Another new metaphor. Speaking of…. And then there’s…. So, on that note….

Another new metaphor. 

What a shipwreck cancer is. I was living life on charted waters, predictable to its highest degree possible. My boat was a boat. The water was water. My compass intact. Sure, some storms (even some huge) came my way, rocking my boat and shaking me up, taking me off course and causing me to recalibrate my progress. Yet, I was still navigating via the familiar. My boat was a boat. The water was water. My compass intact. 

Then cancer.

Then s.h.i.p.w.r.e.c.k.e.d.

The water treacherous and the storm unprecedented. My boat, only shards of what once was recognizable and now without any form of familiar. Stability, comfortability, predictability…distorted. Self, identity, faith, foundation…transformed. Food, showers, wellness, hair, skin, senses, pain, fingernails, sleep, reflection (both internal and what is in the mirror)…forever altered. I look around as I breathlessly tread stormy waters and see things in disarray, fragments of my life before floating around me, personal items that had been aboard and accounted for now drifting to and from, waves pushing things further away and the undertow pulling things out of reach. 

I’m left to redefine what is what. What can I float on to give my weary body rest? What do I want to try and take with me and wherever am I even going? How do I regard what gets to take up very valuable space in now very limited capacity? What must I let float away even if I am devastated to see it go? What can I leave behind now that I know it had only weighed me down. 

I’m left to be inventive and creative, adapting skills now forced way outside of their comfort zone. I have to challenge old context because “land” and “progress” and “direction” don’t look like they once did. My compass is destroyed. My maps are ruined. Surviving means something very different now than before and it’s now far more tenuous. 

But, all is not lost. A lot is, that’s true. I grieve what has to float away or sink…even that which could be considered ‘good riddance.’ I fight for every breath above water. I grip at the waves as I learn to redefine and invent. But in this struggle, I am also free. Free to discover and reform and create. Free from old complacency and former unquestioned compliance. Free to access new thinking and rework old meanings. Empathy and compassion, faith and identity, purpose, relationships, traditions, time, convictions and ideals are now free from dusty conventions. How I decide who, what, when, and why, are now free to be transformed.

I live exhilaratingly free all while desperately trying to survive this shipwreck; I live hopeful for purpose while I live in perpetual loss; I love the change while I hate the price I pay… Oh the many BothAnds.

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Speaking of…..

…The BothAnd of Christmas. The holidays are different for me now. I once was able to love them from a place of privilege and now I live them from a place of reality. The grief of the last 7 years is insurmountable. The gain, surprising. And although you might be tempted to read that as the gain replacing the grief, it most certainly does not. 

Being so confronted by death will change a person. It changes the way I experience joy and light, but also anxiety and insecurity. It changes the way I choose who gets my attention and energy, and also, what. It changes the way I value my inner peace and quiet, but also how loud I am about what matters. It changes my purpose. It changes my presence.

And as for the holidays, they are changed in all of the same ways. Oh the BothAnd of the Merry and the melancholy.

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And then there’s….. 

…The BothAnd of a New Year. January 1 used to always be my least favorite day. I didn’t like that the holidays were over. I didn’t like that everything started over. I didn’t like that my favorite time of the year was now the furthest away. I didn’t like that I had to live through so many pesky months to get there again. 

Certainly, I had formed that opinion based on a privileged assumption that I was guaranteed a next holiday season. One where I didn’t have to care about the days I didn’t like because the days that I actually liked were coming. One in which tolerating a now-time for a future-time was not only possible but somehow acceptable. Yup, what a privilege to think that way.

It was easy to take the start of a new year for granted. I’d never had anything stop me in my tracks the same way as cancer has. I’ve survived other traumas, I’ve been challenged with other tragedies, I’ve been changed by other experiences, absolutely. But…AND…the reality that cancer kills people does something to the concept of time. 

It’s true – I’m very changed. And while I embrace the now-time differently because it deeply matters and cancer teaches me that, also cancer makes each moment I’m present in, painful. Oh the BothAnd of Happy and hurting.

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So, on that note…..

…2024 is tomorrow. I will celebrate it by living IN it. And whatever days I get that follow. It is hard not to be distracted by time spent and life lived in hindsight or in the hypothetical…I think back on my shipwreck analogy where I could be wishing for the boat and the land and the charted course of old or imagining some life in some future where a boat and a land and a charted course magically appeared and got me there…rather than living IN now with what I have in arm’s reach and with what strength I have, but I will continue to be mindful and intentional just as cancer teaches me.

If you were to consider mindfulness and intentionality for each moment that comes, what might that look like for you?

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December’s Message

Merry and Happy to you. Even if the words carry with them redefined meanings because of the complexities of their BothAnds. I hope for you that your 2024 can be filled with presence. With noticing. With curiosity. With mindfulness and intentionality for the moments. Let life change you. Wonder about what can challenge you. 

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Thank you for reading. 🤍

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Some business for my regular readers: Being that I am purposeful to not live too far out in front, I’m uncertain what 2024 holds for me. I may or may not post blogs regularly. I may free up my posting time for other process and meaning-making and living. I may post when the mood hits. I may decide to keep going with the Purposeful Point or some other new series. I dunno.

What I do know is that The Purposed Sailor site will stay steady and intact and remain available for people to encounter my stories and if they need, mental health support and services. 

With gratitude,

Amber. The Purposed Sailor. 🩵

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