Just The Next Thing

Life shapes us. We all have things that we point to again and again as the thing that made us behave or react a certain way to certain things. And for me, of course, one of the biggies is cancer. And maybe chemo.

I've had the strangest feeling lately as if I'm almost nostalgic for the AWFUL that was this last November through February. And I think that's possible because it wasn't all awful. In fact, everything pleasant or good in that time I felt to my very core, because the bigger picture was so unpleasant and un-good. And the other thing I might be nostalgic for is the focus.

When someone is in a crisis like that, if it helps you to find one reason to not ache all over for them until you're miserable, just know that at least they don't care if it's Monday. They're probably not worried about the errands they used to need to run or how they can fit in laundry, bill-paying, and the gym. It's pretty much the crisis, tying knots and hanging on. That kind of focus has its perks.

But it sort of carries over. I notice I'm pretty single-minded these days. That's one way I've been shaped. It's not so much that I can't multi-task anymore, though there have been times when I felt pretty sure chemo zapped that particular capability, it's more that I don't wanna. I have no desire to try and do several things at once. I don't usually even think about several things at once.And it's not that I'm not driven. I still have all the same goals. I still try to Will Smith every day. But instead of thinking about the innumerable things I might need to do next or could be doing instead, I just do the one thing, and I give it all of me. In the words of an article I read once on motherhood and working and the many hats we wear,

You are one person, indivisible.

I really like that. If I haven't blogged much lately, it's just because I was being indivisible somewhere else. Sometimes, all I did was gaze at the Beautiful pictured here and thank God for bright red Maples, and fall.