This is the part no one told me about. My own personal post-apocalyptic world where nothing is the same as it was before, and there’s no road map for how to live now. I wake up grateful to be alive and grateful to be done with treatment, wiser than I was before, more compassionate than I was before…but still a little lost.
Who am I supposed to be now? What am I supposed to be doing? If the purpose of this whole cancer thing was to lift me up and put me on a different path, am I there now? Did I do it?
I’d gotten so used to the intensity of Beating Cancer, now that I’m cut loose from treatment I feel like I’m drifting. I don’t have my job to go back to, and wouldn’t have wanted to go back to it anyway. I should give back now, I should stand at the top of the pit and help other people out of it, or throw food and supplies down…or something. But how?
And wtf is up with the PTSD I have every time the subject of cancer comes up unexpectedly? My brain freezes and I can’t move.
At the same time, things are more intensely wonderful than I ever could have imagined. My core stress level is so low I notice even the slightest elevation. The number of times I scream at my kids has gone from several times a day to a few times a week, and I’m working on getting that dialed back too. I have time to teach my kids; to sit with G and help him do his homework, to teach R to read and write. We go for walks almost every day, practice music, watch Disney shows together.
And I’m writing. Finally, I’m writing full time and it’s everything I thought it could be. That passion that has itched at me since high school is finally being realized. Even the frustrations and learning curves are satisfying – so much more satisfying than the frustrations of working for someone else, of not being in control of my time and my energies. I can go to the library when I need to, go for a run when I need time to think, take a break and just do laundry while I brainstorm. I don’t have to check in with someone just to go use the restroom.
So it’s this mix of highs and lows.
I guess maybe if you can only see a few feet in front of you, you work with what you have. Work with the Right Now, the Today. Maybe it’s from looking too far ahead that I’m getting lost. By trying to see the big picture all the time, I’m setting myself up for stressing out about it. I don’t know where my money will be coming from next month, but I know how much money I have right now, and it’s plenty to live on. I don’t know how I’m going to give back in big change-a-million-lives ways yet, but I do know how to do it in small ways every day. I don’t need to be trying to live in next month or next year. I need to be living right now.
Because right now is pretty freaking awesome.
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