During the past three years, I have faced the greatest challenge of my life so far.
The thunderbolt of the diagnosis tipped me into a deep and ongoing review of the premises upon which I had built my life to that point. The old comfortable handholds of memory and habit have faded; the new ones are as yet not fully realized. My dilemma now is: do I choose the easier path and just return to an approximation of my former belief set, or do I embark on a more challenging course, redefining my foundations as they appear to me now from an expanded and informed viewpoint.
As the struggle to free myself of this illness occupies less of my daily allotment of energy, I use the liberated time to explore who I am now while concurrently reacquainting myself with who I was before Diagnosis Day. I find, in meditating on that prior individual, that I am now working to shed the old skin that fit just fine for many years, while simultaneously growing a new skin, one more comfortable to the evolving me than the previous one.
All of this is happening on the back burner of my mind while I attend to tasks that don’t require thoughtful reflection; gardening is the most satisfying. I can pay attention to distinguishing weeds from perennials while subliminally concocting recipe alternatives for a “revised” me, checking an ingredient list, noting “keep this” or “replace that.”
I have been given a reprieve. How will I use the time left to me? Since I don’t know how long that will be, I’d better get on with it!
Stay well!
Copyright 2009
Lynn Chapman-Adler
www.lindalater.blogspot.com
Posted: August 6, 2009
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
