FOMO

Scrolling through my Facebook feed, a seemingly endless carousel of joyous moments brings back memories. But not the kind that comes with alerts reminding you about the year you had a cake fight that spanned 4 blocks ( all of which you ran shoeless) after the national football championship. Instead, I remembered times in my life when I have had to close the app to avoid envy swallowing me whole. I wanted to be happy for people as they announced their pregnancies, promotions, and healthy bodies. I wanted so badly to help celebrate them and mean it. It's not in my nature to be jealous to the point of heartburn, and I was disgusted with myself for feeling this way. My eyes were like burning laser beams shooting across my laptop screen. I needed to work on myself so that I could pass out high fives instead of death stares.

I can no longer run 4 blocks shoeless while throwing gator cupcakes at my friends, so that's a bummer. But really, what happened is that I was letting all the things I felt I could no longer do define me, and I didn't even realize it was happening. That's what happens when you have nothing but time on your hands as a cancer patient. Time to think about all the worst-case scenarios and time for some serious FOMO.

FOMO is like a cheap shot of tequila. It tastes bad on the way down, and the next day, you are full of regret. But, sometimes, that initial sting we feel from it can't be helped. All we can do is try to catch ourselves from falling too far into it and remember it's not all about us. Other people deserve romantic trips to Paris, long walks on two legs and baby cuddles just as much as we do and we should find it in ourselves to be happy for them when they get to experience it. There is no finite amount of happiness in the world. It's not pie, more for them does not mean less for us.

I also stopped thinking that happiness only came wrapped in a certain kind of box. Sometimes it's a girl's beach weekend to the keys and other times it's when your order from Chipotle tastes especially good and they didn't forget to put your extra side of pico de gallo in the bag. Let's reserve FOMO for that time we SWEAR we saw Enrique Iglesias wink at us at a concert. It doesn't need to feel like missing out, especially when it's not a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Even those, tend to come back around at the right time for us. I'm still not giving up on the thought that sometime in my lifetime, I will have a prosthesis that works like a real leg and lets me feel and move naturally, maybe it will be made by Tesla. In the meantime, I'll continue to work on living in the moment and creating my own kind of adventures to celebrate.