I Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Badges

We live. But are we alive?

When I was a cancer patient, I became rather accustomed to letting strangers in white coats stick large needles in my arm and help themselves to my blood. It freaks some people out, but I had no problem. Not because I dug being stabbed by sharp objects. Not because I grooved on pain. Instead, I believe it was the surreal experience of watching the crimson juice of life flow so easily from my body, looking so healthy, all the while knowing a disease is threatening to take that life away.

There was something about the contradiction that gave me comfort.

What I grew to depend upon even more was the bruise left behind. That silver-dollar size, purple-black-sometimes-yellow badge that appeared afterwards and hung around for days. It was painful. It was ugly. It was impossible to hide and people saw it. I liked it. I liked it because it was something I could look down at and instantly be reminded that I was alive. I had a problem, but I was alive. So, live.

After five years of this, I was told by the white coats to go away and not come back.

I don’t miss cancer. But I kinda miss that bruise.

Why do we require reminders to tell us we are alive?

People go about this in many different ways. Some rock climb or skydive to keep them awake and engaged. The constant threat of danger, the thrill provided by tempting fate tells them, “I am most definitely alive.” The contradiction is comforting.

Athletes grow to depend upon the pain that comes after the battle. To spend hours crashing violently into their opponents on Saturday/Sunday is not enough. Winning or losing doesn’t tell the whole story. A body racked and seized with pain on Monday/Tuesday is the real badge.

“I hurt. I can barely walk. Therefore, I am most definitely alive.”

But when these badges disappear or are no longer available, we become vulnerable. We search for new ways to remind ourselves that we are still alive. Some healthy, some not-so-healthy. It is when we begin to seek out our own badges, or create them on our own, that we often find not comfort, not reassurance, but problems.

You would think the fact that we are alive, that we woke up this morning and watched a sunrise or got kissed and hugged by our children was enough to remind us, “We are most definitely alive.”

Some will say: “You don’t need a badge. You don’t need anything other than a splash of cold water and your own reflection in the mirror to give your life validation,” and I would agree. I really did not need a painful ugly bruise in the middle of my arm to tell me anything I didn’t already know. It shouldn’t take standing on a mountain to remind us we are most definitely alive.

It’s not the view from 20,000 feet that impacts us. It is the perspective the view provides, reminding us that life is not lived on mountain tops, nor dangling from cliffs. It is acted out on flat, ordinary ground among ordinary people, working ordinary jobs, eating ordinary food. It is there, among the ordinary, that our actions become our badges.

We decide every day whether our actions will be ordinary, or extraordinary.

Do you wear the badge, or does the badge wear you?