Up and at em!

(Apparently I neglected to hit publish on this post drafted Friday. #latergram)

Crazy week trying to get back to normal again. Email went down at work for days, yet I still felt beyond busy at work and home. I finally opened like a month of mail, that I was just too tired to handle between chemo round 5, the cold, and chemo round 6. Great, right? Kind of. I had all the other "to do's" that came out of that. I am still tired. It feels like I can only manage what used to be a normal day of productivity in three or four post chemo days. The new normal.  I am still doing stuff though!

I sleep a lot more now than I ever did before,  which seems to be one reason why I feel like I am getting less done. I just don't have time. Looking for ways to maximize efficiency, I am paying more attention to vicious time sucks... Like a 2.5h commute home one day when the Beltway backed up due to a terrible accident. I really hate my commute even on a good day with normal conditions. It's about 50-60m then. Metro would take longer. Sigh. There seems to be no getting around that.

In the car for the last few months, I have started listening to audio podcasts of Ligonier Ministry's Renewing Your Mind with RC Sproul. It is a great way to distract from the driving, think about things and be open to some heavenly guidance.  One on Monday really struck me, starting with these verses, "Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you" and "So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good." I heard it the day after hearing Brittany Maynard eventually did take her own life, and of course after struggling with finding the (a!?!) purpose behind my own suffering as well.

Brittany's death made me sad and honestly a little bit angry. Ok, so she was 29 with inoperable cancer, certain to die a slow and unglamorous death. Being 29 doesn't make you special. Neither does dying. We all are going to die. Most people do not get to choose, and usually, cancer aside, death doesn't come announced.  Death is not pretty or glamorous for anyone. It is death! We are programmed to die. Even at the cellular level (and as explained in this awesome article on barbell training as medicine, a minor tangent), death is a part of life.

This is where that first verse comes in. Do not be surprised! Suffering is the norm, not the exception.  People suffer in different ways, just as they die different deaths, but it is normal. You don't get to skip it. Brittany did and called it death with dignity.  I disagree.  She argued that she should not have to suffer. I disagree. She argued that there was no purpose in her suffering.  I disagree. Sometimes, the purpose of suffering is to suffer. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.  I would cry my eyes out if Brittany's diagnosis were given to me. But, we don't get to choose.  We are not in control. There is a plan and a purpose, but not necessarily what we have in mind.

What is beautiful and has dignity is fighting to stay alive and being grateful for what we have. I used to have trouble feeling grateful. Sometimes I still do. I hate this stupid cancer and wish I didn't have it. It is pretty easy for me to feel grateful now, because I have gotten to see up close and personal what it is like to not have it.

Every day I wake up and don't feel like vomiting before I get out of bed is a great day. You never would believe how grateful you can be for normal poop until you have missed that for a month.  I wish I was kidding.  When water tastes just like water, it becomes the sweetest thing you will ever taste. A normal elevator ride up to the office will bring you to tears because you have a job you are going to and you feel healthy enough to actually be there.  Feeling warm sunshine on your face becomes a kiss from the universe after you have been too tired to get out of bed and even open the drapes for three days.  It is easy for me to feel grateful now, because suffering showed me the alternative. Some people might disagree, but I feel sad for Brittany because she cheated herself and others of the lessons and the grace that might have been seen if she hadn't taken matters into her own hands.  Yes, she was going to die, and I am lucky enough that hopefully, I am not going to die anytime soon, but I will die eventually, and that will be a part of my life I will have to accept too, just like everyone else. In the meantime, I intend to live passionately and purposefully, as much as I can.

This article is a reminder:

Each morning we awaken to receive 86,400 seconds as a gift of life.

And when we go to sleep at night, any remaining time is NOT credited to us.

What we haven't used up that day is forever lost.

Yesterday is forever gone.

Each morning the account is refilled, but the bank can dissolve your account at any time WITHOUT WARNING.

So, what will you do with your 86,400 seconds today?