The beauty of never arriving. But the fear of it ending too soon.  

There is nothing like a cancer diagnosis to change our perspective on life. To bring what matters into sharp focus. To stop us making excuses and putting things off. 

How often do we say we want a particular thing out of life but then we do something contradictory instead? 

Going through our lives believing the myth that ‘we’ll be happy when …..’

What if we could have joy now? Live each day as it is and make it matter?

How would it be if we could live with the uncertainty of never quite knowing what is going to happen and be at ease with that? In the knowledge this uncertainty is preferable to staying right where we’re at with the reality of finding little comfort or joy. 

There is no magic wand to grant us three wishes. Life is never that easy. We have a choice to see it all through another viewpoint. There can be a way to notice ourselves more, do less and follow a path of our choosing. We get to decide what matters and trust our choice, whilst accepting it’s going to be a bumpy ride.  

What if even our toughest challenges could be turned into our greatest opportunities?

Two years ago during the winter of 2020,  I was in the middle of my chemotherapy treatment for lobular breast cancer. One might think that there would be a constant- ‘I’ll be okay when I get to the end of this’  – narrative. Yet there wasn’t. It was a process that I had to go through and I lived day by day. I resisted the inclination to look forward beyond the dates in my diary for treatment sessions. Walking this unknown path gave no room to speculate about what the next bend in the road would bring. Surprisingly, the entire episode was not without plentiful moments to savor. Time to read a book, take a bath, chat to a friend on the phone, watch a movie, cook a meal, walk my dog, talk to my kids, breathe, rest and sleep. I am not pretending that there were not hard moments where I felt terrible, far from it. However, I chose to focus on something that made me smile each day. Even if only for a few moments. As such, my memory of this period of my life is one of ease, care, and affection for myself. The less pleasant memories are set back in my mind, I can see them in muted tones but the more vivid images are ones of calm and peace. More significantly, I feel a sense of gratitude that I allowed myself the latitude to advance through the experience and learn from it. Live in this day, not the next and not the last. 

Then it ended. As abruptly as it started. There was a feeling of loss as the safety blanket of the treatment process was removed and I was invited to go and get on with the rest of my life. I was scared, disappointed and disheartened at first when there was no drawing back of the curtains to reveal a new world. Nope. It was still there. My life. Waiting to play out. Welcome from stage left, the mind chatter. What am I aiming for now? What am I going to do? Why do I not feel ‘happier’. I am through this. It is finished. I have no evidence of disease – or NED as the medics term it. Why is this so hard? This was the lesson for me. How was it that I missed what I had been through? That was completely crazy. When I made the connection that what I was missing was how I approached each day, then the fog began to lift. I had found calm, peace and joy within. It was never about what I was doing. 

I was in the fortunate position to have choices about what I did next. So I made some bold decisions.  The majority of which were about making more space for me to recover from the nine months of cancer treatment. I went about creating a life that had my health at the center. I want to continue to relish those moments of complete peace. Knowing where to look and pay attention so they do not pass me by. At times I feel the full weight of uncertainty about whether the cancer will return and it is a burden. Rather than ignore this, I acknowledge that it will remain there as a concern. Of course it will! I make a home for it, where it can live quietly, in the background of my daily life. Its existence sharpens my field of vision in the here and now. Without this, I would certainly only find misery in a life of worry about a possible future that I have no control over. I do what is within my agency to live a healthy life. Beyond that is unknown. I make the choice every day to progress forward in the best way I know how. 

Funnily enough, once I got to the place I thought was heading, I felt my greatest disquiet. Finding the beauty in never arriving is not straightforward. For me, that is the point. We are all trying to get closer to what we want, but there is no point of ‘arrival’. We pass through various places of interest on the way that we might enjoy, or not. But there is no grand arrival at a point where everything is perfect. There is no perfect. There is no one place where we unpack our bags and stay for good. Life is about continually packing our bags and moving on. In each place, seize each moment as it happens – really feel that you are in it when it occurs. Equally for the painful, tough parts. We do find resilience in these times of struggle. Whenever I am searching for something, I reflect on that winter and all that it taught me. In doing so, I make meaning from my suffering. This has to be the most beautiful gift of all.