Tuesday, April 11, 2017

The rubber band

New pages



     We all know that life's journey is fraught with peaks and valleys. Ebbs and flows. Defeats and triumphs.  I believe our character and fiber are defined on how we respond to these moments in time. I try not to spend much time in backward reflection of my life other than to not have to repeat lessons already learned. This past year, although a beautiful year of living and experiencing, has been a year fraught with challenges on a very personal level.

     I am now an elder in my family. Not quite a half a century old yet. I am now the eldest generation alive.  All of my familial elders have passed. Good friends, teammates, and classmates are now making their journey to their eternal resting grounds. This past year I lost my biggest fan, confidante, and pillar, my Mom.  Thank God for the life I have create and the love and ties around me. If not for that, I would be fully untethered.  

    Painstakingly, in the past few years I have jumped up and down on the scales of 'life balance' to see if I could regain a personal life in harmony.  I over poured my heart and soul into a professional life that was all consuming. (I still believed in it passionately) I did so extensively, moving toward an end of an empty or dwindling cistern of a being. Boundaries!!!  Balance!!! I proclaimed as a personal battle cry to the world.


     In making boundaries, I found personal happiness and fulfillment.  It was the undoing of so many personal 'friendships'. Some of which were a scrape across the pericardium of my heart. Since then readily scarred in and healed over. I was so much like my canine companions - Labrador-ish- in my unconditional essence. Very much like my artist Italian mother. Free and unconditional with no boundaries. Now, I have found balance.  Fairness of balance.  I have surrounded myself with people who would do for me, as I would do for them. Now I am more like a bordercollie. More discerning, but happy and passionate for the things that sing to my authenticity.

     Pink. If you've known me for more than a minute you will know it has been my all time least favorite color.  I've been told I look good in it. But it has never been a color that I have acknowledged or embraced.  I live in a gambling state. I do not gamble. Always believed that there are two types of gamblers, losers and liars. The odds are either one-in-eight or one-in-six depending on who you talk to, anyway I was lucky enough to land the diagnosis of breast cancer. There I said it. And pink is my new color. 

     I have gone through the rubber band pull back and forth these last few months. Physical pulling against emotional. It has been a whirling ride. I will conquer it. I am lucky. Not unscathed. However, I believe I will emerge on the other side a better human being. I was born with an existential crisis I have been fighting my entire life. This helps to put things into perspective for sure.

     I had looked forward to this year. I wanted to do something epic before I rolled into the next decade.  Run a marathon.  Maybe a half marathon, for the love of Pete, I am a sprinter by nature.  I had lost my sense of vision, basking in the 'stay in the moment' reality. There's a balance in this as well. Where I stand today I can see the end of the surgery - therapy, of traditional human medicine. This year, I have a new set of pages ahead of me. Pages that I am writing. What I have kept in my side pocket is the long history in my family of cowgirls and cowboys. I will ride this storm out with my chin up and my heals down.  Probably wearing a dash of pink.






1 comment:

  1. I'm so glad to read you again, friend! "I was born with an existential crisis" I'm thinking most of us find truth in those words if we are willing to really do the inside work! Your "stay in the moment" challenges me to see there is balance to moment and future vision. Seize the day, girl.....I'll be watching you for your EPIC transition into my decade!

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