So my buddy took me to see 50/50 tonight and it felt strange. So much of the movies story resonated with my own experiences. A little disconcerting actually: healthy twenty-seven year old guy with a clean medical history has back pain that ends up being a cancerous tumor in his spine.

To be perfectly honest, while sitting next to Chris I had to work hard to keep it together throughout the movie. It was most definitely funny but the manner in which it dealt with the reality of fighting cancer caused me to tear up more than a few times. Seeing him deal with loss was what got me. Loss of freedom, loss of strength, loss of dignity, loss of relationships, loss of life, loss of energy, loss of appetite, loss of self–loss.

I once read something simple and yet hugely profound: change equals loss.

It doesn’t matter if it is perceived positive or negative changes, it requires a measure of loss. We fight change ’cause we don’t want to experience loss. We struggle with loss because we’re not able or willing to grieve the change. Change brings loss and loss is painful.

I’m still grieving much of what’s been lost over the last five months. Change is rough, it’s a part of life, its inevitable, and sometimes it sucks. But change brings new life, new opportunities, and new hope–loss opens doors to new experiences, new realities, and new relationships that weren’t previously possible…though sometimes it just sucks. I thought the movie captured this reality well.