Good, Kind, No

This is a a fitting picture for today. It reads like a soap opera to tell the tale but the short story is that we let an old friend and his new girlfriend stay overnight.  They were moving back to our community from afar. Met online a few months ago. Had been together for the few weeks that it took them to reach our house. At supper that night my spidy senses went berserk.  Too many bits of her story didn't add up.

I ended up telling them after one night they couldn't stay at our house. That was hard to do. I had one of my kids come and change the lock codes on our doors as a precaution. I felt like I was being a bitch. A tape runs in my head that says Christians don't turn anyone away.

A few days later she took off with his car, identification and money without warning. We were out of town and when we got home he called from a homeless shelter where he'd been for several nights. I told Dearest One to go get him. He went to the police. Pressed charges. Cops asked him if he'd learned anything. Said he probably wasn't her first victim. Our friend looked broken and haggard and in need of mercy. (Aren't we all?)We tell him he can stay until he gets on his feet.

Fast forward a week or so. Dearest One sees her with the car and calls the cops. Turns out our friend and her are back together. He wants to see if he still has feelings for her. (insert sound of my head banging on the desk.) He gets his belongings and identification back. The money is gone though. Yesterday she sends desperate plea to Dearest One wanting to stay at our house again because she is sleeping in a car and has no food. We couldn't do it. We couldn't let her back in our house.

And I felt guilty for saying no. "Jesus where are you in her," I asked myself. She says she knows you. I would hate for people to judge me, by my at times awful behaviour, as I did the healing inner work through the years since becoming a Christian. I am a super slow learner. Hindsight is 20/20.

I've been trying to find some compassion. I've only been able to find a smidgen of it. I can't seem to find any mercy. I know people (both of them) only do these things out of desperation. I've done some stupid ass shit in my day. (like the time I went to a stranger's house and he locked the bedroom door by placing a butcher knife high up where I couldn't reach it between the door and its trim. Lots of people don't survive that shit.)

My sponsor yesterday gently said we were not responsible for fixing this woman's situation.

I just needed to hear someone say it.

Lord have mercy because I can't seem to find any.

Still Here

I know there are a few people who still come and check to see if I have written anything new. I am still here. Which is in itself, a gift. My cancer diagnosis back in 2012 continues to remind me what a gift it is to be alive.

Health issues are cropping up again but hopefully they won't be serious. Funny how that is. Looking at the prospect of being on oxygen for night doesn't seem like that big of deal compared with the possibility of my cancer coming back.

Two women who were my biggest and most honest support during my breast cancer journey have both passed away from metastatic breast cancer. That is the only kind of breast cancer that kills. Early diagnosis is no guarantee against it, either. I could write much more but suffice to say look at this site for more information on that. I feel I owe it to the women who have died to educate people about this. It could be me one day.

The biggest joy in my life at the moment is my marriage which is a long, unbloggable story of it nearly not being intact just 9 months ago. I give God the glory for the healing and depth of relationship we enjoy today. I don't use the word lightly but it feels like a miracle. One priest I went to for Reconciliation during the wretchedness of it and then later went back to so I could share what happened told me I'd experienced Easter early this year.

That journey taught me that there is no time limit to the healing that can (and in my case, needed to) happen. I waited 35 years for that healing. My spouse waited 35 years for it to happen. He'd already found a place to live when it happened. The healing went so deep that I believe it happened on a cellular level. There is no other explanation for my long held coping mechanisms dissolving, in an instant, like a vapor. "God doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves."

The other huge joy is being a grandma. That is a delight nearly beyond words. Who knew I was capable of such love?

Life is good.

Beloved

Several weeks ago I walked into a tattoo shop, hardcore rapper music playing loudly in the background, and had a brief conversation with the tattoo artist who, yesterday, put the above tattoo on my wrist for me. As we talked at that initial meeting he seemed to be trying really hard to connect with us. The conversation seemed a bit stilted  and I wondered if we were not his typical clientele and if he was feeling a bit rattled. As we talked every single preconceived idea I had about tattoo shops was shouting in my head.

I liked that he maintained eye contact as I was trying really hard to read what was in his eyes. In the vein of trying to make conversation I asked if he had ever done any tattoos on mastectomy scars. I think his ears heard me say vasectomy scars by mistake. Oh, ouch. No. Never. He didn't say that but when he asked me to repeat my question my hand went to the empty side of my chest and he understood instantly. No, he hadn't ever but he was all about doing whatever people needed in order to feel beautiful about themselves.

Beautiful about themselves. I've worked so hard on feeling beautiful about myself and when his words pierced a deep wound I wasn't even aware was there, tears sprang instantly to my eyes. His eyes immediately softened and I was able to see such a depth of kindness there. Dearest One kept talking with him while I left the shop and stood and sobbed on the sidewalk.

Yesterday I walked into the shop and the music was truly awful. Long time readers know I have my very own potty mouth but there was something jarring about f bombs and other indelicacies being shouted out in time to a very heavy beat. I did some deep breathing, some praying, anything to distract me from being bombarded with the noise. At the same time, because I believe that art, all art, speaks truth to us, I respect people's rights to express that in whatever way speaks to them.

I wondered if the tattoo artist would remember our conversation about mastectomy scars. Well, what I really wondered was whether he would remember my reaction to that conversation. He did. He told me he was honoured that I would consider having him do such a tatoo.

The whole appointment to get my tattoo lasted about 30 minutes. We had the nicest conversation that included how he has a tattoo of his mother's name on his own wrist as a reminder to make his mother feel proud of him by his actions and morals. He's a loving father of a little girl and the best part of his day so far had been spending time with her.

It's such a gift in this world when our preconceived ideas get shot full of holes.

Kindness often springs up in the unlikeliest places.

Sitting Right In The Ashes

I had to put my blog to private because my anonymity was breached. Enough time has passed that I felt I could change the settings back. I hope this is a sound move.

I've had a good, full-of-people summer. Grandchildren, children, parents, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and long time friends in face to face communion. However, after three weeks of not a lick of solitude, I felt relieved to go on a week long silent retreat.

The first night is a communal supper where you can talk all you want, ahead of being assigned to a spiritual director. At supper I sat at the same table as a woman who radiated a warmth that was both solid and real. She also had a sparkle in her eye. I prayed she would be my spiritual director and then let go of that desire many times in the space of the next hour. After all, there were many spiritual directors to be had. But darn, I really wanted it to be her.

And it was.

The week that followed was a gift that comes from the blend of grace and hard work. Do those two words even belong in the same sentence? I don't know. My spiritual director has spent much of her life working with people in recovery. She was such a delight.

I like to complicate things, any thing, even a silent retreat, and had forgotten that it is enough to simply show up.

During the retreat I let go of trying to connect dots, even the dots of my journal ramblings and let them speak for themselves, without needing to come to a single conclusion. My spiritual director was content to let them be as well. It is a mystery how growth can come out of this. Not one tidy package to be had. Imagine that. And yet I feel changed.

Here is a quote from my journal which spoke to me during that time:

"The poor ego is always looking for an easy way out. Deep in the wintry parts of our minds, we are hardy stock and know there is no such thing as a work free transformation. We know that we will have to burnt to the ground in one way or another, and then sit right in the ashes of who we once thought we were and go on from there. But another side of our natures, a part more desirous of languor, hopes it won't be so, hopes the hard work can cease so slumber can resume." ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes in Women Who Run With The Wolves

Songs came unbidden to mind the whole week. I trusted that they came from somewhere beyond me.  I was surprised with where they took me and how songs from decades ago could filter in and impact me.

Most days I went for a long walk that took me from countryside to city and then ended up at a creek on a mostly abandoned road.  There I dangled my legs over the side of the bridge while I sat and watched the water converge as if every drop of water was fighting it out for first place.

One night we had a communal penitential service followed by private confession. As we entered the chapel there was a basket of rocks with a sign asking us to pick one. The chapel lights were dimmed so I couldn't do my usual looking-through-the-whole-basket to find the perfect rock ritual. No, I picked up the first one my fingers found. As I sat waiting for the service to begin the rock felt heavy in my hand. My fingers searched its surface like they were reading braille when they found a ridge that ran through the middle of it and I smiled to myself at its appearance.

During the service we were invited to either place the rock in a basket at the altar afterwards, symbolizing a letting go of all that weighed us down, or to go out in nature do so there. Throwing mine into the creek, where it would take years of water coursing over it to smooth out that ridge, felt like the perfect place to let go of all that had surfaced for me during the week.

Too Soon Too Late

Against my better judgement today I made homemade french fries. I've been sick with the flu and haven't been able to eat a full meal since late last week. I ventured to work this morning after the holiday weekend and was home again by lunch time. Too soon to venture out. Too soon to be fed. Too soon.

Dearest One was home so we sat and visited with one another before he decided he better go to the office for a bit. As he was getting ready to leave I looked at him and said, "Guess what I'm craving?" He joked about all sorts of foods he had been teasing me about eating earlier - foods that made me look for a container to throw up in - visions of canned spaghettios not one bit appetizing. (It's okay - he has a warped sense of humour and after 30+ years I've learned to laugh, too.)

I was craving homemade french fries. Even when I'm well they sit in my stomach afterwards like a lead balloon. A delicious lead balloon. However......

all my growing up years when one of us kids was sick my mom made us homemade french fries. It was our very favourite food - so favourite that in good times she stood at the stove for a very long time making them - giving us each a turn to have first dibs taking the biggest helping that came out of the fryer. When we were sick she just wanted us to feel better, tempting us with our favourite food in hopes that she could breathe a sigh of relief that we were truly on the mend. I don't recall that any of us ever regretted eating homemade french fries when we were sick. When we were faking we were sick she never cooked them(!)

Food has always been my mom's love language. She and her idetnical twin sister would sit on the phone, even though they lived just a few miles apart and watch cooking shows together, oohing and ahing over both what the chefs were cooking and what they were cooking food in.

Both of them had been drooling over this special cooking pan that all the food show chefs were using. They were hard to find and expensive. I finally found one for my mom for her 75th birthday and all us kids chipped in to buy it for her. She raved about how delicious the french fries were when cooked in her new pan. No need to cook them twice like she taught me growing up. They browned so nicely the first time around.

I always regretted not buying her sister one at the same time. But eventually I found another one and my mom told me she'd pay for it and give it to her sister as a surprise. I brought it home a few months later and my mom ,who doesn't have a much more than lick of spontaneity in her, was so excited to surprise her sister that we made an impromptu trip down the road.

When my aunt unwrapped the pan she looked at my mom and cried. She turned and hugged me. It was Christmas in the middle of summer. My aunt was in too much pain to be able to lift the (heavy) pan to the stove. Just a few days later her husband passed away unexpectedly. A month later she was diagnosed with bone cancer. A month after that she was gone. The pan never made it to her stove top.

Not long after the funeral one of my cousins brought the pan back to my mom and my mom told me she was setting it aside for me. I'd been home most of the summer and wasn't expecting to be there again for a year. My mom eventually had to cover the pan with a tea towel because it hurt too much to look at it. This past Christmas we made a last minute trip home and it was one of the things I brought back with me.

This afternoon, as I sliced the potatoes and skipped soaking them in water to get out some starch, I felt a weird kind of comfort.  I thought of my mom and her sister as I watched the potatoes turn the shade of scrumptious brown my mom said they would. I sprinkled them with vinegar and coarse sea salt and devoured every last one.

Years ago, after I'd made french fries for supper, I phoned my mom later that evening only to find out she had made them, too. Now every time I make them I call her to see if she had them today or yesterday or was planning on having them tomorrow. Ninety-nine percent of the time we will have made them within a day of each other if not on the same day.

Tonight I will call her and ask her what she made for supper. If I can find the courage.

All is Well

That spot on my face was pre cancerous. I'm grateful it was so easy to fix. And I'm glad I went with my gut and asked for it to be removed. My doctor had said on a previous visit about it that it was just a patch of dry skin. 

All my other tests were good, too. I graduate now to yearly cancer checkups and I am very aware that not everyone makes it to this milestone. 

Spring appears to be coming early to our neck of the woods. The winter seemed much more bearable which I think was due to no longer having a one hundred mile daily commute. No worrying about road conditions, no getting up an hour earlier. That part of living in a city is quite wonderful.

Doing the Spiritual Exercises has brought me back to doing Centering Prayer. That is always a positive in my life. 

Like my mom said to me in our weekly phone chat yesterday - there's nothing much new to report. I think of my whole breast cancer journey and how I longed for regular life. I will take it.

Awful Shit and Grateful Milestones

Dearest One has spent the better part of all his free time these last two months at the bedside of a friend with terminal cancer. Yesterday this friend passed away. We feel both relieved and sad. He wanted so much to live and struggled mightily to do so. Two days ago I was sitting at his bedside so Dearest One could get some rest. There was a point while sitting with him, looking him in the eyes, his suffering so great that I thought to myself, "it's like looking into the face of Christ." Awful shit to witness, I can only imagine it's a thousand times worse to be the one actually going through it.

I had my last 6 month post cancer check up last week. Today I had a biopsy to rule out a spot of skin cancer on my face. Next week there is another test for other post cancer issues and the week after yet another. Having the doctor stop cold while doing the breast exam was a little disconcerting even though I knew the lump he was feeling was there. We are both quite sure it's a cyst but it will be good to have that hunch affirmed. I'm always a little puzzled when people say to me things like, "it's just one thing after another." I want to say, um - that's life - especially as we age. More deaths, more stuff, more. I have a quote by Richard Rohr that I like which says, "To accept reality is to forgive reality for being what it is." Does reality suck sometimes? It surely does.

In a few weeks I'm giving a talk to a group of university students about my journey through breast cancer. I shared that with my doctor and he said that the most memorable talks he remembered from his medical school days were the personal stories patients shared in lecture theatres. He asked how I felt about this being my last 6 month cancer check up. Was I scared? I told him I wasn't; that considering the people I knew who have died of cancer in the last 6 months I was grateful to reach this milestone because so many people don't get to and I named a friend that we both knew who died a few months ago.

I have signs hung on the wall on both sides of my computer screen. The one on the left says, "Be here now." The other one says, "Hello courage." Both needed to accept and forgive reality for being what it is. Lord have mercy.

Be Open To Seeing

"I don't think the way you think." ~ Isaiah 55:8a (The Message)

Can I please have some peace about this? ~ October 20th Ignatian Exercises journal entry.

Yesterday I spent the day sick in bed and read Kerry Egan's book Fumbling, an account of her journey walking the Camino de Santiago. The best books are ones that speak to our common humanity and I know I read to find myself in the pages of another`s story.

Those of you who have journeyed with me these past few years, through the suicides of friends as well as my breast cancer diagnosis and recovery know how shattered my faith has been. Deep, gut wrenching grief has darn near immobilized me at times. I have a print of an icon on my wall where I can see it as I type in which Archangel Raphael says "Take courage! God has healing in store for you." I keep it there to remind me that today is not the end of my story. Even if today was the end of my life, the healing would continue.

Towards the very end of this book Kerry Egan meets with a spiritual director who tells her that she herself tries to watch for the Spirit in her life - to see how God works. She says she tries to pay attention to it. This baffles Kerry and she asks how do you know it's the Holy Spirit. Her spiritual director says, "Well, I guess what other people call coincidence, I would call the Holy Spirit."

Kerry had bumped into three people in one afternoon who directed her to this woman for help with her spiritual journey. In a matter of hours the first person suggested her, the second person knew of her, and the third person worked with her and gave her the phone number.

You know how I feel about connecting the dots like that. It's about made me puke at times. Kerry herself questions this, too and her spiritual director says, "You'll just have to start paying attention for yourself. Just see what you see, and let yourself be open to seeing."

I read that line and thought to myself, 'Okay I think I can do that. I can let myself be open to seeing.' It felt like a small step towards God. Towards considering that I can trust in the unknowingness of life and perhaps even trust God again.

And then Kerry Egan goes on to talk about her problems with grief and her problems with God. Although our grief comes from different places there I am smack dab in the middle of her story so clearly that it leaves me sobbing:

"If prayer is the attempt to understand God, then grieving is the deepest form of prayer, rising from the body and soul and mind, asking God and really and truly wanting to know, no matter what the answer: Who are you? Why did you create a world with pain? Why is life this way? What are you? Because you are not what I thought you were. (emphasis mine)
Grieving, at its deepest level, is to acknowledge that creation can be cruel and that people suffer. To look at this truth, to allow yourself to feel it, you are forced to consider the nature of this world and this existence. you ask how this can be and who set this up and why this happens. To grieve is to ask God the hardest questions. To grieve is to ask who God really is. It's to change your perspective on all other human beings and their relationships to one another and to you and your place in this world. To grieve is to start over, to be re-created. (emphasis mine)...... 

Why suffering? Why grief? And why grief and God?
I don't know. I'm not sure anyone does." ~ Kerry Egan, Fumbling

I read this and think to myself that I can see glimpses of being able to live with that. To find some peace about the unknowingness of who God is and how God works. To be okay with not having answers. It feels like seeing a faint light at the end of a very long and dark tunnel after repeatedly kicking the walls and telling people who are shining flashlights in your eyes that there is no fucking light, okay? Because in your blinding grief you couldn't see any.

At the end of this passage she quotes Isaiah 55: 8 and 9. The verses twig at my brain. Hadn't I just read those verses a few days ago. I pull out my journal and find  the quote I typed at the top of this post.

Okay, then.
I think I saw something.

Encaustic

Could the reader that sent me this encaustic please email me? In a flurry of emptying my inbox of emails I inadvertently deleted the one with your new email address.  Thank you.

Isn't this a lovely piece of art? It's titled Skinless Soul and is from a friend in honour of my breast cancer journey. I have it hanging where I can see it every day.

Naivete et al

So much going on. I keep thinking I need to send this person or that an email and fill them in but seem to have no energy to actually do it. I've felt that way for so long.

Lots of wonderfully good things. Like having our grandson for the night once a week every week. He's not quite walking yet and spending time with him is just plain fun. And hard work. His smile lights up my world. Rocking him to sleep is lovely.

Only daughter had her first baby just over a week ago. Wonderfully exciting. I spent the week with her and it was a privilege to care for her and to hold her daughter again and again and again.

I am keenly aware that were I not in recovery and had not continued to do the hard work of inner growth through the grace of God, that being invited into my adult children's lives and the lives of their children might never be. I was not the mother I wanted to be but by God I can be the grandmother I want to be. And I'm serious when I say, "by God." There is no other way. I know this. Not everyone in  recovery is this fortunate. I've heard people in meetings say so. Years of unpleasant behaviour held against them decades after they've changed. Lord have mercy.

This month is the month of anniversaries of cancer diagnosis and surgeries and life changing happenings. I read an article the other day that had a line in it that resonated - cancer took what was left of my naivete. Too true. In the vein of this being Breast Cancer Awareness month and you are bombarded with pink everything please keep in mind that the research dollars need to be going to finding a cure for metastatic breast cancer not for awareness. We are aware already. Statistics show that early detection does not save lives. Surprised by that? You can have grade 0 breast cancer and still experience metastases. Mine was grade 2, stage 2. It's going to hang over my head for the rest of my life. Here is a link that says it well.

Spiritually I've felt afloat for most of the past two years. This month I started the 19th Annotation - doing the spiritual exercises of Ignatius over the course of the next 8 months. In the short week since I've started I've come face to face with how deeply in need of grace I am. I'm horrified really. I mean who else reads Psalm 139 and writes in their journal in response 'utter bullshit." It bothered me that that was how I felt. I wanted to write something so much different than that. Thankfully a day later I returned to this psalm and felt more kindly to it. As if it would take much to feel that way! I have avoided personal scripture reading for the past few years - unable to get past pat answers that reverberate in my head when I read it. Since making this commitment to doing the exercises I have a feeling it's going to change me. I can avoid the hard conversations with God much more easily when I stay away from scripture. But scripture is living and breathing and I run smack into God when I spend time in it. Do I truly want change or do I want to pretend to change? I want change. I have to show up. It's going to happen.

Dearest One is facing potentially serious health issues. There's a part of me that says - now wouldn't that just be unfair - as if fairness was our birthright. Diagnostic tests this week should help pinpoint the problem. We are thankful for a family doctor who listens and takes action. Much better than the ER doctor who advised taking acetaminophen for pain - as opposed to our family doctor who ordered a stat CT scan to rule out a brain tumour. Huge difference, no? There are all kinds of worrisome symptoms. I keep reminding myself to stay in the day and not run towards tomorrow.

Work - what can I say? Days of an inner mantra "I will not quit my job." Then taking an opportunity to be gracious instead of vindictive to the one who causes me the most angst changed our relationship overnight. How bizarre it is. I don't like her any more than I did and certainly don't trust her any more than I did but things have changed and it continues to intrigue me.

Throwing Words and Things

Thirty three years ago today Dearest One asked me to marry him. We'd been together for a week, meeting face to face, after having started out as pen pals when I was a very young teenager. The odds were certainly against us. I give God the credit for us making it for the long haul. Had we not become people of faith our relationship would have crumbled long ago.

Because we spent such little time together before we married - after we got engaged he went back home across the country and I stayed put to finish college - he had no idea I might have a drinking problem. I didn't get drunk until 5 days after we married in a most embarrassing social situation for him which could've cost him his job and which resulted in a blackout for me.

In those early years of marriage and well, well into sobriety I didn't know how to communicate how I was feeling other than to throw words and things at him. He didn't know how to communicate his feelings other than to go silent and sometimes literally run the other way. At least once - no twice - it's a very good thing what I threw didn't hit him.

My sponsor and I are working through the steps. We're on step four -using the Al-Anon step four book. Something happened within me shortly after we began working the steps - a keen awareness and desire to be a better human being. A realization of things that both surprised and humbled me. A voice within that insistently said, "If you get nothing else right in this life - be kind to this man."

My summer was spent mostly away from home and after going on a silent retreat I met Dearest One in a campground for some 'us time'. I don't know if it was because I came from six days of silence or whether our prolonged absence from one another made my awareness keener but a few days into our camping trip I said to him, "You know what I've noticed? I'm hyper critical and super bossy of you." He told me that he had noticed it, too and that it wasn't much fun. I apologized and told him I was awareness and working on it. I felt no defensiveness about my actions - no need to justify a thing. He was matter of fact when he confirmed that my awareness of my actions was not my imagination.

Such a better way of communicating than throwing things and words. Thanks be to God.

While It Was Still Night

This was not the summer I thought I'd have.
I spent most of my time away from home due to multiple deaths in the family (plus a wedding.)
I spent more nights in my childhood bedroom in the past seven weeks than in my grown up one.
There was a week in there where I went on a silent retreat.
I went to it heavy hearted as a dear family member lay dying in a hospital in another province.
There were surprise breakthroughs during the retreat that I am grateful for.
If I'm hanging on to resentments I cannot find gratitude.
If I accept what is then it's easier to embrace what is in front of me rather than pine for what I'd hope would be.
Stuff I knew on a head level but were felt deep within the heart.

An unexpected comfort was this verse:

"While it was still night, way before dawn, he got up and went out to a secluded spot and prayed." - Mark 1:35

Huge gulping tears recognizing that even though within me it is still night, I don't have to wait for dawn in order to pray.

Protecting The Invisible

"You're favouring your right side like you're protecting it."

He stands in front of me and mimics my stance so I can see for myself. He drops his right shoulder and curves that side of his body inward. As he does this it looks like he's protecting something invisible, something stuck to the right side of his chest. I don't know what's going through his head as he stands there but there is lots going through mine. What the hell - I'm protecting a breast that doesn't exist anymore? And accordingly it's largely responsible for the debilitating back pain I've been experiencing.

Earlier in the week they'd ruled out breast cancer migrating to my bones being the cause of the pain. Huge relief. X rays showed severe narrowing of a disc in my back. I will take that over cancer any darn day of the week even though some mornings it's a challenge to figure out how to get out of bed without being in excruciating pain.

The good news is that this physiotherapist had lots of ideas as to how to correct tiny imbalances in my posture and gain some pain relief.

We tell the world so much without even saying a word.

Countless Layers

We are slowly settling into our new home in the city. It's so odd to look out windows and see houses and people instead of landscapes and endless skies. I've found two views out my windows where I only see trees and sky and finding those views is a relief.

At heart I don't think city living is for me but it doesn't mean I can't enjoy it. The biggest benefit is that I am no longer body weary; no longer waking up tired because of the daily 100 mile roundtrip commute we used to make. I am grateful for that as I didn't know that being rested was ever going to be mine again. Between that and seeing our grandson regularly - those things make city living worthwhile.

It is a stretch to go from living on 80+ acres to a little plot of land in the city. Once the leaves are out on the trees and we have more privacy in our backyard it will seem easier to enjoy the beautiful yard we do have.

I feel full of contradictions. Full of "yes, but". So few people can handle the contradictions - instead they remind me of only the good as if the the hard stuff, the adjustments, can be dismissed - unimportant to acknowledge. I know from past experience that I need to acknowledge all of it before I can gain perspective. Too many years of trying to bypass my honest feelings did not work out well in the end.

The move has shifted inner worlds for both of us in a way that is good in the long run but shitty in the moment. Redefining our relationship in groundbreaking ways. When I came out of treatment I was told that when one person gets emotionally healthy they call the other person in the relationship to emotional health. If that person doesn't heed the call the relationship crumbles. At that time Dearest One heeded the call and I will be forever grateful for that. Now he is growing in ways that are calling me to deeper emotional health. I'm scared of this, of not getting it right, and I welcome it at the same time.

Who knew there are countless layers to the onion we call relationship? Should be no surprise then that with it comes tears, too.

Minutiae

It is bitterly cold out there tonight. Close to -50C with wind chill factored in. Spring is such a hopeful time of year. Let's hope it starts showing signs of arrival soon.

We move to the big city in spring. I spent part of my day packing up my books in my office. I have given away hundreds of books over the years. Now I only keep those that really speak to me, those that I will pick up more than once to read. I have a stack of unread books that I have already pegged for reading next winter.

My grandbaby is wonderful. He has the most beautiful smile that lights up his whole face. Only daughter is expecting a baby later this year. Two grandbabies. Doubly blessed. I never knew I was capable of loving the way I love my grandchildren.

Some people have more than their share of sorrow. A young woman who lost her parents last Spring lost a baby this past week. Holding the tiny baby in my hands (it was that tiny) I just couldn't stop the tears. "this is too much sorrow, Lord. Too much."

The Gift Of Regular Life

Good things happening in my life tend to lend themselves to no blogging. I told my grief counselor the other day that this blog is where I process what's going on in my life, particularly, the tough stuff. At the moment there is no tough stuff. Lots of great stuff, though.

Although I haven't yet completed the blood work for my second 6 month post cancer check up, the appointment itself was uneventful. I've been saying little prayers of gratitude for this uneventful life as opposed to a year ago when I felt like I was drowning in the grieving process of losing my breast to cancer.  I remember so clearly, when I was in both physical and mental pain, that I longed for regular life.

I've become one of those grandparents who just can't help showing off pictures of said grandbaby ad nauseum to whoever will humour me. Lordy, he is the sweetest gift ever and his face lights up with smiles when I talk to him.

We have sold our farm and are moving to the city on Maundy Thursday. I have yet to start packing but have been buying new furniture which is both fun and yucky feeling at times. I am not used to spending money like this. We bought a new dining room table. Our old one we've had for 27 years. See, I am not used to buying furniture. I told my counselor that it is pushing every security button I have and he laughed quite loudly at that. "So you are in a period of growth, are you?" Why, yes I am.

I am a hoarder by nature. Not of stuff but of money. If I was the only one in this relationship I would balance my budget to the penny and hoard everything leftover and get my security from it. I know that about myself. Hoarding money is my tendency. There has been this conflict going on inside me about new furniture not meaning a thing in the end nor is a bank account of any merit, either. It is both unsettling and freeing to know that. My counselor did point out, (after I told him that if I had a recurrence of cancer that the new furniture wouldn't mean anything), that if I had a recurrence I would need a beautiful space to heal in. I had instant tears at that thought. How do other people reconcile this stuff? Jesus had no place to lay his head. I can feel a little haunted by that.

My oncologist called me last week. Just over a year ago I had a particular test that helped us rule out the need for chemotherapy. It is not covered by health care in this province and I was one of the fortunate ones who got the test for free (it comes with a $4000 price tag) while this doctor lobbied the government to start covering the cost. He is ready to start talking to the media about it and was looking for a patient to speak to them as well. He asked if I would like to be a part of that process. Why yes, I would.

So, as you can see, lots of things are going on and none of them are life threatening. I am grateful.

Not Whiny

One day this week I was asked to go for lunch  with a coworker to meet up with a former colleague.  I hemmed and hawed a while before deciding if I would go. I had been sitting at my desk eating my lunch when she approached me. She asked because this woman we would meet up with had recently been diagnosed with cancer. In the end I thought, yes - being a silent support would be good. As if I could ever keep quiet.

We chit chatted about work stuff for quite a while. Then I looked at her, seated directly across from me, and said, "How are you." She replied, "Today is a good day."  and gave a brief smile. Zing. Instant tears formed in my eyes. Whew. It's not all behind me. It being my own cancer journey. I was caught off guard by the tears. I sure didn't want to make it about me in that moment so I swallowed hard and made a mental note to think about those tears later.

She worried aloud that she was being whiny if she phoned the specialists to see when she could see them. She's had the diagnosis for several weeks. Her particular cancer does not have a good outcome. I told her to never apologize for being an advocate for her own health. Certainly the doctors do not have her on their radar screen unless she is directly in front of them. She made some phone calls after lunch and as a result got an appointment slot right away. This is not a time to worry about appearing nice and not whiny. Is it ever?

Today is my second of four scheduled post cancer check ups. They happen every six months. I told my doctor at my last one that I wouldn't see him until this appointment. It's the longest I've gone without seeing a doctor in years. I'm grateful for that. I do get a little twitchy waiting for these check ups to be behind me. A friend in the program, who has had cancer several times, told me that it would take at least a year to not worry that every pain I experienced was an indicator of a recurrence. I have two friends who are dealing with metastatic breast cancer. They are on my mind often. My grief counsellor told me that he bet I thought about having had breast cancer every single day. He was right.

Next month I will have the opportunity to speak to a group of health professionals in training about my breast cancer journey. There is a lot going through my mind as to what to share and what to keep close to my (one sided) chest.

Somewhere Beautiful

I belong to an online writing group that suggest  a new word every week to be the focus of a blog post. The first week went by with the word 'vulnerable' and the second arrived with the word 'waiting'. I've felt completely uninspired. Until this. It's the first time I've spoken about it on the blog. While it was happening I couldn't write about it. Last night I finally did. Dearest One read it this morning and gave his blessing for me to share it here.

"You called her babe!"
"Well you never like it when I call you that."

"You fucking, fucking asshole." The last is said in my head as my husband walks out of our bedroom. I resist the urge to throw things at his retreating backside. Instead I thrust my middle finger in the air, waving it up high as if to add an exclamation point. And then I dissolve in tears.

Earlier in the day I had noticed his work email open on his computer and because I have several friends in his all female work department I was curious as to whether any of them email him. My curiosity had been fun in intent as I loved these women and they loved me.

What jumped out at me from his inbox was not any email from a coworker. Instead it was an email with a subject line that read "Re: Good Morning Babe" from some woman in the UK whose name I didn't recognize. Mercifully, or not, I couldn't remember his email password so I couldn't open it.

All day long I waited for him to get home from work. The subject line answered so much. The reason for his increasing emotional distance. My puzzlement over our daughter mentioning to me that he was thinking of going to Britain this summer and how he hadn't mentioned it to me. I thought of the last time we had sex and how angry he seemed.

We went for a walk after supper and I casually asked him who she was. After the initial deer in the headlights look on his face he tried to back pedal out of the conversation. I kept him focused on the moment with an eerie calmness. This wasn't the first emotional affair he'd had but it was the most devastating. There was something about that word, 'babe' that made me feel like I was going to go bat shit crazy.

What ensued was a summer of pain and growth and grace. He moved out of the house and into our holiday trailer under the guise of not wanting to be in the same house as me. There is something about not being at home within oneself that ripples out towards others in often painful ways. While I wanted to instinctively protect myself and step away from him emotionally I felt a nudge within to step towards him in love. The big gulping sobs that rose when I surrendered to this nudge affirmed my course of action.

When he phoned our adult children to let them know he was thinking of leaving me I followed up with a phone call of my own to remind them that beneath the man whose actions were foreign right now, was a good man and no matter what happened, please don't forget this about their dad.

I reaffirmed to him aloud several times that he was a good man. He recoiled from my words with both anger and tears. What I was really telling him is that while he was being a shit head please don't lose sight of the abundance of goodness inherent within himself.

I'd only recently discovered this about myself. The years of self hatred had dissolved into a self acceptance that made it possible to face the worst demons within myself. The healing that had ensued was humbling. I felt like I had come home to myself at last. It's also what led Dearest One to tell me that he didn't know who I was any more and that's why he didn't think he could remain married to me. The irony of finally learning to love myself while being rejected by him cut deeply.

One day, in the blink of an eye, I still can't explain how it happened, the wall of protective emotional concrete that I had carried like a protective shield since I was a child, fell away and in its place was an openness that was fraught with fragile beauty. For years I had prayed that God would break down that wall whatever it took. I never dreamed my husband would be walking away from me when it happened. I was stunned to find myself capable not only of emotional intimacy, but craving it. I wanted to run after my husband and say, "it's not too late, look it finally happened!"  I thought of all the years he had craved a mutual emotional vulnerability, and how I had thrown it back in his face.

I spent the summer waiting for him to decide whether he was staying or going.

This many years later we refer to that summer as the summer from hell. The good man that he is eventually emerged from underneath a shit pile of anger, confusion and pain.

Last night we were lying in bed, he on his back and me on my stomach so that we were looking at each other. Talking in bed before we go to sleep is about my favourite thing in the world to do with him. It opens up the best conversations and often lots of laughter. Somewhere in the conversation he called me baby. I tell him I've given birth to babies and I am not his baby. I feel a ping in my heart as I think about the last time that word came up in our conversation. I know he doesn't even remember it from the summer  of hell.

It's why he can continue the conversation by telling me that baby or babe is a term of endearment.

I turn the phrase lightly over in my mind and tell him it just isn't me.

"Try it," he says, "Look at me and say, I love you, babe." His eyes, framed by the rainbow arches of his eyebrows, are full of merriment and radiating with love towards me.

I practice saying the phrase in my head and look at him waiting in anticipation. My hands fly up to my face as I realize to say it and  mean it is so full of vulnerability that my eyes well up with tears and I can't talk.

Finally I choke out how I can't get the words to come out of my mouth because I feel too vulnerable, that it really is a term of endearment. I had had no idea. He tells me I would never have discovered that had he not challenged me would I?  No, no I wouldn't I tell him. I ask him to give me some time to get used to the phrase. Saying it will be a gift of the highest kind, one he will treasure in his heart.

The word that drove me bat shit crazy is now an invitation to somewhere beautiful.

Belated Blog Anniversary

Last day of work today until after the New Year. I am looking forward to the break.

My mom is back in the hospital. Hopefully she will be coming home Saturday. I don't think she has ever been in an ambulance before. I hope she never needs one again.

Dear Sweet Boy aka my grandson continues to be such a healing presence in my life. I walked in the other day, bent down to say hello to him and he greeted me with the sweetest smile. Love him to bits.

Advent has been next to non existent for me. Poor weather has kept me home from Mass for weeks. On the radio today they said we've had the same amount of snowfall in the past month that we normally have for a 12 month period. No wonder I have had some cabin fever. The commute has been so stressful that one night we got a hotel room instead of driving home.

I missed my blog anniversary earlier in the month. Nine years ago this month I started tapping away on my keyboard on this site. What a lot of life has happened in that time!

Thanks for reading along - some of you have been with me the whole journey!

A Long Silence

My siblings and I have definitely entered the next stage of having ageing parents. My mom got both quite awful and quite splendid care in the hospital. ICU nurses rock. I shudder to think what happens to patients with no one to advocate for them. She is back in the hospital with complications - ones we're grateful did not kill her. The best thing health care professionals can do is listen. When that doesn't happen - stuff that lawsuits are made of happen. Except in this country one rarely sues health providers. DH is always saying if it happened more often we'd get better care. Lordy, we had to fight to get my mom what she needed.

My sister in law has made an incredible recovery so far. She went from being in organ failure to being able to sit up in a chair in the space of a week. She has a long road ahead of her and is still needing assistance to breathe but the fact that she is here is mind boggling. We are grateful.

The day the photo of me and my mastectomy scar went on social media was quite overwhelming. The response to it was unexpected. I was in tears a few times at some of the replies. It did seem to help someone out there and I ended up feeling less alone in the journey which was a bonus.

My brother is still recovering from his health scare. When I offered him the information that would prevent the complication from happening again he was none too open. A simple fix that prevents me from having that particular complication. When he declined it was a reminder for me not to get wound up about stuff I have no control over. Which is basically everything except my attitude. I need to remember that.

I'm headed back home for an extended stay to care for my parents. See you when I get back.

One Thing After Another After Another

It has been a week of highs and lows and at the moment there is no end in sight although life experience tells me that normal will return in time. It just feels like a lot at the moment. Maybe because it is a lot. I wish I could write all the details but I can't. Good old search engines make me cautious.

One of my siblings had an outpatient procedure this week and ended up going back to the hospital in the ambulance to spend a few days getting sorted out again.

The same day one of DH's siblings was in a serious accident in another country and is still there in a medically induced coma.

My mom is having open heart surgery this coming week. I will fly there to spend a good part of the week at home.

The photo shoot for the breast cancer awareness project was incredible. I have felt lighter inside ever since. The photographer managed to capture exactly what I was feeling. DD said the photo I chose to go on social media challenges the viewer to accept my reality and dares them to look away. If you'd like to see the photo and aren't on my FB page email me at asongnotscoredforbreathingATyahooDOTca and I will send it to you. I don't know if that's grandiose of me to think other people will want to see the photo or not. It was a big deal for me to go through with it.

Last night we put on a supper for friends and family to celebrate DD's recent wedding. I think the new grandbaby stole the show which is just what a baby should do - I think! My goodness people, he is absolutely adorable and I cannot get enough of him. Actually I told someone this week that spending time with him is healing something in me and I am loving every minute of it. It's much harder to find fault with the world with a baby in my arms.

We showed our home this week in the hopes of making a sale. Did you know you can stash piles of clothes in all kinds of places if you're desperate? We will find out in the next few days if our place is sold and we can make plans to move to the city.

Prayers for all of the above appreciated.

When You Want To Be A Cheerleader

A year ago today I was in my surgeon's office for a postoperative visit after having had a lumpectomy a week previously. The last thing he told me when he left my hospital room, in fact he stopped, turned and looked at me sideways and said, "the pathology report won't  be back when I see you next week." The report came back much sooner than he expected. A year ago today he told me I did indeed have cancer.

Thank you for reading along side me while I have muddled through this past year. I so wanted to be a rah-rah happy go lucky cancer survivor. I so wasn't. And still am not. A few months ago I did a silent retreat and the single thing I took away from it happened in the blink of an eye when I thought I heard these words" "Accept who you are, as you are, where you are."

I have been open for several months now for some kind of ritual, some kind of happening, to mark my cancer journey. This week an opportunity presented itself to me in the form of a local professional photographer who fund raises for breast cancer awareness yearly. He does a photo shoot of women with pink ribbons tastefully covering their bare chests and every woman donates money in exchange for the photographs. Some friends of mine had their photos taken last week and they are beautiful.

I contacted him and will be photographed before the first anniversary of my mastectomy which is coming up later this month. I asked him when he photographed a woman who had had a mastectomy if they ever left that side of their body bare of ribbon. You know the photos are nice of women with both breasts intact but it feels a bit like playing dress up. If you want breast cancer awareness let's get to the nitty gritty of its reality. He told me he had been waiting for a woman to be brave enough to let her mastectomy scar be photographed. I guess that would be me.

He plans of having my photos complete so they can be shared on his social media page on the one year anniversary of losing my breast. I have many feelings about doing this but mostly I feel empowered.

Joy Full

In the space of 48 and a few hours we celebrated the birth of our grandson, the wedding of our daughter and had a house deal done and then fall through. We have yet to see our grandson because we were on our way to the wedding (8 hours away from him) when he was born. In a few hours I will get to hold him and I am full to the brim with joy at the thought. I cannot wait to touch my nose to his head and breathe in his new baby smell.

The wedding was wonderful. My daughter, full of grace and beauty, is a testament to the grace of God. All my fuck ups in her growing up years were not the end of the story. We so need that reminder, don't we? She was the most beautiful bride. Wish I could show you photos. If you're friends with me on social media there is an album on my page with a sneak peek at them. When I was leaving the venue after the dance, I stopped to thank one of the servers for her work that night. She said they'd never had such a respectful, responsible family and she found it refreshing. In the space of a few minutes we talked about sobriety and found we had that in common. It's a small and beautiful world.

The house deal. Well, we loved the house. Could picture ourselves there, evenings spent in front of the fireplace in the cosy living room. We were holding the deal with open and light hands though, because it hinged on someone else getting financing to buy our place. They got cold feet last night at the thought of all that debt and backed out. It was a very young person and Dearest One encouraged him to listen to his heart. Despite our disappointment, at the end of the day it is what it is. I'm grateful to be able to feel my feelings without being devastated that what I'd hoped for didn't materialize.

This week will mark a year since my first surgery that ultimately ended in the cancer diagnosis. That I am here to witness all these great things is something I am grateful for.

Wrestling

Yesterday I spent part of my day getting some computer training with a head honcho kind of guy. A guy who told me, when I answered the phone at work last week, "It is so good to hear your voice." I hadn't spoken to him since before my cancer diagnosis. I don't know him well at all but he said it with a warmth and sincerity that touched me.

When we were done work for the day he asked me how my energy was holding up and I knew he was meaning in light of what this past year has held for me. So we talked.

At one point, after sharing about the mistake that saved my life,  he said to me, 'You are blessed. Someone was watching out for you." I looked away from him and nodded feebly. I wasn't ready to have a conversation about my difficulty in hearing things like that.

I feel like I do a disservice to those I know who've died from cancer by saying, "why yes, God was looking out for me." and I feel like I do a disservice to God by not proclaiming it. Blech.

There's that part of me that says if it's Truth [with a capital T] then it has to be true for everyone or else it's just empty words. It's what makes me grimace when people talk flippantly about God stuff and I cannot help but think whether their statement holds true in a third world country or a refugee camp. If it doesn't, then what?

I came home late last night after Dearest One was asleep. He woke as I crawled into bed to tell me that the woman who took me to my first AA meeting over 25 years ago had phoned while I was out. She had told him of the death of a mutual friend of ours. He was diagnosed earlier this year with cancer and was gone in four months. He and his wife are a bit older than us but we met when our kids were babies. I lay in bed last night and thought about how next week Dearest One will walk Only Daughter down the aisle. And between now and then he will most likely hold his first grandbaby in his arms. Outloud I said, "Our friend is never going to walk his daughter down the aisle. The sun rose and set on that girl."

I don't want to wrestle with this stuff anymore.

Bizarre Dreams

I've had a week of bizarre dreams. The kind where you wake up because it's so scary/horrible. Waking up is a relief because then you know the dream is just that, a dream.

One little sane bit of a bizarre dream last night that included hundreds of people parading through my house was a conversation I had with a woman who had been praying to be able to stop blaming other people for her issues. (love  recognize with some dismay how a person can be all the characters in the dream) I told her that an answer to prayer looked more like catching herself when she was doing it or recognizing she had done it again and then apologizing for doing it. Little steps. I told her that we often think the prayer is only answered if the problem goes away 100% but answered prayer can look much different than that. She cried with relief and her mascara ran down her cheeks as I sat there and wondered where the heck those words came that popped out of my mouth.

Flimsy

Yesterday I was getting a stack of papers ready to file when I realized that I no longer find my worth attached to how efficient, organized, or on being on top of it all I am. I asked myself, "What am I here for then?" and then promptly wanted to burst into tears.

I had no idea that I had been building my esteem on such flimsiness. I don't even know if I can explain it. I still take pride in doing a good job but there is no frantic energy attached to the outcome. Does that make sense? My worth is not wrapped up in having done my work in record time so that an invisible they can pat me on the back.

Today I visited with a friend who has also had breast cancer. When I shared with her my new realization she reached across the counter, hugged me and affirmed just why I was in my job. They were all reasons that truly matter.

Pettiness

I returned to work this week after having the summer off. I made a commitment to myself that I would not belly ache to my co workers about our boss. We've gone through quite a tough change due to downsizing in the past few years and the atmosphere took a downward spiral as a result. It's never rebounded and honestly, rightly so in some ways. Our trust was completely shattered in the company by the way they brutally let a long term employee, close to retirement age, go. But I know that after all is said and done I get to choose my attitude and I just don't want to add to a negative atmosphere. There's nothing worse than going to work where no one wants to be there.

Every day this week I have caught myself ready to push back from my desk to go tell someone, anyone about the latest happening that makes my boss the bad guy. In those moments I've prayed this prayer. Embarrassingly, I've prayed it too many times to count. Often the surrender I feel while doing so makes my eyes sting with tears. It is worth it to give up my petty momentary bitchfest designed to make myself look better at someone else's expense.

I must confess though that I have sent Dearest One several text messages that warn him I will need to vent on the way home.  Thankfully he does not encourage me to think bad about people. You know how that can go? You belly ache about someone and then they join you in the cesspool and then it feels like you have guck stuck to your skin and can't get it off. I'm grateful he knows I am venting and then can let it go.

The week has been exhausting. I am in bed at the same time a toddler goes to bed. Well, considering how much whining I've been tempted to do this week, maybe that's not so surprising.

Words To Ponder

"Fairly late in the catastrophic phase of my illness, I began to understand three facts I'd known in theory since early childhood but had barely plumbed the reality of.  They're things familiar to most adults who've bothered to watch the visible world and have sorted their findings with normal intelligence,  but abstract knowledge tend to vanish in a crisis. And from where I've been, the three facts stand at the head of any advice I'd risk conveying to a friend confronted with grave illness or other physical and psychic trauma. 

1. You're in your present calamity alone, fars as this life goes. If you want a way out, then dig it yourself, if there turns out to be any trace of a way. Nobody - least of a doctor - can rescue you now, not from the deeps of your own mind, not once they've stitched your gaping wound. 

2. Generous people - true practical saints, some of them boring as root canals - are waiting to give you everything on Earth but your main want, which is simply the person you used to be. 

3. But you're not that person now. Who'll you be tomorrow? And who do you propose to be from here to the grave, which may be hours or decades down the road?" 

~ Reynolds Price in A Whole New Life

This was such a worthwhile read. This man lived a path that I wouldn't wish on my dearest enemy. Can't wait to read more of his stuff.

 

Jesus Wept

I love me some Brene Brown:

Jesus Wept

Blessed Relief

The Sacred Wound               Meditation 22 of 53

Pain teaches a most counterintuitive thing—that we must go down before we even know what up is. It is first an ordinary wound before it can become a sacred wound. Suffering of some sort seems to be the only thing strong enough to destabilize our arrogance and our ignorance. I would define suffering very simply as “whenever you are not in control.” All healthy religion shows you what to do with your pain. If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it. If your religion is not showing you how to transform your pain, it is junk religion. It is no surprise that a crucified man became the central symbol of Christianity. If we cannot find a way to make our wounds into sacred wounds, we invariably become negative or bitter—because we will be wounded. That is a given. All suffering is potentially redemptive, all wounds are potentially sacred wounds. It depends on what you do with them. Can you find God in them or not? If there isn't some way to find some deeper meaning to our suffering, to find that God is somehow in it, and can even use it for good, we will normally close up and close down, and the second half of our lives will, quite frankly, be small and silly. Adapted from Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, p. 25

If you go to the link in the title of this meditation it will take you to a page where I receive these daily emails from.The one above, in light of all this past year has held, spoke to me this morning. I believe that my inability to find a way to make my wound into a sacred wound was what was leading me to bitterness. I don't know if I have found any deeper meaning to it all. 

One of the insights I gained last weekend during my silent retreat was that I was holding a grudge against the surgeon for my reaction to the way things went with the mixed up pathology report and everything that happened after that. I am grateful for that insight. 

Tonight at Mass I had a strong feeling of consolation. Blessed relief.

What I've Been Up To

I recently spent three days in silence and solitude. Well, I didn't quite last the full three days. I caved in about three hours before my 72 hours were up. For a first try I was happy with that. Much of the time I was content to be silent and alone. There were times when I just wanted to talk to someone and I felt antsy.

The worst was when I sent Dearest One a text late at night to come make sure the noise I was hearing outside was not a bear. He concluded - after hearing the same noises outside the house later - and because the hair on the back of his neck stood up when he stepped outside - that it was more likely a cougar than a bear. Gives me the shivers to think about it.

My dog stayed with me in the holiday trailer for company - well truthfully I had my dog along so he wouldn't drive Dearest One batty in the house looking for me for three days straight - but I knew if I started talking to the dog I wouldn't shut up, so I didn't.

I found it soothing to sit and look out over our pasture and watch the birds flit between the fence posts and barbed wire. The weather was lovely and warm. A touch of mugginess with plenty of heat. Sitting in my lawn chair reading a book or just sitting and doing nothing. I soaked it up. It felt like a beautifully simple few days.

Three weeks ago today I wrote in my journal, 'the despair has lifted." I am so relieved that it's still true and that I am generally happy these days. Hopeful. Thanks be to God.

Showing Up

"And may you always remember that obstacles in the path are not obstacles, they ARE the path." ~ Jane Catherine Lotter

Yesterday I had coffee with a good friend, the one who suggested I write a lament to God at that gathering we were both at. She said she'd been quite concerned about me after that get together because I seemed so different than I used to be. She gently asked me if anyone had suggested to me the idea of consolations and desolations to me.

Unexpectedly, tears rose within me as I nodded and managed to choke out, "I hope it doesn't last forever." When she commented that I'd been very honest with my feelings throughout this cancer journey I gulped and tried to swallow my tears. I took a few minutes to try and compose myself but was unsuccessful. Through tears I said to her, "It's the most courageous thing I've done."

Crying in a coffee shop is not my idea of a good time. Being with a friend who has no desire to fix me but simply bears witness to my journey is. Those tears were the most painful ones I've experienced in a while.

At my final appointment with a specialist yesterday we talked about amalgamating my experience of this past year into who I am now. He wryly observed that life changing circumstances are just that, life changing. It would be so much easier to accept if my life changing experience seemed to be bearing good fruit. Maybe I need to let go of what good fruit looks like, too.

I returned to the practice of Centering Prayer just over a month ago. It is an internal consent to God's presence and action in my life. This week I started a month long course in Welcoming Prayer. Showing up. That's what I feel like I am doing.

Yesterday showed me that this is where I am at. I trust it is part of a bigger picture. And that desolations do not last forever. This popped into my head as I typed that:

I have always loved this song.

Waning Days Of Summer

I woke in the night and saw stars in the sky. It's been months since it's been dark enough in the night to see stars. It's lovely and bittersweet because it means winter's coming. But not today.

Doing laundry is on my to do list. Earlier I thought of my grandma and how she noted in her diary every Monday how grateful she was for her washing machine. Her wringer washing machine. Mondays and laundry were synonymous in her world. I like the predictability of that.

My priest commented yesterday that he could tell I was feeling better because it showed in my face. It's always nice to have outside confirmation of what is going on inside. I feel better for the most part. No longer feeling depressed. Spiritually I still feel stuck sometimes and I am at a loss as to what to do about that. I am headed to Adoration this week. It is a refuge for me and a laying bare of the soul.

At a meeting the other day I listened to someone just out of treatment, be completely surrendered to their God in incredibly difficult circumstances. I had to ask myself if I was completely surrendered to mine. I feel like being completely surrendered will mean spouting off pat answers that are not based on reality and I have a gagging feeling in my throat at the thought. I will be so glad when I no longer have invisible walls go up in nanoseconds. I just don't know how to get there. I think I am past having walls go up and then someone says something - thanks Jesus for some random happening - and I shut down instantly. It's not how I want to feel.

Open. I want to be open.