I'm not running out of time
No one knows when our last day on Earth will be.
"That would be enough."
One of the conceits of "Hamilton: An American Musical" is that he is rushing because he knows he only has a brief time on Earth. Which, of course, is a false projection from the future. One in which we, as the audience, know that he is destined to die in a duel at age 47 or 49 on 12 July 1804.
This, of course, is not true for the real-life founding father, who had no idea that he was living on "borrowed time."
This is the epiphany I had while worrying about the fact that 17 July 2024 will mark the first anniversary of the day I was diagnosed with monomorphic epitheliotropic intestinal T-cell lymphoma (MEITL).
I was worried because MEITL has a one-year survival rate of 35%.
As I myself had said, and as Ellen and my nurse reminded me yesterday, no one knows when our last day on Earth will be.
"No, I’m not brave. It doesn’t really take courage to live with cancer. Just the realisation that whether we have a critical illness or not, life is short, so we might as well make the most of it. And not live in fear."
That would be enough.