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.