My Existential Exercise

So I've been having an enlightening discussion with a fellow brain tumor survivor regarding life post-diagnosis and wanted to share some points here.

One particular issue we are discussing is being more acutely aware of our own mortality. Brain tumor survivors are in a way forced to deal with our own mortality and question existence in general in ways that most people don't have to thankfully.  The glass menagerie that is the concept known as "functional denial" gets shattered and we're left picking up the pieces and trying to figure out how to put it back together. Regarding the term, "functional denial," to give some context, people know that there's an expiration date for all of us. It's not a matter of if, but of when. However, to prevent people from going crazy from this known truth, people "functionally" deny that death WILL come in order to LIVE.

I believe in general, there are two ways people can choose to live, those that live Carpe Diem! and those who just live their lives. For me personally, before I was diagnosed, because I didn't know my expiration date, although at the same time fully realizing that it could happen at anytime, it was easier to live my life. My functional denial was working at full capacity BECAUSE I didn't know when my end of would come! I lived life like tomorrow would always come for me. Now that I have a possible expiration date of which I have been told, I see life a bit differently. Instead of being blissfully ignorant, I am faced with my own mortality on a daily basis, sometimes minute by minute. Again, ignorance was bliss *sigh* But here I am again faced with the two options of how I want to live life, Karpe Diem! or Just Live It like before.

Before I can decide how I want to live life, I have to answer the "basic" questions of existence such as:
"Who am I?"
"Where am I?"
"What is this place?"
"Where is this place?"
and
"What and why am I doing here?"

*sigh* basic and simple questions.

Considering that it took me like 20 odd something years to "figure" things out the first time around, I am not looking forward to starting over. However, the second iteration can be harder than the first especially if the reason for starting over was not by choice. To me, it's kind of akin to writing a second draft of that great paper or email response you didn't happen to save. The initial response is, an "awww man, for real?!" response. I was stuck in this phase for awhile and still kind of stuck in it. The second is, acceptance of the situation of which I am slowly (very slowly it seems) starting to come to. The third is deciding whether to write a completely new draft, or try to recall the first draft and mimicking it as close as you can from pure recollection. For me, my second draft is hardly ever better than my first draft, and would say it is usually much worse. I normally try to tell myself that to just forget about the first draft and start tabula rasa, but it's typically not possible and then I get frustrated because I just KNOW the rewrite is not as good as the original.

Anyway, I think that one commonality between brain tumor survivors is the loss of this functional denial mechanism. Facing mortality on a daily basis is part of the "new" normal.