Twelve months ago, I had a path laid out ahead of me. I had started a new job with its own amazing potential. My kid was growing into her social circle, me and my husband had a good connection, and I was going to finish writing my fifth book.

Twelve months ago I was blissfully ignorant that two types of cancer were growing in my body, ignorant of the long stretch of medical treatments I was about to endure. I shifted out of the tracks I’d been steaming down, and popped into an alternate reality.

I’ve blogged about this before. A recent global reality shift was the Covid19 epidemic. I am pretty sure every human being had ideas about what the next year was going to be like in January of 2020, and all of us were wrong.

Early example of a reality track jumps came for me when I was in college and found myself taking more than four years to graduate. I had taken two years out of college to prepare then live in another country. When I came back, I felt myself irreparably off track, far behind everyone else.

I sit here now, shaking my head at my shame-filled 21-year-old self. I know now that I was far from alone in taking more than 4 years to finish a bachelor’s degree. 

Yet I sit here, still sure that I’m off some proper track and this is some kind of lost year. My head is clearer as the chemo is leaving my system, and my drive and ambition are reawakening. These old friends are now impatient for me to get moving on accomplishments and adventures.

I’m eager to make up for lost time!

 Still straining to pick up the projects and dreams I laid down at the beginning of the year, I recognize what I didn’t when I was 21.

There isn’t a map that I missed, actually. There are broad possibilities that could be achieved. But my track is my own. Missing a possibility because I realized a different one isn’t missing anything. 

Since I missed possibility because I did a different thing, that meant the possibility was imaginary. This year was a lot of very short term plans, clearly knowing that I could not know how things would turn out from day to day or even hour to hour.

As a result, the volume is turned down on my drive to achieve. Yes, I want to barrel down a track. And I know I have limits. I’m grateful to be on a track and see what adventures will unfold.