This whole year<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ok, it has only been a month long<\/p>\n\n\n\n
BUT!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This whole year I\u2019ve been down sick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If I\u2019m real, it started 2 years ago with the cancer diagnosis. Ever since the big news was handed to me, I struggled to choose my identity within the disease. How did I stay me in the middle of this overwhelming terrible malady?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I learned to rely on the person I had been all along. I choose to be a writer and this very piece is proof that I am what I am striving to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In my weariness I feel doubt. Am I really? What do this words amount to?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While I was at the bottom of the well of the cancer treatment, I work to maintain a veneer of the person I hoped I could still be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hanging on the edge with my fingernails while gravity got stronger and stronger, I did start taking shortcuts. I lay in bed and listened to easy books, I didn\u2019t challenge my weary head with complicated things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The malady is waning. I have a surgery on the 13th<\/sup> and another radioactive treatment at the end of March. Those are not trivial milestones to cross, but they are the last ones. My grasp is not tenuous anymore, it\u2019s getting stronger and more secure every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Can I remember how to engage with big ideas again? My creative imagination needs to come out of hibernation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hmm. This is going to take some loosening up. I\u2019ve gotten some habits I\u2019ll need to upgrade. The road to beign a Sensei taught me that every small step matters. Pushing myself is worthwhile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m falling back on some old tricks:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pen and paper. I wrote most of this essay on notepaper in a three-ring binder. Almost half of what I wrote has been crossed out. In ink. Like my ancestors used to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s messy. I\u2019m rusty and crusty and slow. And I\u2019m willing to keep trying because I really want to get better.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This whole year Ok, it has only been a month long BUT! This whole year I\u2019ve been down sick. If I\u2019m real, it started 2 years ago with the cancer diagnosis. Ever since the big news was handed to me, … Continue reading