September transitions

I love September. The month that says a lingering farewell to summer and gingerly embraces the autumn. Holding on to warm sunny days while ushering in crispness with cool nights and chilly mornings. Nature turns its face toward the sun later each day and closes its eyes earlier each eve. New guests visit the bird feeders and baths while others say farewell and head for climates south.

September opens doors and windows.

Postcards to yourself

If you were sending your younger self a postcard, what would you say to you? At this moment in your life, what would you want yourself at 10, or 15, or 25, or even 35, to know about who you are and where you are in life now?

Considering postcards don't allow for a lot of commentary, what could you ... would you ... want to say in that short captive space that might help that younger you to navigate life better? And would giving insight on the choices you made at that point in life be your message? Would altering your life, steering yourself away from some bad decisions, be your intent? Or would your note be more like "Having so much fun and can't wait till you get here" ... a more cryptic, but still settling, kind of message?

If you could send your younger self a postcard, would you even dare to do so? Would you be concerned and wonder what effect your comments, instruction, hints about life might have upon that past you, and, what it would then mean about what you're doing in this "present" and who you are now?

Since it's not possible to send ourselves a postcard to the long ago from the right now, the only thing we can do is send ourselves a message today. We have the power and capacity to send a literal or figurative postcard to our now-present-soon-to-be-past-self that all is well and that while life has its ups, downs, good and bad, happy, sad, tough times, it is Life after all.

Challenges

There really isn't anything that prepared me for the breast cancer diagnosis. Similarly, there isn't anything that prepared me for life after the diagnosis or life during the treatments ... or life after the treatments.

Sometimes talking to someone else who has been there is a big help. I don't feel like I need therapy ... well at least not most days! I don't want to go to a support group. But. I sometimes feel like I am the only person in the world who is experiencing shit side effects from the breast cancer treatments and also the mental, emotional and spiritual changes ... that are constant.

I had a double mastectomy. Am taking Tamoxifen. Am as big as a fucking house. Partly due to the original chemo and then lack of energy and no exercise and then the Tamoxifen. I broke up a long time relationship a couple of years before the diagnosis ... I bring up that up because these days I would really like to go out on a date or something, but I am like, well, where do I meet someone at my age and then when I do meet someone when do I bring up the fact that the boobs I have are removable?

People ask, "Have you written anything with regard to your experience?" I started this blog to get some stuff out and to share with my family and my friends how I was feeling so they didn't have to feel uncomfortable about asking me stuff. Then I got tired of talking about it, but crap, you live it whether you talk about it or not.

What's so weird is that as a cancer survivor you feel lucky. You are grateful to have life and to have come out on the other side of the treatment. The flip side is that there's some guilt. Okay, maybe that's just me, the Catholic thing and all.

There's also frustration and confusion.

After your hair grows back and a couple of years goes by, you think you should be all better. Get on with life. Do what you used to do. You think that you are back to "normal" and your expectations of yourself are that you are -- but the chemo and the cancer and the worry and the post-chemo treatments take a toll.

There you are looking at yourself in the mirror and you see yourself ... but then somedays it seems like that reflection ... it isn't really you ... or is it? No matter what, you really never are who you were before the diagnosis.

All that said, I feel so much better now than I did a year ago, and I try to celebrate my survivorship daily. An occasional funk is natural, I think, but I always say to myself, at least I am alive to be cranky, crabby, to feel fat, to be annoyed ... etc.

The good thing about surviving cancer is that life does go on.

Amusements

I love to feed the birds. I love birds of all kinds and always have. This love most likely was instilled in me by my grandmother, who, when she would visit us in Richmond from Chicago, would wax amazed at the blue jays and robins that hopped around our front yard bird feeder. Our picture window in the living room let us see nature in splendor, our couch served as the viewing spot. I would sit there, with my lovely Gramma sitting next to me, and watch the birds with her. If anyone at that given moment asked me where my favorite place in the world was, it would have been right there, on the Sears and Roebuck couch, next to my most special person in the world.

So here, now, years after my sweet Gramma has gone to heaven, I carry on the tradition. Feeding birds, watching their antics and being amazed and awed by nature.

Meanwhile, there is the squirrel.

All this spring I have been working to outfox the squirrel. No, it isn't just one squirrel. There are many. But to me, the battle is against the one. The squirrel.

If anyone out there reading this knows of a real way to keep a squirrel from raiding the bird feeders in the world, please let me know. Do not tell me about the squirrel proof bird feeder. I have bought more than one and I will tell you this ... the squirrel has found her way past the proofing.

I have to admit that I am rather amused by the squirrel's antics, her ability to "figure things out" and do what comes natural -- survival at whatever cost. I'm therefore most impressed with her tenacity. She really doesn't give up until she wins. Or till it's time to go home.

I think I should take some lessons from this squirrel.

Thunderstorms

There is nothing better than a spring thunderstorm. Except maybe a summer thunderstorm.

The air, electric, ticks with energy. The sweet fragrant rain (a scientist told me that aroma we smell during a rain storm is ozone). Everything turns upward, reaching for the green.

Thunderstorms. Reflecting life in a pool of fresh water.

Happy days, June.

Loss and gain

You know, since I lost my breasts and then went through chemo, I have not really spent much time considering my loss. That is, I have spent a lot more time considering what I have gained... much healthier in the long run, I think.

Most of the time, when tragedy strikes us ... and let me be frank here, YES it was a tragic occurrence that I lost my breasts ... it is easy to be consumed by the pain, the loss, the fear.

But I choose not to focus on the tragic. I am alive. Many adjectives to describe this new chance I have at life: Surviving. Grateful. Hopeful. Full of myself. Being. Learning. Looking for the new. Seeking and seeing the hand of God in all things. Faithful. Believing in the future. Growing.

I think the tragedy is that it sometimes takes loss to appreciate gain and to love what we have been able to keep.

Two years later ...

May 15, 2009 is a special day.

Two years have gone by since my diagnosis of breast cancer. I am truly feeling better. I look forward to many more years of growing, feeling better and surviving whatever life throws at me.