i figured it out, you were right here all along

I think I just started grieving, post-cancer.

I was talking to my best friend about how I wish my boyfriend would become my fiancee, and in a hurry.  She said something very true: "Months is nothing compared to your whole life."  And then I said something very true: "Months is a lot after repeatedly hearing them describe your life span."

And then I started crying.

two thousand and late.

I don't know what's about to happen in my life.  But I sense that in about a month, one of these posts will start with the phrase, "I don't know what's happening in my life."

When I first moved to Missouri and considered the idea that maybe I had been wrong about Christ, that maybe He was more, I remember this crazy feeling that my life was being turned upside down, completely inside out, often.  Like, every week or two, often.  The me I had been in September?  Gone.  October?  Long gone.  November?  Two-thousand and late.

It was a tremendous time of growth.

As this will be.  I think.  I feel it in my heart, in my spirit, I guess.

I'm amazed at how He can take the pieces of our lives, the mistakes and the misfortunes, and weave them into something that makes sense, into something that isn't just "gotten over" or "lived through," but that glorifies Him!  Something transcendent.

I almost died of cancer, and I still might.  I lost so much.  I lost my job, my financial security, my church, my community, my academic momentum.  But somehow He is reaching into that, and setting things right.  More than setting things "right," whatever that actually means, He is building my life back, bigger and better, and I have a feeling, holier, and more courageous, and more faithful, with a greater sense of purpose, and sharper focus on His call.    

Do you get that?  Do you understand that in a world in which all things are His, He can demolish, and build, and remodel as He wills?  But that He works together all things for the good of those who love Him, and that if He did it for me, He can and will do it for you, and it might not look how you'd like it, and you might nearly die in the process, but He is good, and He does good.  And sometimes, "when you don't understand, you trust God, and you give Him praise."

So, I don't know what's about to happen in my life.  But as in those early months, in September, and October, and the rest-- I'm in.

do you ever feel like a plastic bag

I tried to throw away the meds, but I can't.  It's just a bunch of bottles of different sizes, different colors and pharmacies, loose in a plastic bag from Target.

The problem is that each one reminds me of a distinct part of this cancer process.  The loratidine from chemo #4, when my brother came from St. Louis, and I broke out into terrible hives, and they needed to give me something to make sure I wouldn't have a terrible reaction to the Cisplatin.  The sertraline from when I wasn't sure I could make it through emotionally, and Kristen was so nice on the phone, she called my cancer a "speed bump."  The tramadol, from the very beginning, when the tumor was causing me so much pain.  The tumor that's not there any more.

But that Target bag is still here, and all of those bottles.  And my memories.

I'm getting ready to move.  As soon as I find a job, I'm moving to Pittsburgh to find out if this guy I found is really the one. 

I'd like to think that the Target bag won't move with me.  But if it does, is it the worst thing in the world?

The truth is that I'm not so ready to forget all of this.  I was talking to a psychologist last week, a woman who works at a cancer resource center, and we were discussing the difficulties in creating a support group for young women with cancer.  She said that when women beat cancer at my age, most of them just want to move on.  They don't want to go to a support group to talk about their experiences--they want to forget their experiences.

I might have wanted to forget at one point.  Maybe I still will.  But right now, I don't. 

That Target bag holds a collection of some of the worst moments that I have lived, but those, friends, are also my greatest moments, my greatest triumphs.  I have had terrible hives, and awful sadness, and tremendous pain.  But I'm alive, and praise God, willing to praise Him.  Happy to praise Him.  Willing and happy to tell you that you should, too.