Finding my NEW Normal

I can’t believe it’s been two years. Two years since returning from the trip of a timeline to Hawaii. Two years since going in for my annual check up. Two years since my doctor sent me in for a diagnostic mammogram and everything that followed. I spoke with a friend recently who is going through the same unfortunate sequence of events and when recalling all of the details of my own diagnosis - it finally felt like it was a memory. A memory of something that was in my past and not my present. Something that I’ve experienced yes, but not something that defines who I am. This is monumental.

For SOOOO long (it seriously felt like an eternity), so much of what I lived and experienced over the past two years has had the shadow of cancer. From active treatments, to residual side effects of treatments, surgeries, medications, side effects of medications, body changes, hair regrowth - all of these things kept me in that PLACE. That place where cancer loomed. That place where everything felt like it was on HOLD. No longer what it used to be. What I used to be. Yet also not yet what it was GOING to be. And just for effect - if you know me - you know that I DO NOT LIKE TO STAND STILL. Yet this has been my reality’. I have been working really hard at embracing that. Embracing being PRESENT. Embracing what God was teaching me in that ‘bubble’. That gray, hazy, pergatory-like, cancer bubble. The one that leaves a light yet nasty film over everything you do and everything you touch.

Yeah you keep on keeping on. Life goes on, right? You do all the things you know to do. You even start thinking and dreaming a bit about the future, yet you never TRULY feel like yourself. You feel a bit foreign in this new body. With this new short hair. With this new revelation for life and all that it means yet secretly wishing you could just feel normal again.

And then one day, without even seeking the conscious thought, it hits you. You feel more like YOU. Not entirely like the old you. Things have definitely shifted and changed. There is some acceptance for the things you’ve had to give up (and not so much for others but hey, I’m still a work in progress) yet you are starting to settle into the new NORM. You don’t know how or when it happened. You’re not even sure you did anything to create it but you no longer feel like you are IN it.

I explained this to my husband last night over dinner. That I’m finally starting to look and feel like a normal person. A person who isn’t cast by the shadow of cancer. A person who is still figuring out what the future looks like and find her new normal, but one who no longer sees herself in the PRESENT with cancer. It’s in my rear view mirror. Yeah - I still have appointments and check ups to contend with - but that is logistics. My HEART knows different. My BEING has moved on and honestly - it feels so good. Thank you Jesus!

Here’s to finding my NEW NORMAL friends!