Let's talk. 2008 was the year I wanted to see come to an end, that was until 2009. I called this blog "Live, Laugh, Love" because I always want to be reminded of the positive - things you can forget during cancer treatment, but also things you can discover. I have things I want to say but I wasn't sure how - let's talk here, maybe you'll see this blog, maybe you won't but it's here all the same.
I have so much I want to do now that the most extensive part of cancer treatment is over. What do I want to be now - back to "normal", do I want to change normal? A wise artist friend told me after I unveiled some watercolors I had dreamed about painting, then actually had the energy to paint, that they were my best watercolors ever because I had learned "patience". When confronted with that statement I realized that perhaps I had, not because I learned it, but because I had to accept a patient way of life (oh, the bad pun, but it applies). I don't make nearly as many lists as I did - I used to frantically list everything, haveing several at a time was the only way I could order my days. I do not do that any more because unchecked items/items still staring at me with their little clocks ticking away reminding me of the undone/ urging me to multi-task as the only way to get it all done (then start another list to fill the void) are too loud. I crave silence and time to sit and feel. Loss of Hair, that big "C" side-effect that makes you instantly recognizable as sick also teaches patience -or perhaps resignation. It is inevitable, requiring accoutrement of wigs, hair spray, sleeping caps, hats in all weather and, for me, avoiding all reflective surfaces. You have to sit through the kind, sympathetic, fearful (please God never me), knowing, "what does she have", "something is off", should I offer her my seat, "God Bless Her" looks when all you want to do is buy your groceries and get out of the line of sight of the teenaged cashiers/ baggers who, you can just hear your own teenaged mind saying, would rather not be confronted by your disease. LoH also teaches you that what you thought was always your best feature, that the fact you would never leave the house without your bangs perfectly in place because your forehead was too big or your eyebrows too low, whichever, really only matters to your current version of yourself - this new version is just glad not to have to wear the wig to go outside. Is that patience?
