When You Can't Sleep...

I decided, this week, to voluntarily give up my entire Friday night.  I don't mean just a namby-pamby couple of hours, though.  I mean ALL of it.  And the first several hours of my Saturday morning.  I decided to stay up.  All night.  No, really, all night.  As in I-didn't-get-home-until-7:30AM all night.  What possessed me to give up this precious commodity, do you ask?  What inspired me to renounce my rest and forgo my forty winks?  I'm glad you asked...

This

 

 

 

Rock the U is a dance marathon that is a charity on behalf of cancer research at the Huntsman Cancer Institute.  There has been some controversy over the funds raised being less than what is actually spent on the event, but the proceeds directly benefit the Huntsman, which is a way for us as students to make the University donate money, in a way, to the research, so I'm okay with it.  :)  And it provides a good, safe venue to have discussions about cancer, which I appreciated.   

Why did I feel the need to participate?  Well, cancer has been an important part of my life.  My grandmother died of cancer.  Three of my teachers in high school had cancer, two of them died while I was a student.  I have had friends with lymphoma and others with melanoma.  Cancer sucks, I've been around it enough to know.  I don't know that we'll ever find a "cure" for cancer, as it is your own body that you are fighting, but I support the research that has given hope and healing to so many people.  And it's dancing!  All night!  I love dancing! :)

A seeming non-sequitur, one of my favorite quotes from a book called Dune is the following about the main character:

Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It's shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad'Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson. 

The Book.  I promise this will make sense if you read the next line ->

So, after 11 hours of dancing with just a few breaks, I've learned a few things:

1. Dancing hurts.  A lot.  Like...a lot a lot...I feel like I just finished one of the most intense full-body workouts ever.  Ow.

We call this step "twerking."  Don't look it up.  Please.

2. I love dancing.  I already knew this, but it was reaffirmed.

We call it: "The Wobble"

3. A lot of people are affected by cancer, even at my age.  That's a remarkable thing, if you think about it.
4. Dancing for hours and hours with other people gives you a certain level of acceptance of them.  If you want to dance with yourself, that's okay.  If you want to run around the room like an airplane, that's okay too.  If you want to dance with others, that's fine.  We're not here to judge you, just to share with you.
5. The level of human endurance when the music is so loud to drown out thought is actually incredible.  I had no stimulants besides a little bit of chocolate, and not the good stuff.  I woke up at 10:00 AM that day and didn't sleep until 7:30 the following morning.  Your body is capable of amazing things and you are able to control it in amazing ways if you are determined to do so.
6. People can do great things for others that they've never met.  This is important and very human.
7. Cancer can do many things, but it is also very limited.  One of my good friends who died from cancer asked to have on his funeral program an excerpt from a poem by Robert L. Lynn called "Cancer is So Limited:

It cannot cripple love.

It cannot shatter hope.

It cannot corrode faith.

It cannot eat away peace.

It cannot destroy confidence.

It cannot kill friendship.

It cannot shut out memories.

It cannot silence courage.

It cannot invade the soul.

It cannot reduce eternal life.

It cannot quench the spirit.

It cannot cancel Resurrection. 

I think that this is the beauty of Rock the U.  We celebrate where there is usually sorrow.  We celebrate life and the fact that we can celebrate.  We raise money and awareness for the pain, but celebrate those who have passed on.  I loved the event.  I probably won't have a chance to do it again, but appreciated it while it lasted.