Aaron Laughs With Cancer

I’ve spent most of 2013 either in bed or in a medically reclining chair. Chemo, especially as you get deeper into your cycles, zaps you of energy. And when you’re lacking energy, you start to feel like you’re lacking your own personhood. Narcissism creeps in and you start to believe that the world won’t really keep going while you’re down. Nothing all that important will happen without you - you write topical tweets about the news, for Pete’s sake! But the world forgets and the days fall by the wayside and when time passes without you and you’ve contributed nothing to the world, you feel like the disease is stealing some of your personality. (I mean, looking through these tumblr posts chronologically, I can see my joke-to-paragraph ratio fall to a point where I worry if solemnity is becoming me.)

But then, like E.T., something comes along with a magical healing touch (and bald head) and helps remind you who you are. As you may have seen in my twitter feed, my co-workers made the incredibly touching decisions of shaving their heads. It’s a tried-and-true move of solidarity, but it still feels (and is) incredibly personal. As they sent me pictures of their half-shorn heads through the evening, a tear may have formed in the crinkle of my eye. It’s not just that it was for me - it’s that it had the goofiness, whimsy, and, yes, ballsiness I would have wanted it to have. It reminded me of who I am day-to-day, when I’m not stuck in a bed. It was a welcome jolt, a refreshing laugh. It was a deeply felt and appreciated act. It made me feel like maybe the world is spinning without me, but damn it there are people who are determined to make sure my mark on it doesn’t easily disappear. Somehow, I keep getting luckier.

(This is what TV writers look like.)