Ever dare to thank your worst nightmare? …Thank the devil for saying hello just then.
Cancer and the digestion of that truth brought me here… to this place… this deeper, more inspired headspace…
And I’m good.
Grateful.
Thank you… leaves my lips.
Cancer pushed me to own certain truths that I knew but didn’t say out loud fearing I would have no choice but to act. A few relationships or how I looked at them. My work. My career. They were truths I was saving for later. Truths that made me live sections of my day in discontent… wanting… needing more. so much more. But yet there I stood.
They were truths about what was next and what I must wait for. What was right and what was wrong. What I should accept and what I should no longer. The difference between my true path… and perhaps someone else’s altogether.
Cancer told me all about my life… my future self fulfilled at a time that I could almost feel the surgeon’s knife cut deeply into my face and neck once more. It was painful, but it was just the cranky nerves days and weeks out of surgery. the stitches. A recovering wound. I would hold off on the pain meds. I needed this– to feel everything. To be present. To find all of the meaning I could from the hard moments that mattered… to suck out life’s marrow. To understand and to digest truth with one goal in mind. To come out on the other side. Better and stronger.
I wanted more. More purpose. More happiness. More depth. More me unaffected by the noise, and I would have it.
And so in the dreaded days that followed that turned me once again into a little girl.
A skeleton. A pin cushion. A battered and bruised me in the midst of the first follow up tests and the screenings… I did the same. I sat there in a florescent-lit room that smelled of antiseptic and disappointment… and I continued to chew on tiny morsels of truth because tomorrow would be better.
I’m good. I whispered to myself. And I was. Mind, body and soul.
Nothing would be left unsaid or undone with this second chance. Average is for weenies… so my husband says.
I’m on a path… an ongoing awakening that constantly reminds me of my worth and purpose… rooted in good ol’ truth. The truth I told myself on my darkest nights. It is about daring to live life fuller because none of us know what tomorrow will bring.
Just love and experience. I tell my vulnerable self.
Feel the fire within.
Brush off the bullshit and rid myself of poisonous people, places and situations because they offer nothing.
Take a deep breath. Hold. Let it all out. Slowly.
Feel the reboot. Repeat.
Vulnerability, sensitivity, heartbreak and loss are to be felt. We make our way through with truth digesting each tiny morsel with every breath. Daily. Weekly. Monthly.
Play with the doers I shall. The makers and creators who care and tell untold truths…. Who dream bigger because I am them and they are me.