As I sit here in a pile of paperwork to my knees, I cry. This journey has been so long and I thought, once I'm free and clear of any evidence of disease, then I'm free and clear to resume life as normal. Not so. I am living and learning daily that I no longer have cancer. That I can do more than I thought I could and I'm learning to trust God, that this is how it's suppose to be.
I accepted a job offer outside of the home. It's been 9 years since I've worked out of the home, so this will be different. Weeks ago I struggled with the thought and today I embrace it. I embrace it for what it is, a chance to tell my story, a chance to help others, a chance to live as a working mother differently then I did the first time. Of course I am at times overwhelmed with "what-ifs", but I won't let the "what-ifs" determine who I am and who I am called to be.
There's a lot on my mind today and a lot I want to release, I only have a few minutes this afternoon, but I have to let some of this go...
I miss my mom, I wish she would've been here to see everything I've gone through. I wish I could hear the phone ring and tell her how scared I am of going back to work, of starting Senior year with her oldest grandson, of how proud I am of all three of my kids. I wish I could tell her this has been hard, letting go of cancer and being sick. I wish I could tell her how brave and patient and loving Bill has been. I wish I could tell her about the Woman's Bible Study group in our home and the amount of spiritual growth I've gone through in the last year. I wish I could hear the excitement in her voice and the encouragement that she knew I could do this. I even wish I could hear her to tell me to stop crying.
I started a journal a few days after she passed away and I wanted to write little things I would tell her about that day. The journal went on for a little while and soon dropped off. I wish I would've picked it back up, but in a way I don't think I was meant to at that time. Maybe someday soon. For now I have my Bible study journals, my personal journal and this blog that I hope is helping someone else.
There is such a great release in sharing, I know that I am in for a great adventure and I look forward to it. I look forward to telling all of you, my ups and downs/ ins and outs of surviving not just cancer, but of surviving LIFE. I choose today to LIVE, LIFE, FULLY and ALIVE. Breathing in air, seeing beauty in eyes of children, wind blown leaves and in a hot dinner.
Life after cancer says you can't have those things, you aren't worth it, it's not worth it, it's too hard to get up...
Life after _________________ says you can't have those things, etc. etc. BUT you can! YOU can go through something crappy and you can be blessed with good things, choose. CHOOSE to have joy and life and peace. We will choose this together. I'm still here. (Just a little happier now!)
Love you, Love Me, Love you, love me
Friday, September 8, 2017
5.30.17 In Some Ways
In some ways life is more challenging now that the cancer is gone. I don't have that crutch, I don't get to see/ feel/ hear "Oh, that's too bad, here is a free pass". Now I have to push through the crap that gets thrown my way. I have to FEEL. Before, during the diagnosis, I could just say, "Oh, I'm going through cancer, my fight is cancer, pass on feeling bad or angry or anything negitive". Not so now. Now I have to re-learn how to feel crap, acknowledge crap, shovel through crap. (I hope my crap helps fertilize someone else's garden.)
So today. Today my feelings are failure, feeling overwhelmed, feeling tired. I have a new venture these days and these plans I have don't seem to be working out like I would like them to. Thus: failure throughts/ feelings. Overwhelmed because I take this all on and it's all-or-nothing in THE WAY I PLANNED IT TO WORK OUT. Thus: feelings of being overwhelmed. Feeling tired, because I see myself working this treadmill and IT'S NOT WORKING THE WAY I PLANNED.
So, I have learned in life, this... Have a feeling, acknowledge it, and move through it.
For moving through these thoughts, I notice they are each a cycle...feeling/ thought-> emotion-> feeling/ thought. But what if I was to give up what I thought was the RIGHT way? What if I was to give up control of how I think it's to go. What if I was to NOT rely on thoughts or feelings? Then I wouldn't have the emotion which would feed back into the feeling/ emotion.
I know this can all sound super weird, but I'm figuring this out, just in a blog and not in a group therapy session or my own journal. Plus I would rather move through this process then have to be stuck in a wheel of foreverness...
So today. Today my feelings are failure, feeling overwhelmed, feeling tired. I have a new venture these days and these plans I have don't seem to be working out like I would like them to. Thus: failure throughts/ feelings. Overwhelmed because I take this all on and it's all-or-nothing in THE WAY I PLANNED IT TO WORK OUT. Thus: feelings of being overwhelmed. Feeling tired, because I see myself working this treadmill and IT'S NOT WORKING THE WAY I PLANNED.
So, I have learned in life, this... Have a feeling, acknowledge it, and move through it.
For moving through these thoughts, I notice they are each a cycle...feeling/ thought-> emotion-> feeling/ thought. But what if I was to give up what I thought was the RIGHT way? What if I was to give up control of how I think it's to go. What if I was to NOT rely on thoughts or feelings? Then I wouldn't have the emotion which would feed back into the feeling/ emotion.
I know this can all sound super weird, but I'm figuring this out, just in a blog and not in a group therapy session or my own journal. Plus I would rather move through this process then have to be stuck in a wheel of foreverness...
Thursday, April 20, 2017
4.20.17 After all this time
So after all this time, it's a scary feeling, tying words out into the universe and not knowing where they are going, who is going to read, how these words will be perceived. I worry lately that this blog has become a failure of sorts. I don't invest nearly as much time into it as I once did, probably because I don't have the time I once did. I think it's a failure for lack of comments, responses it receives, but it could be that there just ARE no responses for something that needs to be thought upon. Processed. I feel it's a failure because it's not. I can look back on this and see how far I' have come. Mentally, Emotionally, Spiritually. The growth I've taken and have yet to take.
I see now how hard I can be on myself. Over-thinking. Instead of letting the words go and releasing them, I over analyze them and check and check and check. But they are thoughts, meant to be released.
So, I am ready. I am ready to type- ready to release my thoughts and feelings. I HAVE to, they may be helping someone. Someone may read them and think, "Good, I'm not alone".
My latest challenges, and yes, after almost 6 years from my diagnosis (tomorrow marks 6 years from the first call), I still have challenges relating to that diagnosis. The first challenge is that I own the diagnosis. I think I had something do to with it, I may have somehow caused it, or I didn't DO something that caused this. I somehow brought this upon myself. For some of you this may sound foreign. But think about it, how often has life brought to us a challenge and we wonder what did I do to deserve this or what DIDN'T I do. Could I have lived life a little differently to get a different outcome?
Early in my diagnosis, I refused to allow this thought to come in. It was considered a negative thought and negative thinking brings negative results. I wouldn't allow these type of questions to cross my mind, I couldn't, they made me sick. I simply said, "It is what it is". So why is now different? I guess because I am ready to let go of the diagnosis. I am ready to let it be in my past. I am tired of living like, "Oh, I had cancer". "Oh, I'm a cancer survivor". Yes, I earned those scars, but it's not who I am today. That diagnosis, the cancer brought me where I am today and molded a part of me, but I am not a victim anymore. I'm not a "give-me-whatever-I-want-whatever-I-deserve-because-I-went-through-this" person anymore. I can also see how this past year God has been moving me to this stronger place. I was called a victim (I needed to be), I fought blogging (I am ready to do this cancer-free) and I am going through things now that seem WAY harder than breast cancer. Crazy thought I know, harder than cancer??? You'd be surprised.
Another challenge all this time later is that I am angry, angry that I had cancer, angry that it took 5 years of my life. Took 5 years of me being a parent, a wife, a contributing member of society. OR so I have BELIEVED. Yeah, it was 5 years, 5 years of life, but to think of the friends, LIFELONG friends I have met. To stop and think of those people I was able to stop and give encouragement to in the infusion room. I was able to talk with cancer patients, family members of cancer patients, nurses and doctors. I was able to show them that there is HOPE. That there is life beyond that call, beyond that diagnosis, beyond STAGE 4. There is life beyond radiation burns and chemo throwing up and the thoughts of "Am I going to die?". There is LIFE, laying in bed day after day. There is LIFE listening to your family in the other room. THERE IS LIFE, with every heart beat, just LIVE for this 1 moment. You can make it through this next moment.
I am ready. I am ready to see where GOD is going to take me next. I am ready to see what is in store next. I am ready to believe that there are bigger things in store for me than just being a cancer survivor.
Hey what can I say, I am a "Go get it, go get it ALL kinda girl".
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, Ephesians 3:20
I see now how hard I can be on myself. Over-thinking. Instead of letting the words go and releasing them, I over analyze them and check and check and check. But they are thoughts, meant to be released.
So, I am ready. I am ready to type- ready to release my thoughts and feelings. I HAVE to, they may be helping someone. Someone may read them and think, "Good, I'm not alone".
My latest challenges, and yes, after almost 6 years from my diagnosis (tomorrow marks 6 years from the first call), I still have challenges relating to that diagnosis. The first challenge is that I own the diagnosis. I think I had something do to with it, I may have somehow caused it, or I didn't DO something that caused this. I somehow brought this upon myself. For some of you this may sound foreign. But think about it, how often has life brought to us a challenge and we wonder what did I do to deserve this or what DIDN'T I do. Could I have lived life a little differently to get a different outcome?
Early in my diagnosis, I refused to allow this thought to come in. It was considered a negative thought and negative thinking brings negative results. I wouldn't allow these type of questions to cross my mind, I couldn't, they made me sick. I simply said, "It is what it is". So why is now different? I guess because I am ready to let go of the diagnosis. I am ready to let it be in my past. I am tired of living like, "Oh, I had cancer". "Oh, I'm a cancer survivor". Yes, I earned those scars, but it's not who I am today. That diagnosis, the cancer brought me where I am today and molded a part of me, but I am not a victim anymore. I'm not a "give-me-whatever-I-want-whatever-I-deserve-because-I-went-through-this" person anymore. I can also see how this past year God has been moving me to this stronger place. I was called a victim (I needed to be), I fought blogging (I am ready to do this cancer-free) and I am going through things now that seem WAY harder than breast cancer. Crazy thought I know, harder than cancer??? You'd be surprised.
Another challenge all this time later is that I am angry, angry that I had cancer, angry that it took 5 years of my life. Took 5 years of me being a parent, a wife, a contributing member of society. OR so I have BELIEVED. Yeah, it was 5 years, 5 years of life, but to think of the friends, LIFELONG friends I have met. To stop and think of those people I was able to stop and give encouragement to in the infusion room. I was able to talk with cancer patients, family members of cancer patients, nurses and doctors. I was able to show them that there is HOPE. That there is life beyond that call, beyond that diagnosis, beyond STAGE 4. There is life beyond radiation burns and chemo throwing up and the thoughts of "Am I going to die?". There is LIFE, laying in bed day after day. There is LIFE listening to your family in the other room. THERE IS LIFE, with every heart beat, just LIVE for this 1 moment. You can make it through this next moment.
I am ready. I am ready to see where GOD is going to take me next. I am ready to see what is in store next. I am ready to believe that there are bigger things in store for me than just being a cancer survivor.
Hey what can I say, I am a "Go get it, go get it ALL kinda girl".
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, Ephesians 3:20
So after all this time, I'm ready to let go anddddd....I'm pretty amazed that all that was in me, and to think, I was ready to skip blogging today to veg out on facebook... NOT TODAY FACEBOOK. NOT TODAY.
Love you, love me, love you, love me!
Saturday, February 25, 2017
2.25.17 100 Years
Wow! The last couple of posts were doozies! It' late tonight and I am tired, but I have thoughts and it's time to break my streak with no posts. No posts on this blog are a good thing. It means, I'm not being so hard on myself, I'm overcoming challenging obstacles. Lately realizing all of the co-dependency issues I have overcome. I'm choosing not to see myself as so weak. It's really not a good look on me. I am choosing to see my strengths and let a lot of stuff go. It's a short life, in retrospect... Which brings me to this.
I've been on you tube for the last couple of hours... sucked into watching videos. And I realize tonight was a night for Alternative music. Up until now, I haven't said aloud that I like Alternative music, but as I look back on music I like, I am drawn to sappy, sad songs. They may bring into light this side of me that I haven't been open to embracing, but tonight... The Cranberries, Lisa Loeb, Natalie Imbrulia, Train, Three Doors Down, Goo Goo Dolls, The Calling. I know some of these maybe up for debate, but in my mind, "Alternative".
As time passes by and my Survivorship grows stronger, as I grow stronger, I see that time is short, life is short, embrace every part of yourself. Embrace the mistakes, faults, failures, because you learn from them,you get to see your strengths and the reality is you only have 100 years (Five For Fighting).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR-qQcNT_fY
Love you, love me, love you, love me...
I've been on you tube for the last couple of hours... sucked into watching videos. And I realize tonight was a night for Alternative music. Up until now, I haven't said aloud that I like Alternative music, but as I look back on music I like, I am drawn to sappy, sad songs. They may bring into light this side of me that I haven't been open to embracing, but tonight... The Cranberries, Lisa Loeb, Natalie Imbrulia, Train, Three Doors Down, Goo Goo Dolls, The Calling. I know some of these maybe up for debate, but in my mind, "Alternative".
As time passes by and my Survivorship grows stronger, as I grow stronger, I see that time is short, life is short, embrace every part of yourself. Embrace the mistakes, faults, failures, because you learn from them,you get to see your strengths and the reality is you only have 100 years (Five For Fighting).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR-qQcNT_fY
Love you, love me, love you, love me...
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