A Notion To Embrace...

Well.
Three DUMPED entries later, here it is.
Why so many attempts? I wasn't kidding about what I said in my last post--the words just don't come quite as easy for me right now. Yet, the thoughts never CEASE swarming my head. Perhaps though it's not that the words escape me, but that I'm ashamed to let them out.
The thoughts that consume me right now are often UNpleasant ones. Feelings of inadequacy and confusion of self are constantly trying to sneak into my daily life.
So sooooo many adjustments being made right now. So many things changed/lost after this battle. Like a soldier who returns home, but is NEVER THE SAME.

This is how I feel. This is accurate to my current human-condition.

I try so hard not to feel different, but I'm beginning to realize that EMBRACING what's different is the only thing that is going to help me turn this bend.
I read a cancer-survivor story-board the other day... and one of the posters said she loathes the phrase 'new-normal' because it's as though you come back to life less of a person than you were before--almost broken, if you will. At first, I found myself sympathizing and agreeing with her view. But then, I realized... no... that's why the phrase DOES work. We ARE broken and changed through something like this. I will never be the person I was before. Mine and Aaron's marriage will never be the same as it was before. The rest of our lives and plans together will never be the same as they were before. Our children will never be the same as they were before. Our extended family and friends are changed from this. Pretty much all of what we knew before, has changed.. because we ourselves have been changed.

Perhaps the hardest part is just the lack of warning that we receive in such circumstances as these. Like loosing a limb or important body-part...we look back and feel sorrow that we didn't sincerely appreciate *enough* what we HAD. This is true of all of the things cancer has taken from me... a few very consuming and difficult things in particular.

But the notion to cling to now is not what has been lost...rather what has been SPARED. Am I still subject to and allowed to shed some tears here and there? Absolutely! After-all, they are the best window-washers, in my experience. BUT, I shed them...allow myself to morn over the counted losses... and then with my mouth, speak the words of Thanksgiving that are due. Sort of like counting ones blessings, though, even more simplified. What cancer could have *and ten years ago would have* taken from me was life, itself! This very blog could of never-been...this very late-hour could of never been seen...this very day that I found myself *at times* 'putting up with my hyper and obnoxiously male sons' could of never come for me.

BUT IT DID.

My Life...for now...has been spared.
And I pray for myself, as well as all of you, to wake up everyday and say, 'Lord, Thank you for this UNEXPECTED GIFT of a day. Help me to remember the immense blessing of it in the midst of it's utter chaos and my utter humanness, because it didn't have to come... but it did.'



Especially at times and on days that I'm saddened by my boyish look--boy-short hair, boob-less and 70-something feeling body--or my numb upper right side, or my never-ending pill-requirements...I'm promising myself that I will do this. Speak this. Praise Him. Cause what's another day worth if I'm not aware of it's blessing~