Wherever You Go...

I had a plan, a blueprint, a route, a map, a trajectory that was supposed to take me into old age. I was comfortable with that plan. A plan doesn’t usually have imbedded in it surprises or shocks that knock the traveler off course. Of course there are sometimes roadblocks, but those can be gotten around, rerouted, and the destination essentially remains the same, with perhaps a bit more time added on for the detour. You will arrive at your destination, essentially the same, only a bit later. Say you are driving from New York to California in April. Weather can be unpredictable, and while you are sometimes driving in a southerly direction, the overall picture is that you are going West. Snowed in in Amarillo Texas? Watch the farm report on TV and add two days to the trip. Those two extra days that you planned to relax in Las Vegas? Well you’d rather just keep moving and start your new chapter. But whatever happened on the trip was simply a detour, a diversion, a sidetrack and getting back to the plan was always in the program. Until now. There I was, happily traveling the planned route when I fell into a sinkhole. Now the whole character of the trip has changed. I am no longer free to change destinations. I am on a whole new road with plenty of road signs, plenty of traffic cops, but nothing looks familiar. [I have got to get out of this traffic metaphor!] The whole point of it was to say that just like Dr. Suess so aptly said: Wherever you go, there you are. I did not ‘come’ here, but I am here nevertheless. And now I have to see the lay of the land. The last month that I have spent in denial, not that I have cancer, but of what I must do to accommodate this new state of health, has not been wasted. I got sick, and realizing that I cannot afford to be cavalier about where I go and what I do, how I deal with the people I see, was an expensive and rather unpleasant lesson. But it is pretty ordinary, no? We go to a new place, not necessarily being familiar with the local customs or the shortcuts, blunder around for a while, make some mistakes, pay for them, and then finally settle into the local ways. I sat back as others spoke of their journeys with cancer, and thought complacently ‘well, that’s not going to happen to me’ but I learned that I have no real say in that and no immunity. What will happen will, and I will have to get used to the idea that I will have to deal with it. I am learning to negotiate a new country, one in which I have some control, but not nearly as much as I thought I did. I am learning that each new day may have a new challenge, but it may also reveal a new part of my own, or someone else’s character. I am learning to let go of the things that I knew for sure, like how certain things were supposed to be done, and to embrace the things that others, out of a sense of good will and lovingkindness, are willing to do for me. I am learning that I am not the only one who can do certain things, and that there are things that I need to teach others to do so that they can do them too and carry on without me. I am learning to relax when I have no other choice, and I am learning that I am not an addict if I take a pill now and then for its prescribed purpose. I guess I am learning how to be a more grateful human being, even though I was pretty grateful before. Appreciative Living is an art that we are called on to perfect every day. When our pins are knocked out from under us, it’s hard to regain our balance. It has taken me a couple of months. I expect that each day will be its own test. But here in this new country, I will be watching for the vista points, and the parks, and hoping that I don’t have to pull from too far down to get to the appreciation.