Undeserving

August 9, 2019

I keep looking at clocks.

I keep thinking of the engine within me.

But I don’t think it’s the only thing driving me.

I do feel the need to accomplish to go farther, to speed through things; but it isn’t because I won’t be able to do or be anything when illness hits - at least not fully. January of 2015 I wrote a speech for my forensics’ program from the emergency room. The next weekend, I competed with one arm slung across my chest and qualified it to Nationals in the minimum number of tournaments possible. April of 2015, I took my finals from a hospital bed with one arm, high on hydrocodone while recovering from my rib removal. I got an A. And in the fall of 2017, I completed a seventeen-credit-hour semester over 800 miles from my academic institution in a program that was not designed to be long-distance while working a full-time job and undergoing extensive testing that would later result in my tumor diagnosis. I made the dean’s list that semester, some of my coursework is being published in a professor’s paper, and I graduated magna cum laude. So no, I’m not worried about what I can or cannot accomplish from hospital beds or during a medical crisis.

As I think through what I’m racing against or what I want, a thought rises to the surface. I’m not proud of it, but I’m also not surprised by it. It’s not that I don’t want to waste time, what I want is to live my life perfectly, without mistakes. I want my life outside of illness to be conventional, socially acceptable, pleasing to others, and not be seen as wasting anything.

Why?

Because I want people to see my life as worth saving.

Since my brain surgery, I’ve worked so hard to get so far, to accomplish so much, to reassure, to prove, to the countless people who fought so hard and the people who prayed so hard and the people who sacrificed so much that my life was indeed worth saving. That what they did wasn’t for nothing. That what they did matters because of what I’m doing now. It continues to drive me. I live my life in a way that when people hear, “I’m dying” they look at my life and see it as worth abandoning their apathy or sacrificing their comfort to save it.

“Madison is so young, she works at a nonprofit, she helps people, what she’s facing is tragic, how can I help?”

Now, is that my sole motive for being young? For working at a nonprofit? For helping people? Of course not. I’m neither that cunning nor that devious. But it is the main motive I have behind living a life that pleases other people.

I often wonder if I had stayed in Alabama and lived the life that I had planned to live before brain surgery if the people who saved my life would still see it as worth it. If they would have continued saving my life over and over again. Now, when I hear from them, I hear how proud they are and that I’ve done so much with my life. And now that I’m looking at leaving DC and moving home or closer to family, I wonder if they’ll still say the same thing.  I hear them in my thoughts when looking at different paths my life could take. I hear their glowing admiration for volunteering with Girl Scouts, getting involved with my church, baking cookies for other people. I hear their subtle disappointment in their withholding of praise when a day is no more than lounging in bed binge-watching Veronica Mars, or looking at jobs in the private sector where my talents and skills would be compensated accordingly. So many people gave something so that I could live that I feel the obligation to give myself away in return. Pieces of me have been broken apart and given away to and by the people who paid to have me sewn together in the first place and as I see parts of myself carried away I can’t help but ask if I haven’t been cut up enough already.

I want to believe the people who gave so that I could live did so freely. That life was a gift freely given. But unfortunately, I’m not that naive. While from many it was a gift and I owe nothing beyond that I keep breathing, the loud entitlement from the remaining few is choking me and I can’t quite break free of the grasp of expectation.

News stories ran on “Madison Darling - the young woman who had a near-death experience and now dedicates her life to helping others,” And people I didn’t know felt involved in and entitled to my life in a way I didn’t expect. My life has externally been determined to have value and I feel the pressure to keep that appraisal from depreciating. The thousands of people who read my blog, heard my story, sent me notes and cards and cupcakes and prayers and encouragement have ownership to my life that I cannot seem to buy back. And it’s funny because I can’t seem to remember the sale. 

I want to believe that life in and of itself is worth saving. That because I’m alive, I’m worth the effort and sacrifice to save. But unfortunately, I’m not that ignorant. I know we place a hierarchy of value on human life, largely in regards to how innocent they are or how beneficial to society they are. I’m losing one but holding tightly to the other.

I’m grateful for what each and every person did for me, for my family. I want, more than most anything, to honor these people with my life. Honor. Not owe.

I wonder if my life will be worth saving the next time it’s threatened.

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