All Saints Day...

I awoke to a text from previously unnamed dear friend, Barb, who inquired about what I might want from the farmer's market. She knew that I am out of many needed foods. I sent her a list and she has subsequently delivered the couple of things she was able to find me. Super appreciated. Meanwhile, there was a very disturbing email that got my heart racing this morning. I read it from bed and laid there somewhat stunned for a while. More blows. But, I get it. That which does not kill me will make me stronger. And I am! I feel a bit better, though now fighting an even stronger cold on this very chilly day. I want firewood upstairs and a warming fire to be in the fireplace, but that is not in today's realm of possibilities.

What this chapter is confirming is that cancer will push a person to their personal limits, and perhaps the people they have in their life who offer support, too. I always chose to explain childbirth similarly to pregnant women: "In labor, you will reach your own personal threshold of pain"....well, I'm now kind of wondering if combating recurrent cancer isn't about the same. Emotional and physical pain have abounded.

Having the person whom I believed would support me through my treatment abruptly depart has impacted me hard. But...I have now begun to creatively and openly imagine the possibilities as endless as I think about how I will get to California in a timely manner with my belongings in between treatments two and three. I am now very specifically working at forgiving myself for the choices I have made in the last year that I see were not in my best interest. I am gonna be about intentional self-love...gonna take the love I have been willing to pour into others and redirect it. Self-love must include being okay with that wonderful part of myself that has foolishly invested herself somewhat delusionally in the past in matters of the heart. I have worked with a counselor off and on in adult life and know my thematics and their origins. We all carry wounds and I'd like to think we are all self-reflective and live aspiring to learn and grow, although that is very idealistic...another part of me I have to love for it offers me hope when perhaps others would find none.

I feel as I did the day my father died. After the shock, I got at it...I accomplished. Problem is, I've done not much more than sit on the sofa and move a few things off of my dresser and into a box. It took me far too long to feed myself today. I had two calls from dear friends in the DC area today. My best friend has given me vital support on multiple levels and her love permeated me through our call. Right now, I need love more than anything, or so it feels. That is why I am focusing on self-love. So...I feel a strength similar to that I received the day my dad died is coming to me and by tomorrow I may indeed have the physical strength to do the things I now have lined up to accomplish. Amen.

I am very grateful that for five days and nights I had support during a time of true and utter vulnerable need. When the support departed, it became sorely missed. It shocked me to have it disappear. I believed something to be true that was not. Now I must adjust, regroup and step forward. On this All Saints Day, I am going to light a candle and ask for divine guidance. I do not want to ask of others what they are not capable of giving. And I need more help. Inner healing will come of this difficult time. I believe that with all of my being.

Cancer, schmancer you have come into my body
and at times I have felt glum
I am going to turn a leaf from this toil
like those in view turning a brilliant eye-catching color...
only to blow to the ground to rot into next years productive soil.

I am on a path to remission, am going to move in the process, sell my NY home and go handle the CA homestead. The ocean and redwoods beckon. I no longer have any sense of how that is going to happen. I have learned so much so far, it is amazing. And I know where I fell short on making important life changes since my last remission. I have gleaned insights from the book "Radical Remission"and know that all relationships in my life that create toxicity are going to be shifted or purged. I have never felt able to do that, but I feel like that is really changing. So I end giving thanks for the pearls that adversity provides.