty,?to the possibilities of new love, new loss.?Howard will never be cured of illness.?And as a young man, he had no way of predicting how long he'd live.?But that didn't stop him from getting married.?Howard has grandkids now,?and takes weekly ballroom dancing lessons with his wife.?When I visited them,?they’d recently celebrated their 50th anniversary.?In his letter to me, he'd written,?"Meaning is not found in the material realm;?it's not in dinner, jazz, cocktails or conversation.?Meaning is what's left when everything else is stripped away."

I went to Texas, and I visited Little GQ on death row.?He asked me what I did to pass all that time?I'd spent in a hospital room.?When I told him that I got really, really good at Scrabble,?he said, "Me, too!" and explained how,?even though he spends most of his days in solitary confinement,?he and his neighboring prisoners make board games out of paper?and call out their plays through their meal slots --?a testament to the incredible tenacity of the human spirit?and our ability to adapt with creativity.

And my last stop was in Florida,?to see that teenage girl who'd sent me all those emojis.?Her name is Unique, which is perfect,?because she's the most luminous, curious person I've ever met.?I asked her what she wants to do next and she said,?"I want to go to college and travel?and eat weird foods like octopus that I've never tasted before?and come visit you in New York?and go camping, but I'm scared of bugs,?but I still want to go camping."?I was in awe of her,?that she could be so optimistic and so full of plans for the future,?given everything she'd been through.?But as Unique showed me,?it is far more radical and dangerous to have hope?than to live hemmed in by fear.

But the most important thing I learned on that road trip?is that the divide between the sick and the well --?it doesn't exist.?The border is porous.?As we live longer and longer,?surviving illnesses and injuries that would have killed our grandparents,?even our parents,?the vast majority of us will travel back and forth between these realms,?spending much of our lives somewhere between the two.?These are the terms of our existence.

Now, I wish I could say that since coming home from my road trip,?I feel fully healed.?I don't.?But once I stopped expecting myself?to return to the person I'd been pre-diagnosis,?once I learned to accept my body and its limitations,?I actually did start to feel better.?And in the end, I think that's the trick:?to stop seeing our health as binary,?between sick and healthy,?well and unwell,?whole and broken;?to stop thinking that there's some beautiful, perfect state of wellness?to strive for;?and to quit living in a state of constant dissatisfaction?until we reach it.

Every single one of us will have our life interrupted,?whether it's by the rip cord of a diagnosis?or some other kind of heartbreak or trauma that brings us to the floor.?We need to find ways to live in the in-between place,?managing whatever body and mind we currently have.?Sometimes, all it takes is the ingenuity of a handmade game of Scrabble?or finding that stripped-down kind of meaning in the love of family?and a night on the ballroom dance floor,?or that radical, dangerous hope?that I'm guessing will someday lead a teenage girl terrified of bugs?to go camping.

If you're able to do that,?then you've taken the real hero's journey.?You've achieved what it means to actually be well,?which is to say: alive, in the messiest, richest, most whole sense.

Thank you, that's all I've got.

Thank you.?(Applause)