“This is going to be a busy week,” my husband said. “And that’s before we discover the things we don’t know yet.”

He was right. And those things we don’t know yet? There are there. They are part of the things. I catch myself in denial of them all the time.

When I slam the car door, and glance at the clock thinking “I’ll still be on time if…”
I am in denial of those things I don’t know

I could call those things the “known unknowns.”

I’m not too indulgent in that denial. My husband is, in my opinion, too cautious.

It’s a fine line to walk, to be ready for the unknown but not too wary.

Many years ago a big unknown came into being in our lives.
That time he said: “Change is opportunity.”

I was convinced that this particular change meant disaster.

Instead, he was proven right.

I learned that opportunity is in the awareness of it.
So is disaster, now that I think about it.

When I see a disaster, and I commit to it being a disaster, it will be what I see. It will be a disaster.

And if I see an opportunity, when I insist on it being an opportunity, then it will transform into the opportunity I see it to be.

I love to plan for things. I will organize the pieces of my life into piles and make strategies for them. I will fill my time up as full as I can with good things.

Which can sometimes make me almost late to drive to one of those things I planned because I was trying to shoehorn in another things I’d planned.

Not leaving room for the thigns I didn’t plan. The changes I didn’t plan for.

And it’s those changes that create the opportunity for things to get even better.

Change is scary.
Change is opportunity.
Change is inevitable.
Madonna sang it: “Beauty’s where you find it.”

I intend to find the beauty. Thus:

Change is beautiful.

After the big life  adventure of two surgeries, chemo and radiation last year, I’m on the maintenance plan with my doctors. I do appreciate that they are motivated to keep checking on me.  I’ve had them do two different scans already to see if anything suspicious pops up

They decided that second scan was suspicious, and they set me up with a neck Biopsy to check if the thyroid cancer was growing back. This is what maintenance means: keep calm and carry on.

I think of Schroedinger’s cat. I have to be ok with that ever cat or not-cat might be in the box.

That’s an expertise I didn’t have two years ago. 

One thing that helps keep me from thinking too much about whether the thyroid cancer is there is my black belt testing. I know that thyroid cancer is highly treatable, so I decided I could withstand if the cancer needed another treatment.

BUT! The last couple biopsies hurt quite a lot. And with my focus on the black belt training, I don’t want to slow down.

At class the night before the biopsy, Sensei had me practicing a swift kick to the head. We’d done this move before, and it was fun to do the quick unexpected move on one another. 

I always think it’s too hard, but with the Sensei’s encouragement I surprise myself. I can do this!

The next day, lying back the nurse arranged the pillows so that my neck was stretched out to give the team the greatest access to get up in there with a needle. 

I had to sit very very still and let stick a needle in my neck. For a long time.

There was a whole team there doing it very carefully. I had to keep my mind occupied while they did this thing I would rather not be doing.

I remembered that while they were stabbing me in the neck, I could kick them in the head. I had practiced it the night before and gotten even better at it. While I lay there, not moving a muscle I visualized all the small movements it took, the muscles I had to use direct my kick up to a person’s head and make a hit.

It helped a lot to pass the time. 

I will sit here while you do this. I will let it happen. I make the choice to allow it. Because I could choose to kick an attacker in the head. It made a difference to know it was my choice.

But just because the fighting never stops, I got the call while I was finishing this post. Shroedinger cat was in the box. One of those spots was indeed more cancer. I’ll need another surgery in a couple months. I’ll chase that one down and get rid of it too.

It’s hot today. Except, I know this is going to be read when the heat wave is past. I can see that far into the future.

Still, today, this day I am sitting in, and writing in is too hot.

Last year was filled with a lot of medical things that took up the space. Poisoning and surgeries that took my strength. I had to keep my focus on what I could do.

I had to shrink down because the iceberg I was floating on was shrinking. What was possible? Less than yesterday.

What’s possible today? 

How’s today looking? How many steps can I take around this life I’m floating on. 

Huh. I am seeing that it’s more than it used to be. This iceberg is getting bigger

Am I willing to go further than I have before? Am I willing to go further than I did before?

It was a short push when the iceberg was small. It’s longer walk now that it’s bigger.

Is my world as big as it was before? It seems like it might be smaller.

That could be a story I’m telling myself. It’s possible that the borders are bigger, but I’m afraid to push my limits

I wasn’t so afraid when I knew the limits were small. I walled off opportunities from myself for a while. I assumed that it was too far. It was too far at that time, and I didn’t want to be frustrated.

That was before. What’s my story now?

Like the old explorers, I might be putting mythological monsters on the edges of what I know. It could be excuses.

I don’t know where the edge is until I hit it. And it could be different from day to day.

It is easier now that I don’t’ have to push against the medication. But the truth is, I still want to be strong and the best I can be.  It’s still true: I don’t know my limits.

But I do know I can go further than I could  a year ago.

I’ve done a lot of job searches in the last ten years, and they are always challenging. But this one feels painful. I’m putting a lot of effort into this and getting very little response back. I put in applications and not much happens.

To be fair, I have had two artificial intelligence recruiters interview me. The Human Resources robot is a piece of dark irony that lifts the one side of my smile.

I’m grateful to past Murphy for maintaining progress on my martial arts journey. The rest of this year I am pushing on to the big uplevel of black belt. Preparing to achieve a black belt involves a lot of repetitions to gain strength and achieve excellence.

Also, it takes going to classes 4-6 days a week. That’s a lot of classes. I’ll be honest, I take guilty pleasure when the teacher starts monologuing. It’s nice to get a rest.

Then again, one of the parts of my training is to start to lead classes on my own. Do I want to avoid monologuing? Or do I want do a better version of it?

I am reminded of something I learned in acting class: the difference between a soliloquy and a monologue.

It’s subtle. Both involve one person talking at length to an audience. But the soliloquy is meant to be informed by the audience.

The monologue is a favorite of villians. Villians are bad at seeing others’ point of view. Their monologues often expose the character flaws and blindspots.

A soliloquy is meant to take in the reactions and emotional responses of the audience. As a teacher, I’d like to be aware of how my students are taking it in.

This brings me back to the job hunt. When I do get an interview, I have a set of stories and answers to the questions that I am asked.

When I am at my best, I can understand what the interviewer is hoping to hear in my response. Then again, I am often too absorbed in my own nervous insecurities to see the interviewer’s point of view. I can talk to fast and babble on.

All through my martial arts journey, I have learned that the training applies to my life in surprising ways. To be a good teacher, I see that I can also listen to how I am talking, and how others are hearing me. There are times when I must speak uninterrupted. And yet, it is a ninja move to be aware of the other;s subltle responses in the moment

It might be to duck and avoid a punch to the face. It could also be noticing the eyes sliding away and down in the middle of an explanation that is no longer relevant.

Both are valuable and difficult to catch. That’s part of the repetitious training I’m doing, is to get it right sometimes, and hopefully more often. I want to be more of the hero than the villain.