Being human is mortifying

It’s mortifying to say “colorectal cancer.” Kate Bowler, in her beautiful memoir about surviving stage 4 colon cancer, describes it as - “the least sexy of cancers.” It was mortifying to agree to my best friend’s request to set up a meal train. I’ve basically built my life on the premise that I can take care of myself. Being impenetrable makes me feel safe. It’s mortifying to be vulnerable. It’s mortifying to have cancer.

Years ago I read a book by Jim Crace called, Being Dead. It’s a weird book. I’m not sure I’d recommend it. But decades later, what has stayed with me is this line; “people are soft fruit.”

I recently posted something on LinkedIn and mentioned my diagnosis. It might have been career suicide. Work is not where you go for comfort and support. It’s where you go to do a job for which you get paid. It’s transactional. Except that it’s not. People are not efficiency machines. We are not designed for performance or transaction. If you’ve been on LinkedIn lately, people are not ok.

People are soft fruit. We fall. Splat. Broken open. '

Being human is mortifying. It’s like a stain that gets on you, and your life’s work becomes trying to bleach it out: “Whoops sorry about that,” we say as we sit down at the meeting, “my human is showing. Just a sec while I tuck that back in.” “Give me a moment to uh, mop myself back up here.” *Takes shot of bleach* “Phew, ok, now where were we?”

More than 30 people - clients, former clients, co-workers, people I don’t know reached out to me privately to share their own stories. A stroke, a similar cancer diagnosis, spouses lost to cancer, a brain tumor. Each with a - “this isn’t something I share with people,” or, “please keep this private.”

What I once saw as stain, I now see as a homing beacon. Deepening relationships is a little of a I’ll-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours kind of thing.

I’ll go first.