Essay | Health
The Heartbreak of Winning the Genetic Lottery
Reflections on life, health, and family
I’ve been through numerous challenges in my life that, at the time, seemed insurmountable. From growing up in a household that I’m one of those people who, in my late teens and early twenties, was my own worst enemy. Short-term thinking dominated long-term planning often, but not often enough that I wouldn’t wind up making something of myself in life. Living in Los Angeles for the entirety of my twenties didn’t make things any easier.
It’s always been expensive to live in LA, which means I often went without when I lived there. I used to joke with my friends, “It’s bad when you’re eating nothing but Ramen noodles — it’s a crisis when you’re eating nothing but dry, room-temperature Ramen noodles because you’ve got no power and the water is turned off.” You’d close your eyes and pretend they were stale corn chips to make the experience more palatable.
You get used to it, but it hardens you. Eventually, when crises crop up in life, you stop responding to them so reflexively. It no longer sets off the panicked alarms of fight-or-flight. “I’ve survived a lot worse than this,” you tell yourself. “And I’ll survive this, too.”
