The Gift of Vulnerability

This gift may seem at first as though it's not really a gift at all, but let me spend a few moments elaborating on this point.  I don't consider myself a vulnerable adult.  In fact, I've worked quite hard throughout my life, probably starting in my teens, to ensure that I was strong-minded, self-reliant, and determined to make my own choices in as many ways as I could.  I worked part-time jobs from age 15 on and pretty much paid my own way through college.  While I had the support of family and friends and did rely on their advice, humour, and occassional financial offer, I was, for the most part, an independent woman with strong self-esteem and self-direction.  Then cancer came my way.

I'm not saying there weren't other minor setbacks before I was diagnosed with cancer;  there was the two-year trip to Japan with my husband that presented many challenges, there were challenges with the variety of teaching positions and principalships that I have been assigned to (mostly good challenges, I have to add), and I experienced three high-risk pregnancies that each presented new and interesting challenges.  But while I might have felt some moments of vulnerability with each of these challenges, I don't remember them comparing to what I have felt with breast cancer.

I think part of the challenge this time is that I'm about to turn 50 this year and that makes an illness like cancer seem a little more real.  I mean, don't we all feel like we're going to live forever when we're young?  We are invincible and thoughts that time is limited don't really come into focus.  Now, at the age of 50, just one year younger than when my mom died, and three years younger than when my oldest sister died, things seem not quite as "forever".  Not that I mean to go on a morbid rant here, but I think these points add to the sense of vulnerability.  I  see my breast cancer as very conquerable and am still very dedicated to winning this battle, but every once in a while, the thought does come to me that maybe I'm not doing enough, maybe I won't be as successful as I plan, and if the cancer just showed up out of nowhere the first time, what's to stop that from happening again?

After speaking to a few friends of mine this past week who are also battling cancer, I know that they have these same thoughts and I think I would fooling myself to say that the thoughts have never crossed my mind.  But despite this vulnerability and sense of dread, I still have to go back to my sense of positivity to see my through.  That's when my brain takes over and says, "You could get hit by an oil rig on the highway tomorrow...you could slip on the sidewalk and end up in a coma....you could slip off your treadmill and break a leg....get over yourself and think about the millions of positive things that could happen each day and say a small prayer of thanks for the all the amazing people and things in your life".  And it's at that time that I'm glad my brain is so smart!