I feel like I just stepped off a rollercoaster. Heart racing from adrenaline, body tense from gripping the waist bar, feet fumbling from the impatient conveyor belt beneath me. Go ahead now, your turn is done, you can’t stay here.
Ringing that cancer bell recently ranked as one of my best days, but also so unsettling.
You’re just going to let me go? After all of that? I can’t, I still have my rollercoaster legs.
After ten all-consuming months of treatment, I realize we never really grasped a sense of normalcy. I was constantly moving into the next phase, one that brought new doctors, new demands on my time and body, and new limitations on my ability to participate in my life. We were constantly pivoting in some new, ungodly way.
And now that it’s done, I don’t know what to do with myself. Do I scramble around and try to make up for ten months of unaccomplished chores? Do I try to reach out to some long-lost friends and see if I remember how to talk about normal people things? Do I try to get my crow pose back? What an exhausting headless chicken dance.
All of this was fresh on my mind when the boys and I read Swashby And The Sea last week. Written by Beth Ferry and illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal, this picture book is about a reclusive sea captain named Swashby. Captain Swashby had a special relationship with the sea. It always gave him just what he needed when he needed it. So when ol’ Swashby retired, he settled in a quiet, isolated spot by the shore. One day a free-spirited little girl moved in next door, disrupting his solitude. Swashby put forth a hearty effort to maintain his quiet life, with grumpy messages in the sand and rejected invitations to tea, but the sea continued to interfere, finding ways to push the spirited little girl into Swashby’s life. The sea gave him what he needed…love and community.
Perhaps I need to take note from ol’ Swashby and stop the headless chicken dance. I need to let go and trust that eventually the chores will get done and the conversation will come back and my body will regain its strength. Like Swashby, I need to surrender to my own metaphorical sea, and trust that I’m going to get exactly what I truly need.
