To Be One and Whole

Well, I’m back.

A line I have been excited to write for the last 6 months. And if you know anything of my love for the Lord of the Rings you will know why I chose this line. The last 6 months have been nothing if not a monumental trek through unknown lands, new customs, languages, foods, and battles I never knew I would have to fight. I met new people, learned new ways of living, fought the unknown, survived despair, frustration, and loneliness. I’ve faced fear head on, and sometimes even won. I’ve scaled the mountain of medical knowledge, edged with uncertainty, and came down again.

In short, it’s been a long 6 months battling breast cancer.

When I finished the Lord of the Rings trilogy at 14 it lit a literary spark in me that never fully went out, even as I turned my back on writing to go to college and “get a real job.” And while all my writing inspired by this work has sadly been lost, the memory lingers in the back of my chemo riddled mind, eager to break out again. Maybe I’ll attempt to share some of it one day here.

Still, when Sam said those words to his sweet Elanor at the end, you could feel the weight of him finally letting go.

Maybe I’m finally letting go too.

I really don’t know but I do know I want to write again, I feel well enough to do so, even with lingering treatments of a second surgery and radiation to come.

This space has sat empty too long, and too much has happened for me to not write and share with you.

So this is the new beginning. I can’t promise a single thing for this space.

I had grand plans of course but if I’ve learned anything in these last 6 months, and truth be told I’ve learned a lifetime of things, is that I have no control — especially when I desperately want it. No control over the little things like brain fog, fatigue, bone aches or insomnia. No control over the big things like unclean margins and lymph node involvement.

I’ve been learning to truly, actually, and painfully hold all things in life lightly. To not grasp them so tightly I suffocate them for fear of losing them. To just enjoy the fleeting moment, to look at the clouds and marvel at their creation, to gather with friends in the heat of a July afternoon and soak in the ordinary-ness of it all, to hear my children laughing and tuck that sound into the folds of my heart, to see my husband wear the weight of this season like a saint and be in awe.

There is just so much this life holds.

As Frodo said to Sam “Do not be too sad, Sam. You cannot always be torn in two. You will have to be one and whole, for many years. You have so much to enjoy, and to be and to do.”

Friends, cancer has been the sole focus of my life for the last 6 months and I very much feel like I have been living in two worlds — one of epic life-threatening magnitude and one of ordinary, regular life with dirty laundry and Ted Lasso. But the time has come to move on, even a little bit, even while I’m still in active treatment.

So this is my goal and my hope. To be one and whole for many years, living richly this life we have been given, to enjoy and to be and to do.

I’m inviting you to join me.

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