We've all heard it said that life is a journey. Interestingly enough, the destination is really not known.
Okay, sure, there is the whole heaven and hell thing. But not everyone believes in those places and besides that, those places are "on the other side" so to speak, so they're really the "after" life, not life. And then there is the whole idea of setting goals, having dreams, achieving your desires. There's planning and making things happen.
Then there is real life.
The journey that is life is simply not something that you can plan. At least that is what I've discovered over the last year. I think you can make plans. You can have goals and dreams and you can work toward achieving them. But just like any other journey, you cannot really see what's up ahead. (Okay, well now with GPS technology, you can see ahead if you're driving from point A to point B, but there isn't a GPS for life ... yet.)
An ad for a new Web site, health.com, stopped me in my tracks the other day as I flipped through a magazine. I don't usually stop for ads. But this one resonated with me. There was a road sign. It said "Breast Cancer". Just under it an arrow indicated "Detour" ... and there was my life in front of me, in a nutshell, described in a short, 4-color message.
I think we all have detours as we journey through life, and I think that while the detours can be very unnerving, scary, and throw us off our pace and schedules, the only way to get back on course and to continue toward those goals and dreams is to follow through on that detour.
While my detour was no picnic, I certainly did find out some things about myself I didn't already know, and I discovered what's really valuable to me as I ventured that road. The detour slowed me down, in some instances stopped me dead in my tracks, but it also helped me to appreciate the road of life, detours, potholes, stop signs and all.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Sensations
Today I felt the wind in my hair.
That's a big deal!
Why? Because I haven't felt that sensation since last August! It was in August that my hair started to fly away, without wind to assist. That same day, when no one else could see it flying, I went to the hairdresser and had my head shaved. From mid-August until late January, I didn't have hair for the wind to blow. And up until today, even when there was a breeze, I didn't feel it moving through my hair.
Today, for the first time in a long while, I felt the wind in my hair. And today, for the first time ever, I didn't take it for granted.
That's a big deal!
Why? Because I haven't felt that sensation since last August! It was in August that my hair started to fly away, without wind to assist. That same day, when no one else could see it flying, I went to the hairdresser and had my head shaved. From mid-August until late January, I didn't have hair for the wind to blow. And up until today, even when there was a breeze, I didn't feel it moving through my hair.
Today, for the first time in a long while, I felt the wind in my hair. And today, for the first time ever, I didn't take it for granted.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
On any given Sunday
Just when you think the sun is gonna shine brightly all day, the clouds move in. And then the rain.
It's rained in Richmond every weekend for months. Or at least it seems so. Today started out sunny enough. But by mid-day, before I really even began my chores, it was cloudy. The wind picked up a bit. And it started to rain.
Today's rain wasn't a steady downpour, just a shower here and there. Mostly it's been a misty kind of day.
I started out this weekend with verve and energy to spare. I got a lot of things accomplished. Today the rain came and so did the weariness that seems to embrace me even months after finishing treatments, even a year since my diagnosis. I started the weekend wanting to leave the cancer talk behind me. I wanted to let it go and move on, to be the survivor, not the cancer patient.
But today the rain came.
Stubborn is an adjective I use to describe myself often. Independent might be a better word, less negative connotation there. Either way, when my energy level sinks to low and I can't do what I feel I need to do or want to do, I get pretty cranky; and, I think that while my stubborn independence is what got me through the surgery and the chemo treatments, it also puts me in a bit of a bind when my body says it needs to rest and be still. My mind doesn't want to rest and be still. There are things to do. I rested and was still for long enough, I tell my body. But in the end the body wins that argument.
Today the rain came. And luckily my mind agrees that on a rainy Sunday, the best thing to do is rest and be still.
It's rained in Richmond every weekend for months. Or at least it seems so. Today started out sunny enough. But by mid-day, before I really even began my chores, it was cloudy. The wind picked up a bit. And it started to rain.
Today's rain wasn't a steady downpour, just a shower here and there. Mostly it's been a misty kind of day.
I started out this weekend with verve and energy to spare. I got a lot of things accomplished. Today the rain came and so did the weariness that seems to embrace me even months after finishing treatments, even a year since my diagnosis. I started the weekend wanting to leave the cancer talk behind me. I wanted to let it go and move on, to be the survivor, not the cancer patient.
But today the rain came.
Stubborn is an adjective I use to describe myself often. Independent might be a better word, less negative connotation there. Either way, when my energy level sinks to low and I can't do what I feel I need to do or want to do, I get pretty cranky; and, I think that while my stubborn independence is what got me through the surgery and the chemo treatments, it also puts me in a bit of a bind when my body says it needs to rest and be still. My mind doesn't want to rest and be still. There are things to do. I rested and was still for long enough, I tell my body. But in the end the body wins that argument.
Today the rain came. And luckily my mind agrees that on a rainy Sunday, the best thing to do is rest and be still.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
An anniversary
Today is my anniversary.
One year ago today I heard the words no one really wants to hear:
"It's malignant."
It's taken me this whole year to process those two words. I'm still processing them and I expect I will continue to process them for the rest of my life.
Hester Hill Schnipper, the author of an article I read in the Journal of Clinical Oncology online, had this to say about survivorship:
I could not have said it better.
One year ago today I heard the words no one really wants to hear:
"It's malignant."
It's taken me this whole year to process those two words. I'm still processing them and I expect I will continue to process them for the rest of my life.
Hester Hill Schnipper, the author of an article I read in the Journal of Clinical Oncology online, had this to say about survivorship:
More than anything else, it is the searing recognition of mortality that changes everything. From this moment forward, all of life will be viewed through a double lens as we appreciate the possibilities of both a long life and a greatly abbreviated one. This dual view may actually, over time, enrich our lives. We make a conscious and willing choice, each of us living with cancer, to go on, to take and to appreciate the darkness as well as the sunlight. We hold dear the night as well as the morning.
I could not have said it better.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Look up
The Cathedral of the Sacred Heart church was built in the early 1900s. I took a tour of the church once when the class I was taking in Roman Catholic Thought went on a field trip there. The church is built in the Italian Renaissance Revival architectural style and the building is constructed of Virginia granite and Indiana limestone.
You cannot walk into the church without immediately looking upward toward the heavens. The priest hosting the tour explained that this reaction was exactly what the architects wanted and expected. They designed and built that church with its high arching ceilings, purposefully creating an environment that made you want to lift your eyes skyward.
I feel like I often walk through life with my eyes half open, and I notice other people walking down the street with their gaze steadily on the ground before them. Since being diagnosed with cancer, I spend a lot more time looking upward. Asking God what his purpose is for me.
I play a game. It's my special one, a little silly thing I do. Every day I look for the geese. I look up as I cross the river to go to work and again when I am on my way home across the bridge. Every day I see a goose ... or geese ... I say it's going to be a good day. If I see a goose or geese in the evening, it's like I'm getting a special message from God that life is precious and good and all will be well.
There have been very few days that I have not seen a goose. More often I see flocks of geese flying one way or the other across the bridge, over the river. Now someone could say that it stands to reason that I will always see at least one goose flying one way or the other over the bridge since it is in fact traversing a river where geese are likely to live and breed. But that doesn't stop me from playing my game.
Every day I see a goose ... or geese ... it's a good day. And really, all I have to do is look up.
Looking up is a good thing. It's a positive thing. Some days I have to remind myself to look up. And it's especially on those days that when I see geese in flight I am reminded that each day we are here, alive, and able to lift our eyes toward the heavens ... that is a good day.
You cannot walk into the church without immediately looking upward toward the heavens. The priest hosting the tour explained that this reaction was exactly what the architects wanted and expected. They designed and built that church with its high arching ceilings, purposefully creating an environment that made you want to lift your eyes skyward.
I feel like I often walk through life with my eyes half open, and I notice other people walking down the street with their gaze steadily on the ground before them. Since being diagnosed with cancer, I spend a lot more time looking upward. Asking God what his purpose is for me.
I play a game. It's my special one, a little silly thing I do. Every day I look for the geese. I look up as I cross the river to go to work and again when I am on my way home across the bridge. Every day I see a goose ... or geese ... I say it's going to be a good day. If I see a goose or geese in the evening, it's like I'm getting a special message from God that life is precious and good and all will be well.
There have been very few days that I have not seen a goose. More often I see flocks of geese flying one way or the other across the bridge, over the river. Now someone could say that it stands to reason that I will always see at least one goose flying one way or the other over the bridge since it is in fact traversing a river where geese are likely to live and breed. But that doesn't stop me from playing my game.
Every day I see a goose ... or geese ... it's a good day. And really, all I have to do is look up.
Looking up is a good thing. It's a positive thing. Some days I have to remind myself to look up. And it's especially on those days that when I see geese in flight I am reminded that each day we are here, alive, and able to lift our eyes toward the heavens ... that is a good day.
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