Deep Thoughts...

...by Jack Handey. Nope. Just kidding. It's just me.

I've learned a lot while having cancer and more importantly, I've learned a lot about myself. Not long after my diagnosis someone gave me an AARP magazine with an article featuring Melissa Etheridge and Sheryl Crow and their battles with cancer. In the article they talked about how cancer changed their lives, and at least to some extent, for the better. They revealed how they used their diagnosis as a time of reflection, a time to reevaluate their lives, and the strength they gained from it. They are quoted referring to cancer as "A gift".

It really struck me. Here were two women I admired and respected talking about surviving cancer and how it had really been, in many ways, a blessing. It inspired me.  It gave me hope, and helped to change my perspective. Instead of looking at this as the end-all, be-all most terrible thing ever, I could look at as a second chance. A second chance to live. To live the way I wanted to. To do the things I wanted to do. To make changes in my life so that I was living a more fulfilled life. And that's not to say I had a bad first half. On the contrary, I have been very fortunate thus far and have lived quite a great life I think. I have had the chances to travel to many places and see a lot of this country, and small parts of other ones. And traveling is one of my passions in life. But, due to whatever circumstances, I haven't really done as much traveling as I would have really liked over the last few years. I've also only come to really realize how unhappy I was in my former career. A career that I had worked hard at for over fifteen years, pushing myself to continue down that career path, inching my way up further in the pecking order of things, making a little more money each time, but only now understanding that's just not that important anymore. And the truth is, the real honest truth, I was never even that good at it. I mean, I was good, I'm not gonna sit here and self deprecate for humility's sake. I worked my butt off during long hours in the studio in college, to long hours sitting behind a desk - only to photoshop someone else's idea of what was good for business. I was selling someone else's dream. But I wasn't GOOD at it. I didn't love it. I didn't spend my off hours perfecting my craft or trying to stay abreast of the latest trends and new tools. In theory, it even goes against my personal thoughts on the misconception that advertising portrays and my distaste for the over photo enhanced world that surrounds us, and the message it sells, most especially the body image/false sense of beauty, it reinforces in impressionable young people.

I always knew I wanted to go into a creative field. I dabbled with four different college majors, starting in liberal arts just to get some basics, moving on to photography for a bit, and did a brief stint in interior design, before settling on graphic design. A decision that was made, in large part, thanks to a young cutie I met at UNA during orientation, who by the way, kept peeking at my class schedule selection so he could arrange his classes to match some of mine. We later sat beside each other at an 8:00 am Art History 101 class, on those days in which I decided to actually show up. (I had figured out I didn't actually have to be there to memorize the necessary slides with paintings, artist's names and dates in order to ace the exams. This is also why, as an art history minor, I am not very good at trivia games involving art history.)

So here I am now, 37 years old, medically unable to work and using it as a chance to try and figure out what it is that I want to do when I grow up. Taking inspiration from women who have been where I am. Because I know that one day this whole cancer thing will all be over. I want to be able to step away from it having learned something - to grow from the experience. I want to become a better person, with better habits and a greater consciousness about how precious each day is. To have the courage to pursue my own dreams and live the life I was meant to live. I want to live life knowing that at any moment it can be taken from us, so treasure the good moments and let go of the bad. One of the many things I have learned is that most problems in life can be fixed; certainly most of the problems that keep us lying awake at night, losing sleep due to useless worry. And most of them we have created for ourselves anyway. And sometimes it takes a tragedy to appreciate that.