You Don't Matter (And That's Your Freedom)
“Charlie, do you hear me? Charlie!” I shouted.
The previous six attempts to get his attention, as we stood on the moving walkway, had failed. He was fixated on the airplanes parked outside. I stood behind him managing the stroller with all the bags and carry-ons saddled on every place I could find. My youngest buried somewhere underneath.
I saw the teeth of the comb plate getting closer.
I panicked.
I had two options:
Either I ran Charlie over with the stroller and hoped for the best.
Or, shoved the stroller aside, bags and my youngest spilling onto the grooved rubber.
I chose a third.
I tried to lift the stroller over Charlie, severely underestimating the weight and awkwardness of a stroller filled with bags and a child.
The stroller pushed forward. My heart dropped to my stomach as I felt the stroller rolling over the bumpy terrain of a six-year-old body who was now on the ground at the end of the walkway.
Charlie let out a high-pitched screech.
I fell onto him, letting out a loud, “f*ck,” as the stroller cleared the walkway.
Lying on the ground with the moving belt scraping against my stomach, I looked up and saw two older women, luggage in hand, barreling towards us.
Their eyes widened as the wheels of their luggage began rolling in place over my shin.
I freed my legs, wrapped Charlie in my arms, and shot out from underneath the luggage.
I put Charlie down on his feet.
Then I grabbed the stroller, head down, fumbling to put the bags back in place, jaw locked.
It was all the chaos that anyone with kids comes to understand. And it was all the normal insanity that I took for granted. Being too exhausted from raising the kids and managing life to find time to truly appreciate the moments as they fell into history.
A year later, as I was sitting in the oncologist’s office, under the fluorescent buzz, I clenched my fists listening to her tell Ariana she was going to die.
And while the chaos remained the same, my response to it changed.
The kids still fought and yelled at each other, but now I was focused on helping them become a team. I knew, some unknown day, they would need each other as their world crashed down around them.
I looked forward to the dullness of the mundane. The moments in between life where Ariana and I could stand still—together—in a void outside the pain and hurt. Holding hands in the car and begging her to let me go to sleep while she laughed, endlessly scrolling her phone.
I was reminded of her impending death every morning I woke up and every night I went to sleep.
It made each dinner feel like the last.
And each time I told her, “I love you,” it had to carry enough weight to linger long after death.
The bullsh*t faded away.
The guy who cut me off on the road no longer mattered. The childish behavior of my coworker was not a concern. I was taking photos of every moment with Ariana and the kids. Trying to freeze time so we could remember it later.
I learned that the cliché, “Life is short,” was painfully true.
But also that life is long.
Ariana died at thirty-five. Her life was cut short. But those moments in hospitals waiting for her scans, surgeries, and sitting in the oncologist’s office, were excruciatingly long.
I learned I didn’t matter, not as the main character. People are in their own storms. That freed me to stop performing and live outside “should.”
No one is paying as close attention as you think. Being honest about who you are is not the scary thing you’ve made it out to be.
Boundaries and honesty became the shortcut to growth and healing, to a life actually fulfilled.
Lesson 1: Life is short
Ninety days.
That’s how long we had between scans. Ninety days to breathe, to plan, to pretend we had a future.
Every three months, Ariana had to get scanned to check the progress of her cancer. If she was “no evidence of disease” (NED) it meant we could breathe easy for the next three months and her treatment could remain stable.
If they found new tumors, it meant her cancer was no longer responding to the current chemo and medication cocktail she was on. So, she had to change. She failed.
And with each failed medicine, it meant we were running out of options.
We got the dog. We took the trip to Asia.
Every decision became binary: Does this matter? Yes or no.
If yes, do it now. If no, stop pretending it does.
A weekend in a cabin with the kids mattered more than a weekend deep cleaning the house.
Building memories mattered.
Even in the small moments of life.
Lesson 2: Life is long
The 48 hours waiting for the results of her quarterly scans were the longest moments.
Life stopped for two days. I could not breathe. I could not think.
Each minute stretched out into hours.
The early mornings in the hospital waiting room, sleeping on chairs, working hunched over while my eyes burned from the lack of sleep, were the longest days.
Waiting to hear if Ariana’s surgery was successful.
Folding laundry after she died. It took time to cycle all her clothes through the dirty laundry. Each item of clothing brought with it decades of memories. Thirty minutes folding those clothes felt like I was reliving those decades. Folding in a vacuum, a void, outside of time.
Lesson 3: You Are Not The Main Character
Three weeks after Ariana died, someone asked how I was doing.
I told the truth. I said I was drowning, that I couldn’t breathe, that I didn’t know how to keep going.
Their face went blank. They looked at their watch and remembered they had to be somewhere.
I learned to lie after that. “I’m okay. Taking it one day at a time.”
Their relief was instant.
I started performing my grief so they could stay comfortable.
It wasn’t until later I realized, just like my writing, everyone was filtering my pain through their own sh*t. It wasn’t about me. It was about them.
They were the main character in their story.
No one is paying attention to you as much as you are paying attention to yourself.
This means you get to have freedom from performance.
Writing publicly for so long has opened me up to heavy criticism. I used to stress over writing everything as clear as I could. I would ruminate on each word choice, carefully selecting which one conveyed exactly how I was feeling.
Then I realized, that isn’t my job.
My writing is personal and filtered through my life experience and worldview. The words I put on the page will hit every person differently, filtered through their life experience and worldview.
Everyone will construct a slightly different idea of “CJ the narrator.”
My goal became writing what felt important to me, getting the words from my head onto the screen. And what each person took away from it was personal to them.
Life is…Life
Ariana and I are laying on the bed. Kids distracted from getting ready for bed. The feelings were heavy. We found out that day she was terminal.
The tears had been wiped away and I turned on the camera to capture the moment.
In the video you see three tiny children being children. Crying. Goofing around. Not doing what they are supposed to be doing.
Parents yelling at them.
House a mess.
And two people whose future had been ripped away from them, but are sitting in the stillness of it. Life was still moving forward even if the countdown timer had started.
We were laughing and joking, even about her dying. We were, unabashedly, us.
The moment was short, fleeting, but sweet. Even though that day felt like we just lived a year from the doctor’s office, to learning she was dying, crying together. Sitting in disbelief and anger, to the mundane night of just trying to be parents.
We didn’t have to perform for the kids. We were sad, laughing, and annoyed.
And most importantly we didn’t have to perform for each other and ourselves. Ariana had the superhuman ability to take life as it came and never let it stop her from living. And in that night, she didn’t act out her fear to make me feel better. She laughed, made jokes and just lived.
Your life is whipping by you, from one long moment to the other. A stubbed toe can make those next 30 seconds slow down.
You are not the main character in everyone else’s life, so be the witness, act like it in your own.
Moments are long. Days are short.
- CJ
P.S. If this resonated and you’re tired of performing your grief for people who don’t understand it, struggling to find yourself in your grief, I work with grievers ready to stop waiting for permission and start rebuilding on their own terms.
I have a group opening up early next year. Sign up to get on the waitlist now.
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