Embrace the Suck

I love Ira Glass. I think he is quite the catch. He is on the radio, NPR, This American Life. It is sometimes a complete and total downer to listen to but it has great heartwarming stories, sometimes I cry and I always laugh. I highly recommend it.

Today at work I listened to a program that ran last year called This I used to believe. They mentioned a website, This I Believe
I read through a few stories on brain tumors of course (my favorite subject). I found this one and I loved it. These last few weeks/months I have been plagued with headaches, backaches and weird leg twitches. There is nothing really wrong with me according to my recent MRI, I just have left over crap that I will probably have forever say Dr. M. Anyways this story made me smile and tear up a little bit.Enjoy the story and thanks for stopping by.

Embrace the suck. When you want to quit: Embrace the suck. When you just can’t go on any longer: Embrace the Suck. When life seems to have taken its toll on you: Embrace the suck.

Embracing the suck is a phrase that has developed within my family. When enduring hardship in life, people tend to shut down. They cry, they yell, they break down. When embracing the suck, you endure this hardship. But not only endure, it you embrace it. This moment doesn’t happen all the time. But every time it does, you become stronger. And when you don’t fight it, but instead you hold it close, you grow. You grow from this experience. This problem or event that once hurt you has now become a part of you. It is no longer something that affected you, but is now one of the many things that shape you. So I ask you all to embrace the suck. Because when things get tough, it might be the only way out alive.

I’ve learned how to embrace the suck, and so has my dad, and so has my sister. And my mom has especially. She has embraced it for eight months. And when she went to the doctors because of stomach problems and was diagnosed with cancer, she learned to embrace the suck. And when she started radiation and chemotherapy, she learned to embrace the suck. And when she went into surgery to have the cancerous tumor removed, she learned to embrace the suck.

When she continued to be infused with chemo-radiation, she learned to embrace the suck. And when she slowly began to lose her hair, she learned to embrace the suck. And every time she touched something cold, she felt as if shards of glass were penetrating her skin, she learned to embrace the suck. She has endured this all with minimal complaints. But nonetheless, she has done it. And no one can take that away from her.

And now in June 9, 2007, she will be at Relay for Life doing the survivor lap. She’s a survivor. She did it. And the whole time, she embraced the suck.

If someone can go through so much, and a simple phrase can push them beyond, then I believe. So that is why I believe to embrace the suck.