Building Sandcastles

I have watched the entirety of Gilmore Girls this past month. I’ve done this before, but in the past it’s taken me much longer to conquer. It required zero effort on my part. Netflix didn’t even make me click for the next episode. I’ve had very good reasons to do nothing, and for many of those days, nothing was all I could do. The past month has included a bilateral mastectomy, multiple trips to the plastic surgeon for reconstruction, and two rounds of chemotherapy. 

There have also been days lately that doing nothing was all I could come up with to do. Days that I don’t know how to be a parent, or a partner, or a friend, or attempt any of the things that I love doing. While I’m not sure much is expected of me right now, I do know that most days I feel in a weird holding pattern. The reality is, of course, that this phase is not forever. The other reality is that this phase is still part of my life. My husband and his church are still churching away, growing and loving and serving. My boys are still making new friends, making mistakes, making plans. Most of my month was spent trying to figure out what I can do and fearing all the things that haven’t happened.

This hit me like a ton of bricks this week when I read the boys Jules vs. the Ocean by Jessie Sima. It’s about a little girl that spends the day at the beach attempting to build a big, fancy sand castle all by herself. Over and over again, the waves keep crashing her sand castles and stealing her sand pail. The ocean becomes this anthropomorphized enemy in her mind, out to get her and ruin her plans. Eventually, her sister comes back from surfing and tells her that the ocean isn’t doing this on purpose, it’s just what the ocean does. It happens to everyone. So Jules builds another sand castle, and the ocean takes it away again. Eventually, her mother affirms, it happens to everyone. Besides, the moon really controls the waves, anyway. 

Jules reminded me that I have to show my kids that we keep building sand castles anyways, even if they look a little different. So, here I sit at my computer, attempting to write. I’m still keeping an eye on those waves, though. Maybe even the moon, we’ll see.

#jessiesima

If You Give Me A Diagnosis

I used to joke with Nathan that trying to get pregnant combined some of my favorite things, the greatest of which is making schedules. 

This summer I was thrown a major curveball, making it difficult to make schedules or decisions. Back in late July, I went for an annual exam, and then a precautionary mammogram, and then a biopsy, and then a breast cancer diagnosis at thirty-four years-old. All of a sudden, my love of making schedules was turned on its head, forcing me to a state of surrender which doesn’t come easily for me.

My normal concerns like what to cook for dinner and how to wear out the boys after school turned into questions like whether to get a lumpectomy or a mastectomy and whether I should bother tweezing my eyebrows if I’m just going to lose them in a few months from chemo. My typical love of making plans turned into writing down every order my doctors give me. My normal color-coded planner turned into a giant shoulder shrug, My answer for what’s going to happen has become: “I think, probably, but I don’t really know.” 

This was fresh on my mind this week when we read Laura Numeroff’s classic If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. Numeroff’s serial book tells the tale of a boy that gives a mouse a cookie, which kicks off an unpredictable, chaotic odyssey in which the mouse then wants milk, and then a napkin, and then, and then, and then. The reader gets a silly sequence of events in which this little boy follows a mouse who is just making a series of in-the-moment decisions on life’s terms.

I wish my cancer diagnosis had brought me to a state of enlightenment, where I didn’t worry about things like my eyebrows or losing my boobs. It hasn’t. I'm sure I’ll get through surgery next week, and then following treatment, and then jump right back to fretting over just how organic my broccoli actually is and whether my freshly-grown-back-hair cooperates in the beach humidity. I hope one thing sticks, that when this daunting treatment plan is over I choose to show my kids that, like Mouse, we just make decisions on life’s terms. I’ll enjoy my metaphorical cookie today and be comfortable not knowing what will happen next.

#lauranumeroff

#breastcancer