Today's Lesson

Never take for granted a single day that you are free to walk around without an IV.
Or a day you are not forced to stay in the hospital. It is so easy to forget, isn't it? And yet the average person is so very lucky.

And now, Little Miss Sunshine

If I sit here long enough, I know that everything is going to be okay. It always is. And when I'm still enough to listen to the part of me that knows that, I can kinda glimpse me in the future, already through all of this, already okay.

Just seems like this week, all those things I use to help me get to that little place: boxing, dancing, playing guitar, drawing, sleeping, reading- I was either too busy to get to do them, or by the time I got to them it was just too late. Or maybe it wasn't too late, but things kept getting in the way. Conversation. Thoughts that didn't need to be there. Seems like even in those activities that get me away from every thing for a while, my restless mind won't let me be free. Not even for 45 minutes. That's not true, actually. I mean, I get away, I find the quiet spot. But it is just so much harder to get there, and even harder to stay there.
So I'm daydreaming now of vacation. Someplace warm and sunny. I turn off my phone, not read my email, not be constantly reminded of work and the TAKS test and stress and everything else. I go someplace where no one knows me and no one will try to make me talk about it. I'm somewhere alone where I can just sit in silence for 14 days. That would be heaven.
Even if this daydream is only 5 minutes, it, plus LOL cats and a delicious Hostess cupcake are getting me through today.

And probably tomorrow.

-MM

If you're taking requests

So you know about my support group. You know that there are 6 or so of us, and that we are very close. We're from all walks of life, with ages spanning from fairly young to much older, and our incomes and lifestyles are even more diverse. And you know that they are what got me through the worst times of cancer, that they are the reason I can look at cancer without bitterness and regret. You know that most of what I learned from cancer, I learned with their help

What you don't know is that in the last few months, 2 girls in my group have been diagnosed again. One has had a recurrence of non-hodgkins lymphoma, and is trying another chemo regimen in order to be considered for a stem-cell transplant. Another has been diagnosed with a new cancer, if you can believe that.

And, of course, it's hard. It's way hard. I'm sure it's not actually so, but it might even be harder to be the one on the sidelines, having been through my own experience. Though these girls make it look easy. They accept their emotions, whatever they are, without shame and without trying to hide them. They express their emotions, even anger and fear, with grace and with peace. They amaze me. They make me pray for the kind of wisdom and acceptance that I see in them.

Please keep my friends in your thoughts and prayers. When you have a second during the day, send them some positive thoughts. I believe in that sort of thing, I believe that it makes a difference in the journey, if not the outcome. But please, God, make the outcome good.

Thanks,

MM