Third Happy Anniversary -

My sister has a dinner plate that says, "First Happy Anniversary." The plate was made in Japan, and while this is an Engrish error (how about Happy First Anniversary), there is some depth here. What if you've been married thirteen years, yet the fourteenth year is the first happy one?

Today I'm celebrating my third year anniversary of finishing my cancer treatments, and it is a third happy year as well.

So much has changed, I keep learning from my experiences (thank heavens), and I'm almost to the point where I can say I'm grateful for my year of cancer treatments and years of working toward health.

The summer after my treatments I was at a retreat where I received the prompting, "The life you led no longer serves you." I've thought of this often, and yet that life seems to keep creeping back into my life. And just this week I had a realization, based on this prompting. Perhaps it's not just the outward life I was leading, but the inward one as well. I just about allowed myself to be pulled back into some conversations regarding some things I'm pretty passionate about this week. And just as I was tip-toeing in that direction, this prompting surfaced - and I became aware that it's the internal life I was leading that is also no longer good for me.

I need to stay away from negative energy, even when I want to partake, it is not healthy for me (probably never has been) to be a member of a collection of folks who spend their time looking for wrongs and at wrongs, rather than living in goodness. This means walking away from people, conversations, and topics I find tantalizing and energizing, while also diminishing.
Cancer has taught me that I do not want to live in darkness, that light is where I belong, and it is not Pollyanna'ish of me to strive to be positive, with a shake of realism.

This third happy anniversary, and moving into the fourth year, give me cause to contemplate where I want to be going, and how I want to continue this collaboration with my cancer journey. I'm grateful for the distance I have between me and it, and I'm grateful for the perspective distance gives. I'm grateful for progress - personal progress, and the insight to be able to recognize, acknowledge, and move forward.

Here's to three years -