Mentally Living on Death Row

Actually, I am pretty happy today - no rhyme or reason to it particularly, just happy. I really like these moments. In fact I am trying to learn to cultivate more of them. So why the title? Well because last Friday I was at my medical oncologist (I get to have two oncologists, the surgical and the medical). Anyway once you have breast cancer you get to visit these very nice doctors for the rest of your life - or at least that is my take on it. It wasn't so nice to hear that my risk is not going to go away after 3 or 5 years. My risk will be the same each and every year - or at least that is what I got out of it; and since breast cancer can and does kill any number of women each year I feel as if I am mentally living on death row. Every February I get to go to the appeals hearing (the annual mammogram) and find out if I have been granted another year to live. As Dr. B put it "it will always be nerve wracking each February." Nice understatement if you ask me.

So I ask you: "What would you do if you only knew you had a year to live". I think about this question each and every day. It is amazing the answers I get; and no it does not include spending large amounts of money on vacations of a life time. I think for me it gets summed up in something I saw in one of those magazines that sells those wall hangy things with writing on them.

In the end what matters most is:

How well did you live

How well did you love

How well did you let go

I am clearing out clutter, simplifying (step away from the closet - yes I really do need all those clothes), distilling my life to what I think is important. Ohhhhhh and isn't that a process. I'm trying to live with less, but not in some misguided asceticism. I am a firm believer in Mary Poppins view that "a thing of beauty is a joy forever".

I am also trying to figure out what "How well did you love" means. I think it has to be somewhere between the kind of love that is immature, self service (boy am I having a good time, oops - sticky moment, I'm out of here) and some kind of expansive thin excuse for love that never actually engages and just talks about "I come from a heart space". I definitely have to think about this one some more.

And then last, but not least "How well did you let go". How well am I able to let go of what I cannot control, pride, fear, a sense of injustice, and ultimately this life? Because the reality is that we are all going to die, it is just that most of us don't live mentally on death row taking our lives one year at a time. It may sound over dramatic, but it sure doesn't feel that way. It just feels like the truth.

Frankly, one year isn't enough to clean up all the clutter (mental and otherwise) it took the first 50 years to collect, but I am working on it. And in the mean time I am really happy most days. Ok, this last couple of weeks haven't been so great, but heck anyone can have a couple of bad weeks. I just look at my bad moments as an opportunity to do some more life composting so I can grow something better.