Life Now

It's been over three years since I received my cancer diagnosis and over two years since I ended treatment.  It feels like it's been a week. And at the same time, a lifetime. Thankfully, cancer does not occupy my mind quite as often anymore. The worries and consequences still devastate and surprise me at times with their intensity and unfairness; but cancer isn't a part of my identity on the outside.  I get to share my story only when I want to now because it's not who the world sees when I walk down the street anymore. It's woven into the fabric of who I am and how I got here but the thread stands out only because it makes all the other threads appear more vibrant next to it. "It" doesn't detract or take away from my fabric. At least it doesn't feel like that today. I am who I am because of my cancer diagnosis and its impact on my life. 

 My life with Janelle has been dramatically changed because of cancer.  Dana-Farber feels more like home than most places in Boston.  Our social worker feels like an old friend.  She helps us navigate the tricky parts of living life with a chronic cancer.  We have made friends and met people we would've never crossed paths with due to my diagnosis.  But I guess that's true for every experience or path taken.  Each one shapes us, especially the challenging ones.  

Some poems have been speaking to me lately and I'd like to share them here. 

“Allow”by Danna Faulds
There is no controlling life.Try corralling a lightning bolt,containing a tornado. Dam astream and it will create a newchannel. Resist, and the tidewill sweep you off your feet.Allow, and grace will carryyou to higher ground. The onlysafety lies in letting it all in —the wild and the weak; fear,fantasies, failures and success.When loss rips off the doors ofthe heart, or sadness veils yourvision with despair, practicebecomes simply bearing the truth.In the choice to let go of yourknown way of being, the wholeworld is revealed to your new eyes.

Hope by Victoria Safford
Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of hope — not the prudent gates of Optimism, which are somewhat narrower; nor the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense; nor the strident gates of self-righteousness, which creak on shrill and angry hinges; nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of “Everything is gonna be all right,” but a very different, sometimes very lonely place, the place of truth-telling, about your own soul first of all and its condition, the place of resistance and defiance, the piece of ground from which you see the world both as it is and as it could be, as it might be, as it will be; the place from which you glimpse not only struggle, but joy in the struggle — and we stand there, beckoning and calling, telling people what we are seeing, asking people what they see. 

Some Say You’re Lucky
by Gregory Orr
Some say you’re lucky
If nothing shatters it.
But then you wouldn’t
Understand poems or songs.
You’d never know
Beauty comes from loss.
It’s deep inside every person:
A tear tinier
Than a pearl or thorn.
It’s one of the places
Where the beloved is born.

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. - Rumi

I've been looking back on the bird sock revolution that completely changed my treatment experience and I'm in awe.  In awe that during a time of such hardship, there was hope, laughter, and silliness.  I think I'm going to wear my bird socks this week.  Just for fun.  To feel connected again to all of the amazing people who stood by me.  I still feel my flock, all around me.  Every time I go to Dana-Farber or get nervous about something.  That feeling of belonging and connectedness is empowering.  Thank you for giving me that gift.  I can still feel it today. 

Let's all vote tomorrow because the health of our country and its people rely on us.  

In gratitude, 
Anna