New Beginnings

2013 is the year for new beginnings.  It is the year for fresh challenges, new energies and a future that is about looking forward to better things.  Notwithstanding how tough 2012 was, I guess I feel like I have learnt a lot – about myself as much as anything else.  And in that respect I feel grateful and indeed proud to know that even as I get older there is more to learn.  After all, life is a journey and it would be terribly boring if the landscape was dull and the road predictable. When things are  easy the temptation is always to be  complacent and expectant – that things will just be OK.  And in the end OK is enough –  by default it is the standard.    In my view OK is simply not good enough  – and for that I am grateful that my life has been nothing short of extraordinary – tough lots of times but worth it all the same.

So in  writing this note I want to reflect on what I have learnt in what is easily the toughest year of my life.

The trials and tribulations of 2012 have taught me:

• Never doubt your own strength. You will be as strong as you need to be  – strength draws its reserves from unknown places.
• We will get through even the darkest moments and at some time, when we are ready, we are amazed and proud of our resilience.
• Resilience is what we admire in other people even though we take it for granted in ourself.  It is by far one of the most under-rated capabilities we have. We need to recognise it as a gift and draw on it when nothing else is left.
• Family and friends are forever. They are everything.
• People who are false, eventually just disappear out of your life – they can’t match your honestly.
• Our mind is a  wonderful and powerful thing.  I choose to see the glass half full. I choose to be well and positive. I choose to make my own future.  I choose my destiny and am not defined by my failures.
• I can let go –  lose nothing and gain strength.
• Some people will always be victims and I am not one of them.
• When your hair falls out so does some of your confidence.  When it grows back, it takes much longer for the confidence to reemerge.
• Some doctors you trust with your life  – others you leave for others to trust.
• The world goes on even when I don’t work at a million miles and hour.
• Everything I experience is in the perspective of my life’s journey.  It is a mosaic of my complexities, of light and shade, of colors and riches, of cracks and chips – but it is what it is and it is worth the effort of holding it together.

There you have somethings that I got out of last year.  On the practical side – nausea passes, hair grows back, your appetite returns, your mouth eventually stops hurting,the flavour of food returns, life goes on – and on.

So now the final update

• Katherine got through year 12 with an excellent score and is off to Sydney University in a couple of weeks to study Diagnostic Radiography. I will be on my own at home and that is a challenge I am surprisingly happy to face at the moment.
• My cancer has gone into remission  – for how long is any one’s guess but the hope is it is for a few years – maybe forever, but Im not really thinking about that
• I am working again.  I have set up another business but am also contemplating full time employment – maybe even a sea change.  I am open to all possibilities this year
• I have written down a secret list of what I want to get out of this year – I would share it with you all but then it wouldn’t be a secret and I have learned that sometimes you just have to wait and see.

So life is busy and full again – but not too full for me to reflect on how important it is to make time for yourself and to never take things for granted.

Writing this blog with Sus has been a lifeline – it was just the writing that mattered. Not that anyone was listening.  It is amazing just how therapeutic it is just to hear yourself articulate your thoughts – in words and in print.  never under estimate the power of conversation.  And that is where it all started – the desire to start a conversation.  And for now there is not much else to say  – except thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to everyone that joined in.

All my love and I wish you all a happy and fulfilling life.  I know that mine is.

Suz xxxxxxxx

An Email to Suz

Hi Suz,

It’s Sunday evening now in OZ and I know that tomorrow is your first day of chemotherapy.

I just wanted to write to say that I’ll be there with you through that, holding your hand, from 10,000 miles away (I’ve got very long arms).

You’ll get through it and there’ll be some more to do, but in the end you’ll come out of this as a well person, ready to take on the world, just like you did before.

You are such a strong and kind and loving woman, I’m so glad we met and just wish I could be there with you tomorrow to hold your hand for real.

I’ll be thinking of you

with love as always

Sus

p.s. hope you don’t mind me including this picture of you, that I nicked from Katherine’s Facebook page, but you look so happy:

A Happy Suz