I don't presume to have the answers except that I think it truly impacts our health and that we have lost how to enjoy life, how to have fun and how to play. Everyone and everything is just too intense. Kids don't gather in the back yard for a pick up ball game, and organized sports have travel teams and tournaments and everyone hopes their kid will be the next top athelete and get scholarships and offers to all kinds of big league things.
It is also amazing to me that when you get hit with the diagnosis of cancer, how immediately your priorities change and how you view life so differently. It is time to take time and breathe, focus on getting better and improving your diet, your physical routine and your basic health. All of a sudden you are getting tested in every way shape or form and you are following nutrition counseling and physical exercises. Isn't too bad that we don't take the time to breathe and enjoy what we have each day? It is so easy to fall back into that old routine once the crisis has passed and you are back to your old self and the expectations and requirements of you fall right back to what they were before you got sick! I may be sliding that direction far too rapidly and it is time for me to stop and re-evaluate. Having 7 years out, I realize I am not invincible and also recognize that the first couple years of survivorship was about experiencing all the things I hadn't had time for before and making time for it. Now, I am back in the same rat race as I was before. I have often caught myself wondering what my next goal should be or what else I need to put on my bucket list since I have attained all I had on their before. What can I do or want to do to enjoy life and slow down and smell the roses? Interestingly enough most of my focus is my family but they have their own lives and none of them live here so we are talking the two, three or maybe four times a year I get to see them for whatever time they can give. I know that Christmas this year will be very quiet and I dread that in so many ways. I will do my shopping and mail out the gifts but the quiet of the season without my chicks home will be extremely difficult. I need to refocus and figure how to have fun at the holidays and make it stress free and focus on what the season is truly about.
I am sure there are people out there that need a family to go to and there are things I can do that will be fun and can share with others. My goal just may turn out to be, have more fun. I definitely believe we all ought to laugh more and you could easily ask my kids how that works. I was threatened by one after a prank I had pulled that this would put them in therapy the rest of their lives and the next thing I knew they pulled the same prank on someone else. So let's all take a moment to breathe, laugh, and reach out and help someone else to make it a great day! Make today fun!
S