I'm back....at least for the moment :)

 Wow hard to believe that it has been over two years since my last post.   I think I must have been just over this whole journey.  Now it is 2021 and we are in the middle of a pandemic.    The past year has reminded me often of my first year with cancer, and the treatment time.   I remember back then that when I returned to the outside world, which by the way wasn't this long a time, so many things had changed.   There were new businesses open, old businesses closed, new people living around me, old friends had moved.   I guess having cancer and the following treatments is like experiencing your own personal pandemic.   Who knew that !!!!!!

Not sure whether I will continue to blog but had a strange urge this morning to check things out.   The past couple of years have seen good times and bad, although not one of the bad has been a return to cancer.  This is the longest period of time I have been cancer free in twenty years.    I will have been on this journey for 20 years on June 27th , and this particular part of the journey since January 19th 2014.

In the beginning I likened my cancer diagnoses to my own personal 9/11, which was also 20 years ago albeit not until September.   So mine was first as if that really matters.    Now I can compare my treatment times to a pandemic.   Interesting how the larger life often is just a reflection of the personal life we live.   We here in the 1st World don't notice that as often as we are usually an arms distance from real world tragedies and then when they hit be all go crazy.    I know in many ways this time has been hard on people, especially for mental health reasons, but doesn't it make you wonder if perhaps our mental health is so precarious because of the lack of real life experiences.    I mean, there is a large portion of the world that live an existence that is day to day and for some reason they seem to be much more equipped to handle it.   I wonder if the brain, like muscles, needs to be worked in order to deal with a difficult life.

I have had cancer for 20 years, but before that I had a terrible marriage which I survived, I had a spinal cord injury that I was able to come back from despite all the odds, and I was a single mother who worked full time and raised an amazing child.   Maybe I have a more resilient brain because of these other traumas in my life.    If so then it is true that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

So, to all out there just trying to muddle through whatever life is throwing at you, remember if you can dig deep, keep your head above water, and never lose hope the life ahead of you will be a brighter stronger one than the one you leave behind.

Maybe I will start writing again, seems like I have lots to say :)

Still alive and kicking (sort of )

It has been so long (years actually) since I even felt like writing.   So much has changed and yet so much has remained the same.   I am still in my remission from my surgery in January 2015 - four years ago now.   I have learnt to live with the lack of use of my right leg, even though I still curse at its lose.   I no longer feel any great need to go into detail when people point to my brace and say "oh what happened".  Initially, people seemed surprised that someone as young as I would have joint problems but that seems to be getting less and less as I age.  I guess I am finally entering the senior scene and its more expected that knee and hips are deteriorating lol.     Now I just smile and say "ya I had surgery" and move along.   No time to go into ghastly details and no one really cares anyways.   I think it is just a conversation opener.

I have started doing weddings again and it is life giving.   The interesting thing is that the young couples I wed are so self absorbed they rarely if ever ask about my brace and cane.   Its sort of refreshing in a way :)

I am also now the grandmother of two beautiful children.   One girl and one boy.   Who would have thought so many years ago that I would obtain this lofty divine office.   It is the best of times in many ways .   Your own children don't quiet adore you in the same way your grandchildren do.  If I had the grandchildren first I might have had a dozen!

So as I said, some things change and some things stay the same.    Life continues in a myriad of ways both good and bad but waking up breathing every days gives me an opportunity to do one more thing or nothing at all.   My choice.

Maybe, I will continue to write .    We will see what tomorrow brings :))

Fund Raising Campaign

Just a brief update.....a fund raising campaign has been started to help me buy a used vehicle to modify so that perhaps I can become somewhat mobile again.  Since my surgery in January I have not been able to drive.    You can find the campaign information at the following link

gofundme.com    under   Elizabeth MacLeod - Modified Used Vehicle - Handicapped

Signing off for awhile.........

I have decided to back away from this blog for the time being.   It is harder and harder for me to write directly about my journey in this way...perhaps I have moved to a different place or I just need to do something different.

On that note I have started a second blog:   Cancer Diplomacy....this will be a topic specific blog which allows people to learn that interacting with a cancer patient/survivor (or someone else with an terminal illness) can be like trying to  walk through a mine-field.    One never knows exactly what to say and what not to say.......

Let me help you ......Cancer Diplomacy is 365 tips on how to have a healthy and positive relationship with someone who might hear you differently than you intended.....

Darkness.....a new definition

Darkness.  Perhaps the current understanding of darkness is untrue.   What if darkness is absolutely necessary for life as is lightness?    Why do we treat the darkness as a foreign state, as if it is not natural but rather the opposite of natural - unnatural?

Most of our thoughts or definitions of darkness come from someone else.   Depending on how comfortable your parents were with the darkness will definitely have an effect on your feelings toward darkness.   My daughter has always been very comfortable in the darkness.  Unlike myself, she has always closed her door at night.   She never really cared whether or not there was a 'night' light.  We never had a light on at night.   I enjoyed sitting outside at night looking at the stars.  Loved walking in the dark, partly because you can see inside the houses and see the decorations and colours etc .   Some people think that is 'peeping' but I figure if they didn't want you to look they would close the curtains or close the lights.   It was best in Germany because the houses are right beside the road and not far off with huge lawns in front.   For anyone who loves to camp the darkness is the best part.   Although that is when we light fires, sit around them and allow the dark to circle us.   Walking back to the trailer is so beautiful because the stars are so brilliant.....a light against the dark!

I digress.    I have always been very comfortable in the darkness. I have found myself sitting in the dark of night on the worst times in my life.   I have found myself walking the streets at night when I am stress or anxious.   I find the darkness like a blanket....safe and warm not frightening and dangerous.  I have even been very at ease with looking at the darkness that exists within me.   I know that we have two sides to us.    The one we are happy to show and the other we keep hidden.    We use the expression 'our darkside' because again we are inculturated to see anything in the dark as negative.  Our faith takes us there....the devil lives in the dark, God in the light.   Well the book I am presently reading debunks that understanding.....finally something that resonates with me and the dark.

In the Book of Exodus we find that Moses came face to face with God in the darkest part of the mountain.   Imagine that.   Hmmmm....God being found in the dark.   Not a light in the dark but in the dark.   So I don't have to find a light in myself before I can meet God in my own darkness.   For this time in my life I find this very encouraging.   I don't have to move out of the darkness before I can come to see and meet my God.    Perhaps while I am here I will try to look more closely for God, rather than trying to run from the dark.

Will keep you posted on how it goes.

tired and very very sad

I don't know if I can continue writing in the same way as I have been .   It seems that I have gone to a dark place and the lightness and humour that have been my solace  are no longer retrievable.   I am grieving !   I am saying goodbye to so much .   Until now I was able to accept the Cancer , never believing it was any kind of blessing, but accepting its presence.   I have never owned it, I have never allowed it to become me.   I have always looked at it from the outside , knowing it was there but not allowing it to enter my being.   It had my body but not my soul.

I find it harder now to view this disease from a distance .   I am tripping over it at every turn , literally as well as figuratively .

I am sick of the platitudes, the up lifting speeches. The ' there but for the grace of God' sayings and beliefs.    I am not grateful I am alive ... I deserve to be alive.    I am not grateful for what I have.... Physically I want more.   I want to walk, to drive, to have my life my independence back.   I am tired of having to be careful how I behave because some are uncomfortable with my sadness, my tears, my anger, my pity.   I am tired of having to be there for others comfort at the expense of my own.
I no longer have the energy nor the desire to make everyone feel ok around me.   I no longer want to be there for anyone.  I am tired, soulfully , spiritually exhausted.

I no longer feel hopeful... In many ways I feel I have tried to hard to live and now I am alive physically but dead on the inside .

I have chosen to be the way I was.... I thought that would help . Make me better.   Be positive, as if sadness would kill me.    Cancer doesn't care .... I realize that now.... It eats you one piece at a time and just leaves you to die .   I am so very  tired .

Darkness ....... an in between time

I don't know why I have been avoiding keeping up with my blog.  It isn't that I don't have tons of things to say.   My mind spins like a top most days with so many different feelings and emotions that  I am twisting myself into a pretzel.   I think about going on line and writing and then I find something less important to do.

Darkness!   What does that mean to us?    Is it an absence of light or is it a veil  that covers the light? Does it matter? I am not sure but learning to navigate the darkness is a difficult task.   You are never really sure if you are going in the right direction or if something is sitting in front of you just waiting to trip you up (lately even being in the light hasn't prevented me from tripping lol).  It's that feeling that no matter how gingerly you step forward there could still be an abyss that will suck you up .    The fear, the uncertainty, the need to trust is so strong that you almost want to just sit still and not move because somehow that seems so much more comfortable.    The word 'seems' is what is important.   It really isn't more comfortable, it is just less dangerous.

Darkness has been a big theme in my life lately, and rightfully so.    I can be sitting in the sunlight and still feel like I am in a dark room, or walking in the street in the dark and feel like it is the best place to be,  even brighter than the sun.   I think when there is light around one feels that one should match that feeling.   Yet even in the midst of glorious light, the darkness prevails.   That situation is much scarier than being in the actual dark and feeling like you belong.    Belonging, the one thing all human beings desire more than anything else.   That search to find where we belong, feel at home, know our minds.   That place where we are travelling to  the whole of our life, and yet never really arriving.   I don't know where I belong anymore!!!!   

Do I belong among the healthy?   Keeping up with all the activities and events as if nothing has changed?

Do I belong among the sick?   Giving up all past expectations and just existing within the limitations that I have been left with?

Do I belong somewhere in between?    Not sick enough to absent myself from daily living but not truly feeling the energy or the desire to participate in a limited way.

There is a really good book written by Arthur Frank (can never remember which is his first name so I had to look it up) called "At the will of the Body".   It is a great book for those who are sitting somewhere 'in between" .  Not healthy enough to return to their previous life, but not sick enough that society can accept them as they are.   He explains that the advance of medical technologies has been so fast that the societal advances and understanding has yet to catch up.  Not only in physical ways such as accessibility issues, but in emotional and psychological ways.   Many in our society have been able to put their diseases into 'remission' allowing them to live longer lives.   Society however doesn't quite get this status.   We want people to be either healthy or sick.....being ill yet still capable of some form of participation is not understood, its confusing, doesn't fit into the categories which we have set up for people.

This lack of understanding on the part of our community, and society on the whole, is what often makes the darkness a safer place to be.   Sitting in the darkness, fearing the future is a more acceptable and more convenient place for the 'able' bodied. They sense we belong there.  They can understand, they can help when convenient, but they don't have to examine their own ways of being in the world and wonder if that is truly how it should be.   It is funny to see what an 'able' bodied person considers accessible.   If there is a ramp then its good.  Never mind that the ramp has been installed at such an angle that travelling it is like skiing down a slop or climbing a steep hill.    Accessibility is covered if there is an elevator , never mind that you have to go up or down to the floor that it is at to access it.    I am laughing as I write this because these have been my personal experiences lately.   My sense of humour has been a blessing because I can see the people who are trying really hard to be helpful realizing the absurdity of it all!!!!! LMAO.    That in itself has tempered my new experiences.

I have managed to try really hard to be grateful for my life...and I am in many ways.   But to be reminded on a constant basis about how lucky I am to be alive is really starting to take its toll.   Don't get me wrong, I am happy to be alive.   I enjoy my daughter and my granddaughter on a regular basis.  I recently travelled to see my sister and had the best time I have had in years.   There are many wonderful things going on in my life but there are also many things going wrong.   So to be told by people who are uncomfortable with my situation to focus on the good stuff is getting really tiring.   Sometimes I just want to sit back and say 'life sucks'.   Because you see in many ways it does.   But then again so does everyone's life at some point.   Why is it ok for some to complain and rant, but for others it is not.   It really comes down to whether or not the rant is fixable.    If it is, then we are all ok with it.   If not, then we don't really want to hear how awful things are.   Ultimately it is whether we are comfortable with the reality of what is in front of us.    Maybe it is all my own projection too.   Perhaps the lens I am looking through is shaded (or jaded) and the feelings I have toward the outside world are really the feelings I have for the inside but am too frightened to accept.

As I write, I am realizing why I haven't written lol.     I tend to become too philosophical and introspective and obviously need to gain the strength to do it.    Well, now I have much to think about and so I will probably go and do something less important......hmmmmm  I think I have a knitting project that needs my attention.