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 :)