“Survivorship is an uncharted ocean, a course difficult to measure where progress is elusive and stability impossible. Where some days are calm but most are choppy and unpredictable, causing me to constantly have to adjust my sails. And then there are the out-of-nowhere gales – a trigger, a memory, an anniversary, a follow up – that whip up and threaten capsize, leaving me disoriented and clinging to the hope that it all matters.”
@ThePurposedSailor
Tonight, driving home from work, my eyes welled up with tears that came from a place of deep pain and sorrow. Out of seemingly nowhere.
But this is what it is. . .
This Day in 2018:
THANK YOU
I have been making a bunch of updates to my Help Calendar this morning. SO sorry if your inbox was inundated with emails detailing those changes. How annoying! Thank you very much for being on my team. For reading, for encouraging, for supporting, for praying, for dinners and gift cards, for anonymous donations….I am so incredibly grateful for each of you, known and unknown.
The story most certainly continues…
This Day in 2019:
The Art of Waiting
It is interesting practicing 5 minutes at a time in the waiting when the waiting is for something great.
Early on in this journey, I was being taught how to take a hold of the literal present because the waiting was incredibly difficult as I waited for incredibly devastating answers. Those present moments, as they progressed one into the next as slow as molasses on a cold day, were torturous. Waiting to hear if it was indeed, cancer. Waiting to hear what the next step needed to be. Waiting to hear when surgery could happen. Waiting to hear pathology. Waiting to hear prognosis and staging. Waiting to hear treatment options.
….Waiting for chemo to come to an end. Waiting for radiation to be a thing of the past. Waiting to have reconstruction complete. Waiting for the last day of the 10th year of the keep-cancer-away-plan.
T o r t u r o u s.
Tonight, I sit here in more waiting. This time it’s for purposeful change. It’s for an incredible tattoo to reclaim what cancer violently took. It’s for improved quality of life. It’s for living out my story.
And this waiting is torturous, too. I want those things now.
But the lessons of cancer…the be-where-your-feet-are, 5-minutes-at-a-time, richness-in-the-now, the-waiting-has-a-purpose, you’ll-know-what-you-need-to-know-when-you-need-to-know-it…..contiue to remain relevant no matter what it is I’m waiting for.
As I sit here, waiting for the good, I can acknowledge that the seconds ticking by, slow as molasses, are full. Full of anticipation, hope, excitement, joy……so why would I want those seconds to fly by?
I’ve learned through this, that, whether waiting for devastation or waiting for magnificence, the waiting is a beautiful art to be practiced……and wholeheartedly cherished.
No Post for 7/6/20