We are flying home. My ears have not yet succumb to the pressure of the plane bolting to 2200 feet and so my head feels like a balloon is being blown up inside of it. We checked two rolling bags. Two car seat bags. And carried on 1 man purse, one backpack, one monster-clad satchel, a pink thirty-one bag, and a double-bagged grocery sack. We left with more than we came with.
In a 100 ways.
One of the extra carry-ons is filled with beads, strings, foam letters, Popsicle sticks, sticker books, and other I identified objects the Middlest has defined as “treasures.” And the thirty-one bag, a newly acquired gift, houses a wooden spoon, a wood cutting board, a gallon ziploc plentied with shells of varying size, colors, and creature, a plastic grocery sack holding sand dollars — full, still-dirty, straight off a shrimping boat — sand dollars, and other newly found memories to bring the beach home with us.
And my mind is full of thoughts of cancer.
If I had written this last year on this day, the eve of my actual diagnosis, staging, treatment plan, and starting line, it would have said the same thing:
My mind is full of thoughts of cancer.
And yet, it would have meant something entirely different.
Today I’m tired. But I’m tired from a week of celebrating. Not a week of terror.
Today I am changed. But not just because I know fear. Because I know faith.
Today I value goodness. But not only because I see it in my home and my childrens’ faces. Because I know it’s in the world. Because outside of it being showered on me for 34 years. Outside of a deluge of it through the last year. And outside of our family experience this last week… That ended yesterday with family photos on the beach, lunch at Duffer’s on the course, and a closing dinner and huggery sesh with our newest friends. Outside of allllll the goodness I have felt, I’ve watched others get it, too.
And I know so much more because I know goodness.
Today I know health. Because I’ve known sickness.
Today I know how badly I want to live. Because I thought I was dying.
And today. Today I know what it means to be a survivor of cancer. To have every. Single. Cell. {hopefully} turned on it’s head and spun all around until they couldn’t see straight.
It is a day. After a week. A week of every part of me. Every piece. Puzzling together and feeling part of the whole person that wears my skin and knows my life.
Today my mind is full of thoughts of cancer and how it is a part of my story but for now, for today, I get to know that it doesn’t get to be a part of my body.
My ears have popped. And we are already on our descent. It was a quick trip… Up and down. How funny. It felt like forever. But when I look back now, it feels just like that. A quick trip up and down. A flight I’ve taken. And one I don’t want to board again.
We’re leaving Carolina behind us. But my memory will keep it close tightly to my heart. Because I need to always remember that this was a reset button. This week. This retreat filled with hope and love and blessings and goodness. Selfless, unfiltered goodness. The very best kind where your hearts become stronger because of the vulnerability and the courage and the genuine connections. Connections with people who were strangers mere days before. Connections that feel like they are vital in your healing. And your journey. Meeting other people who are nothing like you yet everything like you. People who have walked the worn path of hard and scary. People who laugh at jokes about hot flashes. Or lexapro. Or can talk about boobs until they’re blue in the face.
We are leaving Carolina. Leaving the place where the Hope lived this last week. But we are not leaving hope… Not ever. Not for ourselves. Our families. Or friends. Those newly diagnosed. Those never diagnosed. And for now, those “forever” diagnosed … Or so it seems.
And though we leave Carolina and the Little Pink team, I don’t think any of us got away unchanged. Ungrateful. Or without Carolina on our minds.
So now, instead of being sad tomorrow… A year from the day where I met my lifesaving team for the year ahead. A year from the day where I actually had to say, “I have breast cancer.” A year from the day where, for the three weeks prior, my hope was dwindling, my faith tested, my life jolted — seatbelt signs blinking, air masks dropping, and being told to remain calm. Today, a year later, on the eve of my true Cancerversary, I of course have Cancer on my mind. But I also have Carolina. And a lot more HOPE than I did a year ago today.
We left with more than we came with. It seems to be theme of my life these days. Every day, I go to bed with more than I had the day before. More faith. More love. More contentedness. More goodness. And with Carolina on our minds. And that, well, that is not a bad way to be.
