The Delicate Balance of a Complicated Existence

 Sometimes this blog feels foreign and far away. It feels like a relic of a past life and I have no idea how to connect my typing fingers with my current reality. In many ways, I am simply happy and no one really wants a story of a happy girl on a farm without any drama. But I am content in this little life, expect for the summer flies. I do despise the summer flies. But the flies are nothing compared to the thrill of putting seeds in the ground and watching them grow. There is something grounding to the right here and now of pulling up potatoes and checking on tomatoes, as if when I am in the garden, time stops.

It is in many ways, the life I always dreamed of- the pioneer life without the diphtheria and snake bites. I have chickens and vegetables, unconditional love from a hunk of a husband, and a growing field of alfalfa right outside my door. Now I just need a bonnet and a milk cow (milk cows not allowed at our house unfortunately). 

At the same time though, I am watching women in my "breast cancer club" struggle with Stage 4 diagnoses. Stage 4 isn't curable and it is a challenging diagnosis. I am on the sidelines of a literal struggle for life of women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. I cry as I watch these sisters come to terms with a future so different than they imagined. I cry when I see them preparing videos and photo books for their children, in case they don't get to watch them grow up. 

And I cling, gratefully, to my own health. This summer I will be 3 years cancer free and 2 years out of treatment. If my scan comes back clear in August, it will be a great but bittersweet celebration. I breathe in gratitude every day that I have gotten another year of this beautiful life. It is as if I have a second birthday, a second day to wake up and marvel that I, against all odds, am still here- thriving, loved, moving and laughing. 

There are quiet waves of anxiety, of course, on random days at random times. A swift and small current of fear that it could be me, that really none of us know how many days we have. But I breathe through it. I remember to look around at this calm and serene life I now lead, that is definitely part of my good health. True love, it seems, binds my cells together and heals my scars. The farm is quiet and kind, just what I needed to heal.

In truth, cancer is never over, never easy, never far from the front of my mind. I think about it every single day of my life. I never forget it happened. I see it in my scars and the change of my chest. I see it in my cancer community, in the ways my hair is different and my eyebrows that never quite came back. I see it in the little things that spark a memory- the smell of glass-cleaning wipes taking you back to your port being flushed, eating a bagel- my favorite chemo food, taking a walk and marveling in the strength of my lungs, a luxury after a major surgery. 

I guess this is all to say, that I hold my fear and love in the same fist. I breathe in gratitude and sadness with the same breath. I live a new life and am bound to a past one all the same time. There is no either or. There is simply the daily movement through this complicated existence. And I am grateful for every single moment of it.