My Magical Escape

Once upon a time, I was a kid who played with dolls and princesses and watched Disney VHS tapes on repeat. Yep, I said it, VHS, no streaming at the drop of a hat or instant gratification, just the small collection of tapes you got as gifts on Christmas or your birthday. As a kid, your imagination isn’t so much an escape as a way to understand the world around you and create magic and fantasy. Then you grow up, life happens, interests change, and your ability to know all the lyrics to a song in a kids’ movie or identify all the princesses is not something you need to showcase often.

I didn’t grow up in a family that went to Disney World every year or at all. I went for the first time when I turned thirty, part joke, part why not. I had a great time with my boyfriend-now husband, who proposed to me on that trip, fireworks and all. Again, never thinking I’d be that girl to get engaged there or cry when I watched fireworks go off near Cinderella’s Castle. Then back to reality: the pandemic, getting married, finishing school, working, and becoming a mom. All this to say, though Mickey Mouse & Co. was part of my childhood and some core adult moments, it was as much a part of my life as most kids, and I would never think in any way I’d become a Disney Adult.

Now, let’s fast-forward that VHS tape that is our life. A cancer diagnosis completely shatters your reality. Even as I was being told the news from a hospital bed, it felt like an out-of-body experience. Did I just hear what I think I heard? How can the doctor speak so nonchalantly about chemo, side effects, and cancer as a whole? Reality seems bleak. All the things that you would stress over or have anxiety about: career, money, productivity, all that seemed trivial. You’re just concerned about survival and the loved ones who depend on you.

Like a movie where the heroine almost falls off a cliff, is hanging on by a thread and manages to pull herself up, that is the diagnosis. Then, taking a breath, not as a sigh of relief, but to get ready to scale a huge mountain. That is treatment, surgeries, recovery, etc. In the hopes that you can get back to safety. Yet, it’s not as effortless or as magical as the movies make it seem- and nothing you want to sing about.

Although it sounds cliché, while in treatment, one is in survival mode-cue the motivational music sequence. Then once it’s over? If the oncologist deemed treatment effective? The flashbacks of what you and your body have just endured for months on end. You take a breath of fresh air, not of relief but filled with anxiety, stress, and all the emotions you didn’t have time to unwrap before.

In real life, what helps one cope with all the hard moments, the hardest moments of life, that cancer brings into the picture? Writing and humor have helped me, but the biggest was distractions! Escaping reality for a little while and putting chaotic real life on pause. Distractions, Distractions- a thing that prevents someone from giving full attention to cancer because now cancer lives rent-free in your mind 24/7. People don’t understand how much space it occupies in your thoughts, long after diagnosis, treatment, recovery, and when you’re labeled a survivor. Maybe all physical signs disappear, but the invisible threads remain. The eviction notices have been sent, but Cancer is the tenant that never wants to leave the building of your mind.

Now I didn’t seek out Disney World to be my distraction. It started small. Pre-Cancer, we did take our eldest daughter there on a trip, I can’t lie. Thinking we were parents with a young kid under 2, where else would we have gone!? However, during treatment, when the bone pain and nausea were too much, I would snuggle up with my toddler and watch a Disney movie. She liked them and soon enough knew more about princesses than I did, and the words to all the catchy songs.

Then, while getting chemo one day, a volunteer came to speak with me. I was used to being the youngest one around, apart from some of the nurses, and at first, I didn’t think this older lady would get how I was feeling. A young adult with cancer, with babies at home- mom guilt times 100. She shared her cancer story with me, and that over twenty years ago, she was in a similar situation to mine. Young mom with cancer. This was unplanned, unscripted, no way this was set up by anyone. In the Hero’s Journey, this would be called meeting a mentor or guide who gives you advice. She basically shared how visualization helped her tremendously during treatment. She said, no matter how bad it gets, create a photo or movie in your mind. A happy future moment after treatment is done, you as a little old lady in a rocking chair or climbing the Eiffel Tower, something you want to see and do. As I told her my cancer story and how I had just given birth to my second daughter when I found out, my only mind movie was being here for my kids, watching them grow up, holding my baby in my arms, holding my toddler’s hand, and walking down Main Street USA in Disney World. A happy moment for them to remember with their mom from their childhood that had nothing to do with their mom’s cancer.

I clung to the idea of making happy childhood memories for them. Even if they are too young to remember, I would. So on my good days during treatment, we would make forts, bake cookies, and watch another “classic” kids movie. I read books and watched all the videos and vloggers I could find. The history, tips, tricks, best things to do, and what I learned about being a Disney adult. I planned the trip I was going to take when treatment was over, and hopefully Cancer decided to take a vacation.

These distractions helped me get through the hardest, most painful moments. So while some might find it silly clinging on to childish things. That nostalgia and idyllic childhood memories, coupled with giving my kids that fantasy before real life takes over, helped distract my mind when cancer became too much. So I looked to the most magical place on earth. To see the world through childlike eyes and wonder. So yes, we can’t escape reality, and life isn’t always easy, and we must push through to overcome any challenges in our lives, but for a little while it’s okay to be distracted when life gets too heavy. So I’ll plan that trip and rewind that VHS tape if it gets me through another day.

By the way, I took that trip, we made memories, had fun, and I got to annoy my husband with all the facts I learned. Just kidding, he supports my distraction within reason. Reality is always there, but if for a couple of minutes a day you find a distraction that makes the day a little easier and doesn’t hurt you or those around you, why not?