Cleaning out a cupboard, I found a stash of plastic grocery bags. It has been a while since I got into the back of that cupboard, because these were from when the stores gave you a bag for free. I kept them so I could reuse them.

Except in this case, I hadn’t reused them. I’d stuffed them back into the back of my attention and forgot. Bags of bags.

What would I put in these bags? I thought the bags would have a use. But they took up space in my kitchen. Years ago, I stopped seeing them.

Sometimes bags hold things for me. Sometimes things hold onto me and accumulate.  Like bags under my eyes. Or bags in the back of the cupboards

When I discovered those bags I saw the truth of this choice I made and forgot. It limited my possibilities and cluttered my life. I made space and accepted these without a second thought.

If I asked myself what bothers me in my life or my environment, I have a fast response, and I could roll on the topic of things that need to be fixed or improved.  

It was appalling to suddenly see what I’d been tolerating for so long. Willful ignorance of the sneakiest kind. What else have I become intentionally blind about?

It’s a new year. I’m ready to ditch old habits for new ones. My cupboard full of bags of trash is a splash of cold water to my smug confidence. I need to check myself. 

I’ve been coasting on a set of assumptions. Some of them are helpful. I’m just not sure which are and which aren’t. 

It’s never convenient to re-examine my behaviors. I’m just trying to go live my life. And I can go about my life in a straight line. I’ll step around that thing. Then jump over that gulch, duck to get under that overhang and get straight to it.

How easy it is to contort myself to keep it simple! I end up in absurd contradiction.

Like finding out I’ve got toilet paper stuck to my shoe. With humiliation, I wonder how many people have seen it. I do not resent the time it takes to fix it. I only wish I could have fixed it sooner

I want to get myself proper for the new year. 

It was this time, a year ago, that i scheduled a mammogram

I didn’t expect that to take over my year.

I had to come to terms with the very serious and compelling news that I had breast cancer. That kind of information gets VIP treatment. Almost everything else comes second to this new priority.

I resent giving up my priorities in favor of something that’s pressed upon me. My priorities are my own.

Cancer though, is different. This is my LIFE I’m talking about, in the teeth of a very serious disease.

It’s not something to bargain with. Except it kind of is. I made this cancer journey–well, the medical treatments to fight cancer journey–my own.

I was not willing to lie back and take it. I had to find myself and express that I was strong and a fighter throughout it. I kept exercising, and tried to eat healthy things.

Eating was harder than I thought–30 pounds gained.

I am very close to being done with these treatments. Done with Chemo and halfway through radiation I will get a scan in January that should reveal that the cancer cannot be found in my body

ok. what then?

I have to recover from this fight…from the poisons I have put into my body to kill the disease. It hasn’t left me unscathed. I have lost my beautiful hair. It’s going to come back changed.

I am NOT willing to be weak and tired going forward. But it looks like I will be for a while longer.

How can I shorten that time?

Because i WANT that energy, that stamina, clarity and creative expression. Why did I go through this if not for that?

I want to redeem what i bought with the suffering. I want to SPEND my life on the very best life has to offer.

i need a plan. I need to turn from the easy and the cheap to the precious and valuable.

Taking the time to think about what I value and set away from the cheap will help me spend wisely.

As I bask in the wind-down of christmas, and the ramp-up into the new year my perspective has changed a lot. My faith is stronger, but humbler too.

I hadn’t realized what a small thing i am in the face of the cosmos. There is so much that is outside my control.

And still, of the things that are inside my control, there are so many actions I can choose to take. I am small but mighty, and I can choose to be persistent.

Persistance brings down any barrier.

Christmas is almost here and I’m about halfway through my Radiation treatment. I’m going to get a second dose of radioactive iodine for the thyroid cancer, which will happen in February.

Mostly I’m comfortable and thinking about Christmas. I am happy to be with my family, and looking forward to seeing my family’s faces when they open the presents I carefully chose for them. 

And driving over every day to get zapped. This will last until the middle of January. I have been telling the medical people I want the kind of radiation that gives me superpowers.  Radiation has been around for a long time but it became a topic of popular discussion around World War 2. Remember the Bomb that everyone was racing to perfect?

The war was scary. The Bomb and the governments that controlled it were new horizons of horrifying—the stuff of nightmares.

Comic book creators took the concept and used it. What is this super powerful radiation people are talking about? It sound complicated and scary. Ok. Who cares about that part? Let’s focus on the part that’s powerful.

Everybody wants this radiation for its power! A new generation of superheroes were spawned. Superman—that fossil!—was from outer space.  But the power of radiation is still making superheroes.

I plan to hitch my wagon to that powerful energy. It is fun to say I want the kind of radiation that give me powers. And the part of me knows I can’t really say that’s true.

I want it to be true. I remember the TV Show The Greatest American Hero who had a superhero (old school alien powers, not radiation) that consisted of a super cape and an owner’s manual that got lost.

His powers were real and impressive. He just didn’t know how to use them yet.

My superpowers are coming to me in the same way. I’m beign broken down and rebuilt with the power to carry own and have more adventures.

Can I be bigger, faster, stronger than before? That’s not how I feel right now.

But can I be? Absolutely! There is no question that I CAN. I have to practice and earn it. I can undergo this treatment, use it to kill the cancer and then earn my superpowers.

The comicbooks were right. Anything scary can be turned into a superpower with practice. 

“We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.” 
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

Video games have given us the archetype of the non-playing character. I’m the hero of the game, and I can take action, have adventures and consequences for what I do. The Non playing characters (NPCs) are in the game doing one thing, with no variation. 

Like, a troll, or a princess that must be rescued. They only have one job.

As I move forward in my upcoming radiation therapy, every day I am lying on a table and being hit with X-Rays—Don’t move! Don’t breathe too hard!—I am an NPC.  It’s their world I am in, an object to be pushed into the shape of their choosing.

Video games’ portrayal of the NPC is not new. It’s instantly recognizable. They surround me. Clerks in stores, other pedestrians as I’m walking the streets—so many people I do not interact with but who share a space with me.

But I want to be the hero. If I’m not the active player, who is?

That play I’m quoting at the beginning– Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead –is a play about two NPCs in Hamlet. They show up say a few lines and die in Shakespeare’s version. Tom Stoppard gave them their own play. Everyone is the hero of their own life.

Sorta.

Thoreau wrote
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation… From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats.”

I don’t want to be a rodent. I’d rather be up and fighting the dragon.

There is a lot of background work that goes into fighting a dragon. Even the heroic knights in armor had to stand very still while their squires strapped them into the armor.

Heroism take a lot of forms. I am learning that to be the hero I want to be  I have to stay still.

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.

WATCH YOUR STEP

I’ve seen those words painted on steps in a public place. Maybe it’s the first step, or a step that is all by itself. Last week I talked about how I had better pay attention as things were changing, that I’m moving out of chemotherapy treatment

That warning on the step is laughable. We learn to walk first thing. Of course, I know to watch my step. And that step with the warning? It’s right there, so obvious. What kind of person would not see it?

These are my thoughts, smug and certain as I step over that exact step and stumble.

Thanksgiving morning, I joined the traditional morning workout class at my Dojo. I was so excited to feel good I really got into it. So great!

And I suffered the rest of the day, and the weekend.

I know better. I even knew I know better. I still walked right into it.

This is not a chemo thing. There are stereotypes about weekend gym warriors, who show up only on Saturday, and push themselves to their utmost—sometimes to injury—and crawl away to continue the cycle. Or maybe to give up altogether.

Like those “heroes” I would like to step into my vision, my fantasy, of being capable and strong. I *used* to be able to do that many kicks, or pushups.

I can’t now. It takes time to build up to my heroic vision. It’s not helpful to push past my limits and hurt myself. Showing up is worth a lot.

Once again, my compass points have changed. I have more endurance and capacity. Kinda. Rather than immediate weakness, the weakness showed up later. New pacing is required. Each day is different

I’m chagrined. I’m feeling around this new landscape and figuring out what the appropriate levels are.

Can I be satisfied with progress not perfection? Showing up and taking steps is going to have to be enough.

My old friend, the 1 % change comes to mind. It would be great to make a measurable change, even one so very small.

I will be honest. I don’t know what a small change might be. I can’t envision it beforehand. I know how things used to be. At least I think I do.

Then again I can’t measure myself against a memory. I can stand where I am this moment and reach for something. I might find that standing is near the limit of what I can do.

It will have to be enough that I do all I can. If I show up and do it, that is quite a lot.

And when I trip on that step again

I have to laugh at myself. Just like I should. It’s one stumble out of many steps that make up a whole trip.

8 oz of cranberries

1/2 c sugar

1/2 c water

3 T orange zest

put in a sauce pan and boil

stir until cranberries pop

add ginger or cinnamon if desires

when it’s thick it’s done

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by

-Robert Frost


Those iconic lines create the feeling of FOMO- fear of missing out. Every choice made means all other choices are refused. The author made a choice based on which one he thought was less used.

In my populated life, the city is full of well-worn paths. So well-travelled that we watch out for traffic jams. Every wants to get to the same place.

Almost.

The onramps consolidate all the many into one. The cars line up on the freeway, all of them going as fast as they can manage in the crush. It’s reassuring to join the group. We all are going the same way. All of us together pushing moving, with intentions so clear they never need re-examination.

Right up to the part when I remember the road doesn’t lead to where I’m trying to go. There comes a time when I have to get out of the group and get back to my own. I have to become aware of myself in this crowd and wrestle my way through to the exit to get to my destination.

Getting out is where it gets tricky.

Everything is simple when I’m chugging along on the same road.

And I know this is the time to pay attention so I don’t tangle myself up. I’m so close to the goal. I can taste it. It’s right there.

But all the little choices I have to make, the individual distinctive things that set me alone out of the crowd now. This is where I have to stay awake and make my own decisions without the reassurance of the others.

I’m done with a big leg of my journey. Chemo is finally done. I am just now starting to feel strong again, more like myself. It’s almost like waking up. I can see beyond the next moment.

There are a few more months of different treatments to get through. It is scary to come back to awareness and to wrestle with my own life and make choices again. I didn’t choose this and would not choose hiding anonymously in a crowd. But since this year I restricted my abilities and choices to others’ prescriptions.

The rewards and risks of individuality are at hand.

Things being what they are, I have a new habit every morning. I put on my face. Fake eyelashes, makeup and a head covering are required for me to feel comfortable being seen.

If I’m honest, I can admit that a not small part of me feels like I should hide and not appear in public. I’m just not in an acceptable state. The part of me that is critical and points out how I’m supposed to be in the world does not give the pass for me to be visible freely.

It’s a sense of shame. If I show I risk being rejected, mocked or pitied.

I feel myself cringing, curling up to protect myself from these painful possibilities. My real self, my authentic face needs to be hidden, covered and not exposed public judgement and personal  humiliation.

It’s painful to see other people look on me with pity. There has to be another way.

As I consider it, other’s opinions of me are something I have wrestled with in the past. I had to rank my own opinions higher than other people’s. I suppose putting myself together in the morning is something I do for me, not for other people. I feel more comfortable when I look the way I want to look.

Other people are welcome to their opinions as long as I am secure and balanced. I’m the only one that knows what’s going on in my life and what it took for me to get to this moment.

I actidentally had a deep plunge into the world of other’s opinions last week. I posted a 9 second video of my daughter doing a karate lesson. Nothing special but the gods of internet algorithms took it viral.  Amost half a million people saw this 9 second video over the next few days.

Of that huge number of people who saw this video of my kid, a few thousand hit the heart and ‘liked” the video A few hundred left comments.

The comments were not expressing approval. That huge number of people boiled down to a couple people who had to tell us all the things that were wrong with us. The commenters were inspired with certainty in pointing out shortcomings. Well, they also decided that my daughter was mentally handicapped and being scammed by her Karate teachers.

A few hundred people were direct, definite and specific.

But they were totally wrong. Laughably wrong.  Mean and cruel, many of them.

I knew they were wrong. It was okay that they were wrong. It was all about their error and nothing to do with me or my daughter.

Same with with the cringey shame I dread. Other people’s opinions really aren’t about me. If I can look myself square in the mirror and know who I am and be proud of what I’m doing in the world, that’s what really matters.

There are a lot of ways to figure out where to go. Humans are social animals, so it follows that when we get in a new situation, we look around to what other people are doing and where they are going.

Unfamiliar situations are uncomfortable and scary. I like to get situated, get my bearings and have an idea where I am going. I want to get in a groove, have a sense of what to expect. Five months ago, I got my first dose of chemo and started to map the territory. After the first dose I got an idea of what to expect with the chemo infusion. Then the days and weeks after how I would feel and what was going to happen. It wasn’t the same every time, but I had a sort of confidence with the experience.

When people started making maps, they drew what they knew. Then they realized there was more, but they didn’t know what was in the unknown.

That is where they drew monsters.

Sea monsters

Devils

Dragons

It’s scary in the dark. I don’t know what’s around the corner. It’s got to be nasty. I mean, I don’t know it is but I’m afraid of it.

Like shadows cast in my imagination it is spooky and scary.

After all this, I find myself at the beginning again, having to be brave in the unknown.

I was hoping I was past that part.

It seems the map makers had it right. The monsters aren’t going anywhere.

I will have to keep my bravery at the ready. I never wanted to stay on the same paths. I will find strange corners I’ve never encountered before.

Adventures are not comfortable things.