You've Changed

Teen Melissa talks about "Discover You" - http://queenofmybrokenscene.weebly.com/

 

"Boring shit eventually builds up to great results"

Words you need to keep telling yourself when you think you're seeing no progress after a week at the gym or eating healthy, when you're stuck in an office job just to save money with a dream to travel to another country or have a completely different career or even when you're throwing up again after another round of chemo thinking if feeling this sick is actually doing our bodies any good.

It's hard to stay motivated to achieve our dreams when we can't see progression every day or feel like we ever see progression but it happens. A lot of people have told me they've seen a change in me the past few weeks and I think that has a lot to do with Teens Unite and in particular a motivational speaker who I think started a fire in me without me even realising.

Last weekend Teens Unite hosted the Discover You event, a day to be inspired by motivational speakers, my own strengths and ambitions and make my goals a reality. Not a lot of cancer charities understand how important it is for young people to get back to normal life and having something like cancer thrown at you can easily throw you off any ambition you ever had and adopt a losers woe is me mentality, your cancer doctors can tell you you're not allowed to go back to work or education, you're too unwell to go back to the life you used to know even though the cancers gone. For any young person it can be a strange, confusing and mainly an awkward place when you know what you want to do but don't know how or what to do to get there. But you can and all it takes is realising your self worth, a daily attitude journal and a shake of the arse.

One thing I always take inspiration from is seeing a fellow cancer survivor not letting their illness get in the way of their ambitions even more so when they use cancer to their advantage turn cancer into a blessing in disguise. That's what cancer is isn't it, are the survivors really the lucky ones? Ever since I first heard that last year I was baffled, how was such a cruel illness which has stripped me of my own life and independence, stole friends and family from me and ruined too many lives a blessing? Now 10 months on I'm slowly starting to believe it, despite my shit immune system, chronic exhaustion and on going side effects that I still get day after day, cancer has made me stronger. I appreciate my true friends and family, I appreciate that everyone is facing their own struggle and it's nice to be nice and to never be ignorant, there's more to life than artificial bullshit in the big picture material things don't matter, everything we post on social media is fake it's also a lot more easier to become annoyed at those who don't share my mentality and are still bloody ignorant. There's a serious attitude problem with society, very rarely we get asked what we want from our lives, what we want to actually do. Surely all of us want more than just make some money and retire and die but that's what most of us are doing working a dead end job we hate to pay rent or a mortgage we'll never fully pay off to end up settling and never moving from the city or town we were born in taking advantage of the power to vote every 5 years for a government we resent and telling our grand kids to have the life we craved but never pursued. It's depressing, there's a world out there and without sounding too 'YOLO' we only have once chance and one of us. It's easy to settle into a routine we hate and don't actually want it's even easier to say what we want to do but not actually do it, the desire is there but the motivation isn't or for some people the support isn't there. Another secret despite being told otherwise most people are jealous of other people being successful.

Life is a game it's not a hamster wheel it's not a routine it's a game that everyone is playing and we deserve to make the most of it and get exactly what we want from it, cancer fighters have been dealt enough shit if it wasn't for the chemo the survivors wouldn't be here, this is a second chance and we need to get what we want, we haven't been dealt a bad hand we've picked the joker off the other game player and we need to get rid of it and win the game. we need to "invest in our self" it could be the smallest step but it could be massive in the long term.

After first meeting Cliff back in April, I wrote down my goals and how I can get there in small steps, how I'm important and need to ignore all the bullshit that may or may not get in the way, how I can kill the ignorance with a smile. I've been keeping daily attitude journals almost every day which has made me appreciate what I already have and what I want. I took some time to myself, switched my phone out and tried to work out what the fuck Melissa wants. It resulted in spending one day a week at my local hospital on a chemo ward spreading smiles and happiness to those who were in my position last year, working even harder to save helpless kids lives at a job I love, fully researching how I become a sports journalist and being inspired by the women who have already achieved it and going away to Barcelona by myself for a week.

In Barcelona I got weird looks, countless people asking why I'm on my own or if I'm ok and my favourite "you're to pretty to be on your own" almost as if it's weird for a 22 year old to take a break to herself weird to be considered good looking but on your own. I'm a big fan in treating myself even though my bank account hates it and a trip to Barcelona was the best treat I could ever give myself. It was a test a small step to one of my big goals of travelling the world. It's true what they say you see more on your own, I discovered one of the most beautiful cities, ignored everything that is going against me, every side effect that attacks me on a daily basis because this was a goal and a dream that I was emotionally attached to and eating paella and drinking sangria on La Rambla every night was a living dream. 16th June is a huge date for me, 16 June 2014 I lost my hero, my Granddad to cancer, a year later I was fighting cancer accepting that I was destined to be the most unluckiest person, I could never imagine a year later I would spend the day travelling through France and Andorra and standing on top of the Pyrenees Mountains even now it's hard to believe it actually happened but I was determined to make that date and every date after it special and achieve my dreams. That week I invested in myself, the dream continued while sat on the beach in Barcelona watching the sunset I booked to make even more special memories with special friends and ignore what the media is telling me to do go Interrailing round Europe this September for a month. I can barely go a day without a nap, how am I supposed to survive Interrailing for a month, when I'm living a dream the tiredness is irrelevant every negative side effect is irrelevant plus I'm sure  my friends will understand if I need an extra sit down. 

If it wasn't for Chris' message of investing in myself, Cliff telling me to get emotional right down my goals and genuinely believing every dream I have and reminding me everything is a game or Teens Unite for always believing in me as a person with dream not a patient with cancer then I wouldn't be doing things that people consider me mad for doing, I'm living for myself. It's not easy investing in yourself, it's easier to lose yourself trying to impress others rather than standing out knowing you're the most important, it might take a daily attitude journal or a millionaire morning and jumping on the spot when you wake up but you can do it, you can change and you won't even realise it, you can only get stronger and trust me whatever you're going through it gets better."