Down Payment

Having the awareness of wanting to "own" my life (rather than live from "lease to lease") isn't an easy truth to live with. And this past week has been no easy walk through the national park either, because wanting to look beyond these artificial boundaries of time created by my check-ups is just so much easier than actually doing so. But I made a down payment on my life today. . . .which means that I am about to take a huge leap of faith. . . .

I am about to place my faith on the side of time.

Living with cancer challenges the notion of time. . . . .challenges the great lie of youth that we are invincible and live forever. . . .challenges the statistics of actuarial charts that outline life expectancies and potentialities for the "average" population. But there is nothing "average" about living with cancer, so it's been a long time since I put my faith in time, which is why I've been living from lease to lease, placing my faith into tiny pockets of "controllable" time, rather than the unbounded and out of control part of time that ultimately belongs to God alone.

So, perhaps I am placing my faith on the side of God's time, rather than needing to psychologically control time. . . .either way, my life is about to change.

I have been applying for jobs down in Prescott for nearly a year, with not even a single call for an interview. I have a place to live for next to nothing. The VA is right down the street from where I would be living. The community college where they have the paralegal studies program I want is also just around the corner. And there is a wonderfully rich support community that I began to create when I was on my leave of absence just waiting for me to make the move. . . .but I hesitate. . . .in limbo. . . .until I have the job piece in place before I make the choice to move.

And then there's the secret fear that I might only have a short time left on this earth, so why would I waste that gift on going back to school?

But the truth is that no one knows how much time we have left on earth. So August 15th is my last day of work. . . .and I'm moving down to Prescott into this wonderful gift of a living situation that has been offered to me. . . .and I'm diving head first and full-time into this Paralegal Studies program that is going to be such an amazing fit with who I really am. . . .and I'm going to live my life as if I am invincible and will live forever. . . .or at least to where I am statistically averaged and expected to live. . . .lol.

I'm going to go about the joy of living my life with cancer. . . . .even if it kills me :)

It's so funny. . . .the things we say without really thinking about the ramifications of what it means. How many times have we said that. . . I'm going to do this or that, even if it kills me. Well, sometimes it does, but that reality generally doesn't stop us from doing it. . . because we secretly believe that we really are invincible. . . . and because it's something that we really want to do. . . .something that will bring us great joy and excitement. . . . or something that would make a profoundly negative difference in who we are as human beings if we didn't do it.

Invincibility is the key to making choices that scare the crap out of us.

So I made a down payment on my life today. . . . I took a huge leap of faith and quit my job and made the decision to move to Prescott so that I can dive head first into this paralegal studies program. . . . even without having the job all lined up first. . . . even without "knowing" for certain that I will have all of the time I need to see this thing through to the end. . . .and yes, most importantly. . . .even if it kills me :)

New Lease

So I got the good news that I wasn't sure I could even hope for this morning. . . .the biopsies were benign. I posted the news in Facebook (of course), and one of the posted response comments has me seeing my life in a whole new way. The comment was simply "new lease," and that is exactly how I feel. . . .only I don't want to lease my life any more. . . . I want to own it.

Ever since the first diagnosis of cancer, I've been living from lease to lease. At first it was a three month lease, feeling like I had to hold my breath until the next colonoscopy. Then the lease grew to one year at a time. When I passed the five year mark I felt like I had passed a significant journey marker, but still lived with a lease that spanned from colonoscopy to colonoscopy, which is essentially how my life has been segmented. The procedure I had last week was because of symptoms that interrupted my current lease, as my next official follow-up colonoscopy wasn't supposed to take place until November.

Living from lease to lease has provided a psychological feeling of security that I believe is an inherent basic human need. . . . as if somehow having these tiny parcels of time meant that I could romp and play freely. But this arbitrary reality also meant that there was no time space beyond these artificial boundaries of time, so if I only have two years (or whatever the arbitrary length of time the lease happened to be), then I certainly wasn't going to waste that time going to school just to get a new job or prepare for a change in career that might not ever happen. But the other side of this dance is that I remain aware that I also can't squander everything on living the lease time to the fullest, because I also have to maintain that sense of security for the future for which I also hope. And as the second, and then the third cancer events crept in, these leases became more and more arbitrary, prevalent, and limiting.

I absolutely feel done with living from lease to lease.

But how do I stop living from lease to lease and finally take ownership of a life that is also bound by the realities of cancer (and panic attacks)? I blogged a while back about how God's gift to me is the deed to my own house, a metaphor of a life bounded by free will and the consequences for the choices made that I am accountable only to God. The physical house deeded to me is (of course) my body, but I live in fear within this most blessed of homes. . . .fear of the cancer. . . . and fear of the panic attacks. But today I am asking different questions of myself. . . .questions based more on living in the truth of the now. . . .questions about how to live day to day within the home God has deeded me without being traumatized and debilitated by the fear of the cancer or the panic attacks. . . .questions about how to own my life, rather than live my life from lease to lease.

Why is it so difficult for me to take ownership of the gift that God has so graciously given to me?

Ironically, my life has already started to mirror this shift in perspective, as I have been looking at properties to buy in Williams, that wonderful western town just south of the canyon off historic Route 66. I don't really have to buy a house in Williams in order to take ownership of my life, but I realized recently that the reason why I keep trying to get my step-father to buy a house in Williams and work on the train is because that is a life that makes my heart go pitter pat. Williams also offers the logistics necessary to keep the rest of my life in balance, plus is close enough to the canyon so that I can maintain my wonderful hiking lifestyle and still be able to ride the train when ever I want.

So I've started looking at houses to buy in Williams. . . . .

It is easier, of course, to take ownership of a house (than to take ownership of one's life), but I am just so very clear in this moment that I no longer want to live my life from lease to lease. And yes, the news this morning definitely gives me a new lease on my life (for which I am most grateful). . . .but today's lease now has an option to buy :)

The Land of Is

Today is a hard day. I feel like my whole life is on hold while I await the results of the biopsies, and not just on hold, but like it's about to get pulled out from underneath me. I'm irritable. . . .snapping at people for no good reason (not that there's ever really a "good" reason to snap at anyone). . . .and I'm trying to find my happy place in spite of all the waiting.

Living in the now is so much easier on paper than in reality.

I got into a scruff with the trauma therapist this morning during a discussion about how my life has been shaped by the fear of the panic attacks. I said, "This is not who I am!" to which she replied, "Yes, it is!" I clarified again that this is definitely NOT who I am, to which she emphatically clarifed that it definitely IS who I am. This "conversation" went back and forth a few more times until we ended up sitting in silence. Like I said. . . .I got into a scruff with the trauma therapist this morning.

But she's right.

It's not an easy thing. . . .to accept the truth of "what is," especially when it's such an unacceptable truth. This may not be who I started out to be, but it is who I have evolved into. . . . and I'm not sure what to do with this fact right now. I've been living in the land of eternal optimism and hope that if I just do the right "something" I'll be able to "fix" or "master" the panic attacks. But living in The Land of Is means that I have to accept the truth of "what is" (rather than what I wish it could be or hope that it might one day become). . . .which also means that where I am may actually be as good as it's going to get. . . .ever.

What do I do with a truth that is incomprehensibly unacceptable. . . .with no end in sight?

Dancing Solo

I found this image of Margie Gillis. . . .a world renowned solo dancer from Canada. She's mesmerizing. . . .the way she flows in her movement. . . .absolutely mesmerizing.

I want my life to flow the way she flows.

I am preparing to leave the canyon for a few days, preparing for a procedure that leaves me feeling anxious and nervous about what's on the other side. And there aren't a lot of moments when I am so aware that I am dancing solo, but these procedures. . . .when the outcome is so uncertain. . . .these are the moments when I am all too keenly aware of just how solo I  dance my life.

The trauma therapist and I have had a few scruffs about the issue of relationship. She thinks I isolate myself and avoid relationships, which she's sees as a symptom of the trauma. I just don't see it that way. She feels compelled to remind me that the goal is for me to be whole and healthy. I feel just as compelled to remind her that I don't need a man in my life to actually be whole and healthy. I also still remember sitting in that restaurant shortly after my divorce watching that family eat dinner, the husband and wife talking only to the kids, with the silence between them so loud that I swore in that moment that I would rather be alone forever than ever be in that kind of relationship again.

I guess I didn't realize that forever can be such a long time.

I know that my solo life is a choice that I make, but I wonder if I will ever find the right man for me. It's been more than fifteen years since the divorce. . . .so I can't help but wonder if I hold myself back, like a silent observer to my life. Is she right. . . .do I isolate myself and avoid relationships?

Big questions, of course, with no easy answers. . . .just this vague empty feeling as I make my way alone through the uncertaintly of the next few days. . . .

Making a Difference

Thinking about a conversation I had with one of my chemistry professors back at RCC when I was still working toward my associate's degree at the local community college. He was going through some kind of professional life crisis. . . .questioning his place in academia. . . .feeling like his purpose in life had not been fulfilled. . . .and wanting to know that he had made a difference in the lives of his students, but didn't. At the time I didn't really know what to say to him, as I was still young and finding my place in the world, but that conversation changed the way that I think about making a difference, because that man's struggle caused me to look for the difference that I make and appreciate it when I find it. . . . .because I didn't want to end up at some vague point in my own life not knowing how I had made a difference along the way.

I make a difference. . . .I make a difference all of the time. . . .it's just not always the difference that I would like to make. Some times the difference I've made has been appreciated. . . .other times not. Some times the difference I've made has been helpful. . . .and other times definitely not. Difference isn't always a warm and fuzzy feeling, because the cold hard truth is that we all make a difference every single day. . .with every single person we come in contact with. . . .with every single choice that we make. . . .even when we aren't aware that other people are watching. . . .we still make a difference.

It is impossible to not make a difference.

A couple of nights ago one of my coworkers expressed his thoughts about the difference I have made in his life. He is a young kid. . . .just turned 25. . . .and he and I are about as different as night and day on just about every single level of human existence, but we have somehow been able to make those differences work. He said he watches how I process and grapple with situations that haven't gone well. . . .process until I come back and then share what I've learned. . . .until I have figured out what I need to change about myself or the way that I respond to situations or circumstances as they swerve and veer their way throughout the course of events that drop quickly and unexpectedly into the wee quiet of the graveyard night. And he told me that watching the way that I approach these problems we encounter together has made him want to be a better person.

Just watching the way that I approach my life has made this young kid want to be a better person?!

I don't think I've ever known so clearly or so profoundly how I have made a difference in another person's life, but the ironic part about what he said is that I am honestly no different in other situations with other people, but the way that I am with other people very often irritates them and causes them to think (and share) less than kind things about me. So this kid's statement really has more to say about the kind of person that he is (rather than the kind of person that I am), but that also doesn't change how profoundly I was affected by what he shared with me about the kind of difference I have made in his life.

Just watching the way I do my life caused this kid to make a change to the way he approaches his own life. . . .which is precisely the point I am trying to make with this idea of making a difference in someone else's life.

I have a life situation that I am also struggling through, something that I am not able to navigate completely on my own, so I have needed to ask some friends and family members who knew me in my early life to write a statement on my behalf about how they perceived me during that time. The letters I've recieved have only served to reinforce the truth that we honestly do not know how we make a difference in someone else's life. . . .or what they remember about us. . . or how they perceive and interpret what they observed about our life. I think we should all write letters like this to every single person that we grew up with, because I can guarantee that we would all be shocked by both awe and horror (lol) by the difference our life has made invisibly in the lives we encountered along the way.

Working at the switchboard is an unexpected blessing and gift in my life. . . .at first you think it's just about answering phones. . . .or linking guests to the resource they need. . . .or having the right piece of information at the right time. But it's not just about these things, because there are also these amazing moments when another person's life unexpectedly intersects with my own, and neither life is the same because of that nexxus, regardless of how brief that intersection may have been.

Some people are a "pass the buck" or a "hot potato" kind of person, passing the problem or the issue on to someone else who might be able to help because "it's not their problem" so they don't feel responsible or compelled to help. Others are an "own the problem" kind of person. . . .stepping up to do something (hopefully meaningful. . . . hopefully positive. . . . hopefully helpful). . . .even if it's the wrong thing. . . . because they have a "we're in this together" way of approaching the crappy stuff that life throws our way. Perhaps we are all a little bit of each, depending on the situation or frame of mind in a given moment, and perhaps each philosophy has its place depending on other factors involved. I don't know.

What I do know is that we don't really control how other people perceive the difference that we make. We can want to make a positive difference all day long, but the truth is that all we can really do is be true to ourselves. . . .be true to the way that we need to walk our own path and our own journey. . . .and if that truth makes a difference in the life of another person, then that is both a gift and a blessing. But it is not a choice that we make for another person. . . . . it is a choice that another person makes for their self.

[geturgoodon.org]<~~~image found at

Finding the Beauty

Last year when I was on my leave of absence, I was sitting on the shore of Lynx Lake feeling certain that if I could just find the beauty in the panic attacks that I would be able to embrace them and move on to live a normal life. I didn't know what that meant in tangible, concrete terms, but I caught a glimpse of a possible truth that gave me a brief sense of peace and hope all of those months ago, even with a part of me thinking it was crazy to even think about finding beauty within the life sucking hideousness of the panic attacks.

But I think I found the beauty.

I have always loved this painting by Edward Munch, and I wonder if he didn't also suffer with panic attacks, because this image so wonderfully captures the surreal nature of panic attacks. . . .but this painting isn't the beauty I'm talking about :)

I have posted previously about how I've been processing through this book on archetypal psychology, and how I've been studying one archetype a month. Well, this month's archetype is The Destroyer, and I swear. . . .when truth makes itself known, it can hit you like a ton of bricks. So last night, as I started to read about this archetype, I had to stop reading (literally) and walk around the room for a while, just to catch my breath.

The opening paragraph made reference to how we humans have so many different ways that we anesthetize ourselves to our experience. . . .like drugs, alcohol, food, shopping, and televison. . . .this list could have gone on and on. . . .but it was in the very next breath of the paragraph that the bricks began to fly. . .because the introduction goes on to say that "it often takes fear to wake us up."

It often takes fear to wake us up!

Before my panic attacks began, I was intrepid. A free-spirited, sort of a quirky person, not really caring very much about what other people thought of me, at least not enough to stop me from doing things that (quite honestly) I was poked fun of a lot while growing up. But when I started to have the panic attacks, thus began the slow erosion of everything that made me who I was. . . .to the diametric extreme of now being nearly fifty years old and not even recognizing the person I have become, so fearful and anxious about everything in my world have I become. . . .still struggling to make sense of how I came to be this anxious, panicky, fearful person in the first place.

But, it often takes fear to wake us up.

Twenty seven years ago, on the night of my twenty second birthday, I had my very first in a very long line of panic attacks after having a lovely steak dinner in the prime of my youth while I was living the dream of my free-spirited independent life. But I never made the connection between the panic attacks and what had happened just a few short weeks before. . . .so I've suffered, in isolation and deep personal confusion, for these past twenty seven years because I've never been able to understood the why of the panic attacks--and without the why, the source of the wound is never really healed. . . .only surface treated for signs and symptoms that never really go away. . . .signs and symptoms that only tuck themselves back behind the curtains of denial and self-delusion.

But last night, to read this simple handful of words, I finally saw the beauty in the panic, because if it often takes fear to wake us up, then the panic attacks weren't just random acts of biochemical violence, they were purposeful. . . .and intentional. . . .and filled with such beautiful spiritual depth and design that it was like falling in love with someone I have spent my whole life hating, but could no longer deny was my soul mate. . . and thus began the embracement of beauty within the most heinous of my personal truths. . . .

. . . .because it often takes fear to wake us up.

I find it more than even a little bit ironic that the panic attacks evolved into this chronic deprivation of sleep, because it all makes perfect sense, now. If the panic attacks themselves weren't enough to wake me up, then I wasn't going to be allowed to sleep, either. It's just all so beautifully clear! Even how the nightmares began with that powerful dream of finding myself in the clearing in the forest, with the four men in suits emerging out of the forest, knowing that I was about to die. . . .and calling out the name of a great spirit in heaven as a desperate cry for help before. . . .it's just all so perfectly clear, and absolutely beautiful in its perfection and design. I mean, how many times have I been awakened out of a sound sleep in a full on panic attack?

It really does take fear to wake us up.

So last night I found the beauty in the panic attacks, because they have been trying to wake me up for twenty seven years from the depth of a denial that has anesthetized me from an experience that I simply could not integrate into the story of my life. . . not on any level. And they've also been trying to wake me up from the lies I had to tell myself in order to continue walking with what was happening. . . .until, that is, until I could get to the other side.

Well, I'm on the other side, now. . . .on the other side and no longer lost within the denial. . . .on the other side and able to finally see these panic attacks for the truth of what they are. . . .for their beautiful purpose. . . .for their beautiful intention. . . for their beautiful function in my life. No longer are they the enemy. . . .that internal predator stalking me from within. . . .for they are the inner hero that has been fighting for twenty seven years to wake. . . .me. . . .up!

Yes, I think I really have found the beauty within the panic. . . .