Identity

A few weeks back, when I talked about the exclusive Cancer Club, my prodigious young cousin, "Prodigy", asked me what my identity was among this community.  What nickname would I get from my fellow fighters amidst our common experience.  My flippant response is, "I'm DTintheCity dude!! Haven't you been reading???"  But this is no answer for Prodigy's thought provoking question, so I started to ponder who I really am in light of my recent experience.

The reality is this is a difficult question to answer.  Am I the same person that I was before this happened?  Probably not.  Am I a completely different person than I was before this happened?  Probably not.  Perhaps I am a more saturated version of myself, candidly revealing both my strengths and weaknesses unapologetically.  Perhaps, in an idealistic sense, this experience has brought out the best in me, but anyone who has been around me knows that while I may have had my bright moments over the past few months, the reality is that it's been more of rollercoaster and my character has equally ridden those rails.  So who am I in this process, and more specifically, who am within this community.  

Well, I hate to be a copout, but this is impossible for me to define because just as the nicknames I give to others on this blog represent how I see these individuals, any moniker that might be given to me would be colored by the way the person naming me views me.  Now I could attempt to figure out how people see me, but the closest I would get would be how I hope I'm perceived by others, which would shift, depending on the gaze of the individual naming me.  So all I can do is name myself as I either think people see me, or hope that people see me.  So here it goes, divided by category.

Nicknames reflecting how I think people see me:

*Crybaby

*Control Freak

*PseudoShrink

*Optimistic Pessimist

*Baby (Remember though, "Nobody puts Baby in a corner!")

Nicknames reflecting how I hope people see me:

*Cancer Ninja

*Optimist

*Truthteller

*BadAss

*SuperFriend

*ChemoKiller

*Muscle Mama (metaphorically, not physically)

*Water Roller (i.e. I let things roll off me like water)

*Sexy Sister

*Survivor

Now I have no idea if any of these truly fit, so I invite all of you to cast your votes or potentially even provide nicknames that I haven't thought of.  In the meantime, I'll continue using the name that I think does embody me, both pre, during and post-cancer.... DTintheCity

Thanks as always for reading.

Straight from the trenches,

DT