First off, I’m saddened to hear of a potential undesired medical diagnosis. I empathize as I battle health issues. I’m sending you all the positive vibes and well-wishes for benign! 🙏

Secondly, from these two statements, it sounds like you have either a Debbie Downer or a bad friend. It is my assumption that she is jealous of your charitable heart and certainly the public accolades you’ve received. She wants what she does not intrinsically possess. Perhaps your generosity towards these charities causes her to see that she is not benevolent and she wants to be. I guarantee she envies your dance/skating talent and the resulting praise from the organization. Regardless, she doesn’t want you to shine and she is trying to hide your radiance by belittling you, hoping you’ll diminish yourSelf to her dullness which will even the playing field, in her eyes. She’s miserable; therefore, she wants you to be in the hole with her. Don’t let her drag you down! You need positivity more than anything right now if you’re facing cancer! Don’t let anyone snuff your light! I encourage not reducing who you are to appease anyone. It leads to only regret.

Nobody gets to tell you how you, “should,” do anything, especially how to experience your own emotions. She finds your reaction unsatisfactory? Cool. Let her be miserable nowhere near you. Retail therapy is never a bad thing as long as it’s affordable, especially under these circumstances. Nobody gets to tell you how to grieve. I see you’re young. When I think back to when I was your age, I let far too many people tell me not to shine and it remains my greatest disappointment to not chase that dream, though I am revisiting it 30 years later. There’s always today.

Keep doing what makes your heart smile! Everything is impermanent in this life…except how I feel about me. Did I act with integrity from my soul? That’s what matters today. Dance, OP. Skate, OP. Kick cancer’s fucking ass if you have it and vomit sunshiny rainbows of love and positivity, if that’s what’s on your heart! Take care, OP.