Float like a Waterbug, Sting like a Bee

It isn’t so much that I’m afraid of heights as it is I’m afraid of falling from heights.  Therefore, when, 2 months ago, I found myself in Moab, Colorado dangling on the side of sheer rock face struggling to find a toe-hold in the millimeter-wide crannies, I began to panic. 

Now, to pull back the scene a little bit, I was about 15 feet off the ground, strapped into a harness, and attached to a grounding line held by my belay partner only a few feet below.  But it didn’t feel safe.  It felt like I was stabbing the rock cliff with my feet, trying desperately to find purchase in thin air, my adrenaline kicking up so high I could taste it.

Muscle-fatigued and terrified, I called to my partner below that I wanted to come down – I was done.  The rock climbing guide on our trip overheard my plea and walked over from the lines and climbers parallel to me.  He suggested that I sit back in the harness, take a break, feel my weight being held, and catch my breath.  Then he called up, “You can come down, but if you want to keep going, I’ll help you.” 

Later that evening, back on flat earth in front of a crackling fire, he chuckled he could see my shoulders slump at that moment, a moment of resignation, a knowing that, indeed, because of his help, I was going to and was able to keep going.  This sanguine moment of, “Shit, alright, fine.  Let’s do this.”  And, together, we did.  He called out places where I could find my footing, and shortly thereafter I was at the top, my heart a fluttering canary, stress-tears straining back in my eyes, weak from fear and exertion – and once safely back the 60ft to the ground again, proud.

He told me of a concept called a “retro-climb.”  It is only after you have accomplished this ridiculous feat of effort that you feel pride, accomplished, and glad you did it at all.  In the moment, you only feel fear, anxiety, terror.  Honestly, I’ve not felt so frightened in recent memory, despite the intellectual knowledge that I was completely safe, held, and cared for.  (My naturopath had a field day turning down my maxed-out adrenaline once I’d returned to SF!)

In my own personal work lately, my mentor suggested I seek an internal guide to show me my blind spots.  As some of you know, I sometimes use a Shamanic Journey meditation practice that introduces you to internal guides of both human and animal form.

And so, the other morning in meditation, I “went in” to find a guide to show me what I’m missing, since there are whole areas of my life that still feel unresolved and cause me distress (see: "romance and finance"; aka serially single and perpetually under/un-employed).  In this meditation, as the title of this blog may suggest, I came across a waterbug.

… Now, the waterbug does not seem like the fancy-dancy spirit animal one would hope for!  It’s not a lion or eagle or even antelope.  And yet, here it was.  I won’t “bore” you with the details of the meditation, but the lesson was clear: 

The waterbug floats on the top of the water, not because it is defying the law of physics, but precisely because it knows, believes, and trusts in them so completely that it knows it will be held on the surface.  It is not defying gravity, it is embracing the truest knowledge that because of the laws of nature, it must and will always be held.

The rock climbing guide and I had a long conversation one evening about spirituality, and he revealed that his largest question for “God” or the Universe as he continued to expand his life and open his vulnerable self and admit all parts of him was, “Can you really love me that much?”

I replied to him that my question is, “Can you really hold me that much?”  Can you really let me know, help me feel, to my core, that I am held?  That I am safe? 

The waterbug teaches me that it floats because it doesn’t tense and struggle.  It floats because it relaxes and trusts, and simply embodies a knowing that if it steps onto the clear surface of a pond, it will be held.  And furthermore, having seen that it has been held and carried before, it doesn’t continue to question whether it will be held again in the future! 

So this is my lesson for the moment: to embody the true knowing that, like sitting back into a climbing harness, I am expertly and even lovingly held.  And, should I ever choose to question (as it can become a choice rather than a habit), there will always be help offered me.

And p.s., if I mess up and tense up and fall through the surface of the water… I can swim.

The Facts of Life

Not like “the birds and the bees”; like the theme song: “You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have…”

In this great rumpus race for which we have signed up by the very nature of being born, we are subject to a variety of experience.  Some of these we deem good, some bad, and being pleasure-seeking beings, we are partial to those we deem good.

In my own personal relationship to the universe, life, fate and its many faces/facets, I have oriented my understanding to be one that says, Everything happens for our own good.  Even the bad things.

For my alcoholism, I have found recovery, a community, and way of life that brings me fellowship, understanding, pleasure, laughter, and a sense of being deeply understood.

For my childhood, I have come to tell myself that because of my experiences, I've become sensitive, compassionate, empathetic, resourceful, strong, and creative.

For my cancer, I have taken my struggle and survival as impetus to engage in my life more fully, playing in a band, flying a plane, acting and singing in theater.

For all these horrors and more, I can look back and deem them “good,” because they have led me to becoming more useful and engaged as a human.

And yet.

Fuck. All. That.

That we are thrown against the shores of life brutally onto the rocks of experience, shaping us, reshaping us, and winnowing us down to the raw beauty of ourselves—  Hey Universe, would you lay off a minute, huh?

Because perhaps, Shit. Just. Happens.

And that is the worst understanding of all for me.  It is the least controlled, the least controllable, the most chaotic, disordered, entropy-laden reasoning for it all.

What it means is that we are not “safe.”  And if there is anything I have struggled for in my lifetime, it is to feel safe.

But in this quest, this blazing, self-propelled quest for safety, I have built up around myself an armor, a buffer, a multi-layered sequence of dance steps that I believe if I dodge left, you, it, experience, failure, hurt, calamity will needly dodge right.

Yet, the Universe has its own dancesteps, and sometimes they are to bowl you over like a rhino in a football helmet.

Furthermore, by dodging experience as a whole --monstrous as I believe or fear it to be-- I also dodge whatever good that rhinoceros might be trying to hand me.  And therein lies the rub, eh?

As I mentioned a few days ago about the dam, restricting my own self, need, and experience out of fear of what might happen if I let things flow, I am scrubbing up against my own realization that I am restricting myself for fear that bad shit might happen.  I am hoping to control the all of my experience so I am not harmed anymore.

Because forget all the above bullshit (which I also happen to believe) about all those bad things becoming or being seen as good things – don’t fucking think that I want or wanted them too.  They were all still egregiously painful.  And, as I mentioned, human as I am, I don’t want pain.

In my attempt to restrict my experience of pain, however, I believe I restrict my experience of benevolence.  Grace.  Fulfillment.

And so, I am stymied, victim of my own prison, of my own design to be safe, I am restricted from the greater joys and rewards of life.

“You take the good, you take the bad… “

Am I willing to expose myself, to be vulnerable and open to the whole of life’s experience, knowing that in my disarmoring, I am (also) opening myself to unforeseen goodness?

The Day of Magical Thinking

When bad things happen, some people of faith tend to say, “Well, that wasn’t God; that was just a bad thing happening.”

Holocaust, dead babies, friends overdosing: Not God. Just happenstance. 

To try to integrate trauma into a worldview that includes a benevolent power underlying all, one must, according to some, reject the trauma as a part of the benevolent power’s purview. 

Now, granted, one might imagine that an all-powerful being would probably have the authority to have a hand in such things. But for the case of some arguments, we’re told, Shit happens. 

Awakened in me, or at least uncovered in me, recently is a boatload of anger. A feeling of betrayal by some power in the Universe that just as I was beginning to come out of the trauma of a history dotted with: abuse, neglect, rape, alcoholism, pauperism and solitude: that it would be then that my blood would suddenly turn to cancer inside me. 

However, in order to feel a betrayal, I must believe that it was personal. Or, if not personal, that there was somehow a fairness or order in the Universe that was reversing on me. 

And, I can’t. I can’t anymore believe that I’ve been betrayed because it is upsetting the fabric of my nature. 

To think, Okay, now I have to go through trauma recovery around cancer on top of all the rest I was dealing with, makes me feel hideously resentful and angry and frustrated, and in the end, hopeless. 

Because if things are going to abruptly turn to a pit of fire at any given moment, what’s the point? What’s the point in healing, helping, creating, being?

And I can’t have that. I can’t be someone who carries around the question, What’s the point?

It’s very bad for me. 

So, what if I try something different, for even a day? Car won’t start? Shit happens. Find a penny on the sidewalk: Good shit happens. Cancer recurs and I have to transplant my bone marrow by shearing away the essence of my body? Well, Shit Happens. 

I dunno. Doesn’t sound realistic to me. But, then again, what does?

Do I just assume good things will happen to and for me, and wash aside the traumas? I am someone who believes that repression and white-washing doesn’t actually work, so what if you just reject it, instead of repress it?

If I begin to believe that I’m someone who can have stability, joy, purpose, fulfillment, connection and ease… well, anything that doesn’t fit with that worldview just file under “Not God”?

And here’s the rub with the whole “God,” Higher Power, Benevolent Force, Life Itself, Universe shit:

I happen to belong to -- and had my life saved by -- a group of people who say that in order to not drink yourself into oblivion and become a tornado in the lives of others … you need a “spiritual solution.”

Uh. Hmmm….

So, what if. What if just for a day (because hey, it’s a day I fought the fuck hard for anyway), I just assume and walk about and believe that good shit happens? That I have good luck. That I am destined to fulfillment in my work and romantic life. 

What if I let my anger and betrayal and hurt and aghastness rest… not shoved away or down, but just set into an open box called, “Shit Happens”? 

Meh. It's worth a shot. 

oh, that again.

So, I’ve restarted my work on relationships with a new mentor, someone who shares the lineage of the woman I’d been working with, which means that this morning, I got to read aloud my entire sad history of relationships and sex. Again.

Good. Times. 

Interestingly enough, though, I was struck this morning about how my avoidance of or aversion to commitment in relationships parallels my aversion to commitment in my career and work-life. 

I’ve said and heard it a thousand times: Romance and Finance are two sides of the same coin. And I knew that working on one would bring about change or awareness in the other. 

But, somehow rereading my pattern — of splitting when things get weird, or choosing partners I don’t want, or not being open to those men who are into me — highlighted what is happening for me in career-land. 

A friend said to me last week that it sounds like it’s time for me to choose a career path. Not a job. But something I can follow through on. 

Eek. I hate that. I’ve always hated the idea of having to choose one thing. But I recounted this all to my mom and told her that it’s similar to how I had to choose theater over music. I miss music. And it’s not like I’ll never play again, but I had to choose to put my creative efforts into theater if I wanted to get anywhere with it. 

I hated that. I hate that I can do and be so many things, and I have “so much potential,” and so many varied interests, that choosing one is incredibly frightening for me. Like I’ll choose poorly, to quote Indiana Jones. What if by choosing theater, I’m turning my back on a fate in music or painting? What about all the other roads my life could take?

And yet. By not choosing one, I take no roads, or follow a little of each, and I feel stymied and frozen. 

Commitment leads to freedom in that way. 

And when it’s going to come to career, I’m going to have to choose. Sure, I could easily and very successfully be: A teacher, a writer, a psychologist, a mediator, a community engagement executive. 

I could be any of these things. Hell, I could even be a doctor or a lawyer or a spaceman if I wanted. 

Well, maybe not a spaceman. 

But I haven’t wanted to choose. Because what.if.I’m.wrong. 

What if I choose something and it doesn’t turn out well? What if I fail at finding "my calling" this lifetime? What if NONE of those things listed above actually make me want to get up and go to work?

What if I put my trust and faith in the wrong career, or -- to parallel -- in the wrong man?

Well, sorry, lady, you gotta eat. 

And you gotta choose. 

Sure, people change careers throughout their lives, but I’ve changed mine so many times before age 30 that I think I’ve played that card out. 

Therefore. One of these things is going to have to be it. Whether it makes my heart sing or not. No, I didn’t want to “give up” music. But I did, and the theater thing I love, even if it’s slowed down for now. 

None of the above professions makes my heart sing, per se. There’s no glow surrounding any of them saying, Pick me Pick me. But each inspires me to help bring others together, to inspire others to heal, to bring unity into the world. 

So, no. I don’t know, still, what I want to be when I grow up. But I am warming up to the idea of choosing one path. And actually moving forward on it. 

Rock Saves.

As you may have noticed by now, I’ve been in a bit of a maudlin mood since attaining a job in retail. Since that time, in the last week alone, my sponsor had to let me go in order to focus on her own healing work, I got a traffic ticket while on my way to visit a pregnant friend, and my four stalwart neighboring trees were torn down. 

Plus, I slammed my pinkie in a drawer. 

It’s been a No good very bad day, and you can call me Alexander. 

It’s been pretty bad, and even before the tree massacre, I was on the phone with a friend saying that it felt like a series of trap doors: just when you think it can’t get worse, it does. I wouldn't be surprised for “The Big One” to hit, or my car to break down. 

That said, yesterday, in a funk over the trees (read: hysterically crying over the loss of everything solid in my life — yes, perspective is a lost art), I drove my car in to work instead of taking public transportation. On came the NPR, because it’s what I usually listen to in the car. 

But it wasn’t right. Sure, it’s informative and I enjoy it in a way, but it’s not fun. It’s not uplifting. Unless it’s A Prarie Home Companion. 

And so I put on a CD of one of my favorite bands, playing one of their most famous live sets. 

I immediately pressed through to one of my favorite songs, one I can count on as an uplifter, and as the song progressed, I turned the volume louder. And louder. 

As I sat in that toll bridge traffic, I began to sing along. I began to smile. 

I played a series of 4 songs, the last one on repeat as I climbed the circular parking garage. And I felt better. 

I have this kind of amnesia when it comes to music: I forget that Rock Saves. 

I can go for weeks without music, maybe a few songs on the radio here and there, but not volume up to 40, ear-ringing, loud singing, smile-inducing music. 

I felt transformed by the end of my trip from Oakland to San Francisco. If there were another trap door opening beneath me, I felt as though the music was giving me upper body strength to cling to the sides of the trap, and hoist myself out. 

The trap may be open beneath me, and it is always an option to fall in, but somehow I felt like I was climbing out of that one. That, for that morning, that previously sob-fest morning, I was not going to continue on like that. 

I parked my car and walked toward my job with an actual jaunt in my step, and a bit of that subversive, “I’ve been listening to music really loud,” half-grin on my face. A cute 20-something said hi to me as I jaunted down the sidewalk. 

I’ve been walking to work looking solely down at the sidewalk, internally commenting the awful smell of human waste. 

Yesterday was a different morning. 

Sometimes I feel like I could be diagnosed with manic-depression, the way I can swing from despair to hope! But, perhaps it’s normal. And I’ll never really know, honestly. 

When things are going well enough, I never feel the need for anti-depressants, and even when they’re not going well, it’s always temporary, and not debilitating. 

So, maybe, simply, Rock Saves. 

Maybe, simply, I have a fount of resiliency that I only seem to find in desolate moments. 

Yesterday, as I drove to work, I drove through a portal of grace. 

Things are not different. All the externals remain the same. 

But I have that grin on my face. And I’ve been singing in my car. 

The Miracle of 12 - 13 - 14

“I’m getting married on 12/13/14,” I half-joked to my coworker early this year.

I just love the order, the numbers, the unique fact that consecutive dates like that won’t happen again until 2103 (1/2/03).

My favorite time of day? 12:34.

Although "5:55" is another favorite, because my brother and I used to stand in front of the microwave (the only digital clock in the house then), look at the time and announce, “Five fifty-five!” and then lean over sideways, our heads upside-down, and announce, “Fifty-five five!” and then stand up straight and do it again: 5:55!! 55:5!!

I love that kind of order and ease, palindromes, sequences.

THREE POINT ONE FOUR ONE FIVE NINE – I THINK PI IS MIGHTY FINE!, is one our mother taught to us.

And so, when early this year, I looked at the calendar and saw that one of these special dates was coming up, I declared to my coworker that would be my wedding anniversary date.

Now, this was, say June, maybe? No boyfriend. No prospects. It would be a short engagement! But I figured, What the hell, it’s always good to declare things to the Universe. Why not?

And 6 months later, yesterday, it hit. December 13th, 2014.

No, I did not get married. Alas.

But I did get something else. An outpouring of love that rivals the strongest romantic connection:

Yesterday, you all erased my cancer debt. In 36 hours. Less than two days. Poof! Gone. Done. Finished. Eliminated.

FREE.

Yesterday evening, I became free. Because of the love and generosity of you, my friends, your friends, and even people I barely know.

One of the donors is a woman I helped at my sales job this week. A brand new woman I hit it off with, and happened to mention the launch of the campaign on Friday.

“Send me the link,” she said. And she donated, too.

Over 60 people contributed to the campaign, not to mention the shares and “likes” and “We’re with you” emails and messages.

In 36 hours. It’s done. Something that has harangued me since I got sick is over. Something I put in every monthly budget and calculate how long it will take, and that I can never move from my apartment with that debt. Something I was shackled to. 

Until yesterday. 

Now, I have to wait for the campaign to officially close in January, and for the crowdfunding site to take their cut and then send me the donations.

But then, I get to write a check to my landlord. And I get to say, Yes, it’s time to clean out that janitor room–cum art studio, unstick the windows, clean out the dried cat poop, put a lock on the door, and hand me a key. 

And then I get to move my art supplies up. Out of my closet. Out of random drawers.

The half-started art projects, the oil paint, acrylics, and embossing gun, the colored pencils, and easel, and oil pastels, collage magazines, glue sticks, stamps and stickers, brushes and sketchpads and canvases, exact-o knives and glitter.

All of this. All of this hidden away in my studio apartment closet. All of this out. Up. Lit. Alive. With me, available to me. Creation incarnate.

I get to m o v e  o n.

12 13 14.

I didn’t get married yesterday. But what is a wedding except a display of love, commitment, hope, cherishment?

On 12/13/14, I absolutely received that. Your love, your hope, your belief in me.

Wow.

And: Thanks. 

From Thanksgiving to Thanksgiving.

Last Tuesday night as I sat at a rainy Oakland BART waiting for the shuttle to take me within walking distance of my apartment, my friend called.

She’d remembered that it was my first day of training for my department store sales job and wanted to know how it went. I told her, Good. A lot of corporate training-style stuff. Different department managers introducing themselves. Lots of powerpoint presentations about the history and brand of the company. And there were to be 3 days of this.

I told her I was most nervous (I told her I was trying to call it “curious”) about what would happen when I actually got onto the sales floor the following Saturday.

I haven’t worked retail since high school.

She told me we were both having “first day” experiences. She’d just this afternoon signed a contract with a small graphic design firm to be a partner with them, and she, too, was “curious” as to how it would all work out.

She told me that morning, she’d read this story about a guy who’s mentor suggested that he make a decision to not worry for one year. That whenever he got nervous, or tried to “figure things out,” or was anxious about an outcome, he made the commitment that he would simply not worry, that he would trust in the “universe,” and understand that he didn’t have to know the outcome. He just had to do what was in front of him and take small actions.

Needless to say, he had a great year.

As I huffed into the phone on Tuesday night, walking through the dark blocks toward my house, I asked my friend if she wanted to make a pact with each other. That for one year we wouldn’t worry.

And so, we did. We each announced to each other our commitment (middle names and everything) not to “not worry,” but to catch ourselves as quickly as we could, and to remember to “let it go,” and, for me, to have faith in the benevolence of the universe and the unfolding of my path.

When I’m scared of not making my sales numbers, and this whole retail thing doesn’t really work if you don’t. When I’m worried that retail hours and theater hours are the same and how will I be able to do both. When I am concerned that I quit a full-time time to have time to engage in creative project, to find a “fulcrum” job (more pay, fewer hours), and I've ended up in another full-time job…

I've been telling myself this past week, “From Thanksgiving to Thanksgiving.” Because that’s a year for my friend and me. One year of not worrying. Of trusting that it’ll not only be okay, but that it’ll be great.

To trust that if I simply do what’s next, make that next phone call to a friend, hang up that next sweater, show up to that next audition, the world will have a way of working out.

Sure, I’ve been nervous this week -- making calculations, staring wide-eyed at rehearsal schedules, wondering if this position will be temporary or not -- but I’ve been remembering that catch phrase, whispering it aloud, and it’s helped.

Today will be my second day on the sales floor. I am scheduled with them through the start of January with an option to extend. I have an audition set up for late January for a great musical. And I have COBRA payments to starting this month.

But I'm not going to worry one bit. ;P

Don't Freak Out: A How-To.

When I was sick, I became extremely diligent about my spiritual practice.

Despite, or perhaps including, the conversations I had with a few select friends about the nature, existence, purpose, and questionable benevolence of a Higher Power, I knew that my safest and surest course through all that uncertainty, fear, and buzzing activity around me was to touch base with my center.

It really was only after the first month, though, that I was able to write. I found my first journal entry in a notebook friends had brought me in the hospital just days after I was diagnosed. It begins Saturday, September 29, 2012. There’s one on the 30th, and then it stops. Until after my month of chemo and recovery in the hospital.

But, thereafter, I made it a huge part of my practice to journal, meditate, and eventually write my near-daily blog. I even made the nurse put a sign on my hospital room door that read, “Meditation in progress; Come back in 20 minutes.” (I personally loved that this meant people would continually be turned away without a firm time listed, and I could have some solitude in that busy and anxious place!)

But, I think about this practice now (journal, meditate, blog), one that was common for me before I was sick, one that was essential to me during my treatments, and one that still needs to be a part of my daily life.

Meetings, Movement, and Meditation are my recipe for sanity. And most recently, with all the hubbub, I’m lucky to get even one in there.

But I know very specifically and with assurance that it not only works, it also helps to light my way through.

I am in another place of uncertainty, fear, and buzzing activity. And my only way through is to have the anchors of my practice.

There’s a phrase I’ve heard, “Most days I meditate for thirty minutes, but on really busy days, I meditate for an hour.” Not that I’m doing that! But the intention is there; the intention to give myself even more time and space to coalesce, to touch down, to get grounded, and to listen.

I have less trouble listening as I do heeding. It’s all well and good to listen, and I can do that, and sometimes get answers or guidance; but if I’m not following through or up on the information I receive, what’s the point? Then I simply know what I’m not doing and get to beat myself up for it!

And, I guess that’s not the point either.

I get to remember this morning that I have been in more dire straits than the one I’m currently in: Job ending Friday; uncertain income sources; uncertain path toward fulfillment. I get to remember that I’ve been here before with previous job changes, and I’ve emotionally been here before because of cancer. Nothing puts things in perspective like cancer!

And if I could have gotten through what I did, using the recipe I know works every single time, then I am bidden to use it again. Journal, meditate, blog. Meetings, movement, meditation. Heed the information I’m given.

Rest.

This career shift is all about buying myself time to see myself more clearly, to see my future more clearly, and to create the space and time in which to build toward those goals. This isn’t about busy work, or a brain fogged with anxiety. This isn’t about despair or hopelessness.

This isn’t even about simply “getting through” this time. This time is important; being in this transition space is important. It’s not simply, Batten down the hatches til the storm passes. This isn’t about ostriching my head into the sand. It will be important for me to be aware through all of this time, to listen through it, and to be aware.

To not hide from my own change, because then I won’t know where I’m going or what I’m doing. I have to stay present with this change. I have to acknowledge that I’m uncomfortable, and that I’m taking positive steps. I have to acknowledge where I’m neglecting myself and acting out my anxiety in less than healthy ways. And in order to know any of these things, I have to be present.

And that’s ultimately what each of these “recipes” does for me – they help me get and stay present.

So, yesterday I did cancel that modeling gig. I went to meet up with folks I hadn’t seen in a while. I got my vacuum cleaner fixed, went to the farmer's market, put that bookshelf into my closet. I bought dish soap.

The more I engage in my recipes, the better I feel. The better I feel, the more able I am to take care of myself and to take actions that support me. The more I take action, the better I feel.

It’s a continuous positive feedback loop that has carried me through the most atrocious and trying of circumstances. With grace.  

And if I can remember that -- I am voraciously confident, it can carry me through this. 

A word, if you don’t mind?

Dear Molly,

First of all, congratulations on closing the Addams Family. I heard it was a fantastic run to packed houses nearly every night. And brava on finally getting that one song that was giving you trouble. Fist pumping is highly appropriate!

But, I’m moved to write to you today because I want to make sure you realize how many irons you have blazing right now, and ensure that you’re taking the proper time for yourself. (Although, I must say, I wouldn’t be writing if I thought you were!)

As soon as the show closed, you began a new one the next day, yes? Rehearsing almost daily with a dozen monologues to memorize by next Friday? You’ve been searching for a new job or jobs, as well as having interviews or coffee dates with folks several times a week. You’ve been sitting on weekend mornings for a portrait artist in order to make some cash, and you’ve begun teaching on two weekday afternoons after work and before rehearsal.

Forget about your dishes, we’re way beyond them now! Have you seen your car? Your apartment? Where is the calm space you so crave at home? How about that outstanding parking ticket you need to dispute at the Berkeley parking office? And the fellowship meetings you are barely attending and the crispy, crackling nature of your office interactions right now?

Is it fair to say that you’ve got a few things on your plate… AND that you’re not taking the normal care of yourself that’s necessary for your health? Is it true that you’ve been feeling tired and coming down with something?

Something’s got to give, my friend, and I don’t want it to be you.

Yes, I know this is an uncertain and shifting time, and your home is always a reflection of your mental state. I know it feels like there’s no time for meetings, but doesn’t there have to be? It’s terribly uncomfortable for you and those around you when you’re this wound up.

However, I do want to come back to say, I am writing all this because I am in support of you. I want you to achieve your best in all you do. I just want to remind you to set first things first. Weekends, which have been your farmers market and cooking-for-the-week days, as well as nesting and organizing days, have been robbed by all this new work.

Maybe -- and I’m just throwing this out there -- you tell the artist you can’t sit with him until after your show opens? I mean, the worst he can say is no, right? Maybe you ask a friend to help you with the enormous bookcase you inherited from your upstairs neighbor that’s been standing, disassembled, in the center of your apartment for a week? Maybe you really schedule that time to go to the parking office, and don’t blow it off this time because you’re running late for work?

Look, the bottom line is you’re in a huge amount of transition right now. You’re taking a leap of faith that you’ll land somewhere new and different than where you’ve been. You’re doing this to support your art, and to support the idea that you have more to give to the world than a well-crafted spreadsheet. I am in awe of you for taking the risk.

In truth, both ways are risky: to stay is a risk to sanity, to leave is a risk to livelihood. But, I do have faith that things will turn out well for you (Yesterday's interview was promising & the second interview is set.). You are doing all the right things… you’re just not leaving time for the rest of the “right things,” and that’s where I’m concerned.

So, take a minute to consider my suggestions. See if you can come up with your own solutions, and talk to your friends to help you through this quite chaotic but exciting time.

As a friend once said, The only difference between anxiety and excitement is breathing.

So, breathe, Molly. And I’ll see you when you land, safely.

Yours, 

“Just What I Needed.”

I was just telling my co-worker that nearly every item in my apartment came off the street or handed down. What typically happens for me is I notice a need in the apartment, say, I want a new waste-paper basket for my bathroom. And, more often than not, within a week or so, I’ll pass the perfect one on the street.

Most of the items in my house happened this way. Including the new kitchen table I just acquired and am typing on today. Because as point of fact, I’d just been saying and thinking how I want a new, less rickety kitchen table. And lo, yesterday, I ran into an upstairs neighbor who is moving and getting rid of things, and I asked to see what she had left, and there’s that Ikea table I’d admired but didn’t want to buy. And now, it’s here, in my home.

The reason I bring it up today is that I have recognized that when I have clarity of vision, I tend to get what it is I want. The perfect semi-matching bedside table, the pull-out couch that nestles perfectly in the alcove, a set of new colorful bowls and plates to replace the staid gray ones I’d bought at Goodwill.

Each of these I envisioned before they appeared. And so, I feel, will the job.

I do know how I want to structure and spend my day. I do know the kind of routine I want and the kind of impact I want to have.

And yet. It’s the waiting, the focusing, the action, the getting there, the pause.

With each newly acquired piece in my home, I am reinforcing the belief and faith and trust that if I dream it, it will come. If I am particular and specific, it will come.

It’s time once again to write a job ideal, and perhaps a relationship ideal while I’m at it, as I continue to release relationships that don’t serve me.

In fact, I’ve noticed as I look at my list of relationships to amend (people I’ve fallen out of touch with for self-preservation [but feel guilty about it], men I intrigue with even though there’s no possibility or desire for more, and the third category, my job that I haven’t wanted that’s been the same one dressed in different clothes for decades), each of these categories can be boiled down to: Molly staying in relationships she doesn’t want to be in.

Molly staying for the crumbs, the guilt, the fear of emptiness. Molly staying because it’s the “right” and “good” thing to do. Molly staying because she believes she can’t have what she really wants.

Each of these amends boils down to believing I’m worth attaining what I really want.

It’s so easy to believe and reinforce this when it comes to kitchen furniture! it’s harder to believe I can have what I want when it comes to people.

It is a sad and lonely habit to continue to hang on to relationships that don’t work, that aren’t fulfilling, that aren’t meeting my needs because of a belief that something is better than nothing.

It’s funny. My voice teacher had me practice “As long as he needs me” from Oliver the other week. Did I know the song, he asked? Yes. Yes, I know the song. I live the song.

I will stay on as long as he, she, they, it needs me. No matter how it’s hurting because “if you’ve been lonely, then you will know, when someone needs you, you love them so.”

So, I guess I should correct it to say I have lived the song. But I don’t really anymore, or I don’t want to anymore. I don’t want to settle, I don’t want to stay small, I don’t want to be scared of what may or may not come to me.

I want to believe, that just as I knew my kitchen table would arrive when it was supposed to, that my job and my healthy relationship will as well.

With a little visioning, of course. And perhaps a new theme song.

Someone will be with you shortly.

In the absence of more information, we fall back on the marching orders we know: Chop Wood, Carry Water. The Golden Rule. Look up, around, and away from yourself.

This morning, in an attempt to cull more information from the universe about where I should be focusing my energies with regard to career and income, I went into a meditation via a shamanic journey.

I didn’t get much. I asked other questions that I got some answers or insight to, but as to What on earth should I be doing next, who should I talk to, where should I focus, I got a whole lot of nothing.

And, in my own experience of meditation, the absence of information is itself information.

Stop trying to force yourself into a path, into action. It will be available when it’s supposed to be. The whole, "God is slow but never late," adage comes to mind. – One that galls me most of the time.

Because, often in my experience, slow but never late translates as “the last minute,” which really means, when you’ve given up all your plans and designs and have thrown your arms down, and said, okay, god/universe/soul/fate, whatever. Just whatever. I’m here, I’m done. I’m here.

It’s usually in these moments of surrender that I find information, that opportunities open up, that more is revealed.

Funny, as I think of it now, the play I’m in right now is a result of that “Whatever, here goes nothing” tack. The second audition of a day, after I’d pretty badly bombed the first, I decided, Whatever, I’m going to pull out (most of) the stops, and just throw it all out there, be as funny and into it as I can be because I have nothing to lose. I tried my controlled, “I want it to be this way” way, I tried working from the place of true terror and fear about what others would think of me, and that didn’t work out so great.

So, whatever, god, whatever you want. And lookie-loo what happened. It’s not to say don’t take action, it’s just to say, let go of my hold of the way I think things – me, mostly – should be.

And, with regard to other information I got in my meditation this morning, one of my questions was how I can stop stifling myself onstage? Because I do. I’m nervous and judging myself, and I want the audience to like me and my peers to esteem me, and I want to do a "really good job." And in that attempt, I’m so in my head that I’m not in my body, in my heart, in the moment, in the fun. And it doesn’t turn out how I want it.

It seems to me that the answer to most of this is, Be where you are, be who you are, and let it happen how it is.

That is so hard for me. And for most people, I imagine.

I want to know what to do next. I want a simple path from A to B. Or even a map to a complex path – I don’t care, just give me some coordinates! This, “be where you are and love yourself in and through it” thing is amorphous and feels ungrounded.

And yet, basing my actions on what I think I should be is as ungrounded as anything, because it’s not grounded in reality or the truth.

It is obvious to me when I reflect that taking actions out of fear, out of imagined people-pleasing, out of a panicked desire to “do the right thing” cause me more harm than good. And take up more time than it’s worth.

So, I will wait until more is revealed, as people often says it is. I will remember that there are no mistakes, only misinterpretations. I will try to embody the … no, I will try to let loose the confidence I know is stifled beneath the surface of my posturing and planning, and I will see what comes of it.

This whole transition for me is about embracing and sharing who I really am. It doesn’t work if I keep on trussing this person up in the shackles of my own expectations and a habit of low self-image.

Hello, Seattle, I’m listening. 

Icarus at the Bus Station

There is an adage I’ve heard: A new bus can’t pull into the station if there’s one already there.

The point being, unless you let something go, you can’t grab hold of something new.

This often comes up when people are talking about relationships, but it can be sagely advised around anything. Today, though, it does mean relationships.

There’s a second category of folks that I need to amend my relationships with, after those who I’ve fallen out of touch with for self-preservation. This is a category entitled: Men I intrigue with but don’t want a relationship with. ("with whom I don’t want a relationship," yeah, I know.)

But. This list, when written earlier this year comprised of 6 or 7 names. Now, there are only two left outstanding. The rest have fallen by the wayside as I’ve changed the electrically charged way I interact with them or have expressly stated I want to change the nature of our lovely, but ambiguous flirtation.

It’s exciting to flirt. It’s exciting to know that with a few taps on my phone, I can spark the interest of someone. It’s a boost to the ego -- and it’s totally unfair to us both. It’s a lie, really.

Sure, it’s fun, and I’m not saying that it’s wrong; it’s just not truthful for me, when I know that these are men who I don’t want to date or pursue a relationship with. For whatever reason.

Some, I just “don’t feel it.” We were never more than friends, to either of us, but there’s something nice about that extra “like” on your status update or the comment posted somewhere down your page, where you know they’ve had to dig to find it. Yes, most of these “intrigue” relationships (meaning, flirtatiously undertoned interactions) are acted out virtually, and that enhances their ease, their prevalence and the reluctance to “break them off,” since, who are we really hurting? Everyone “pokes” each other, right?

But, for me, I know it’s not right anymore. It’s distracting from what I really want, and using someone else as a tool to bolster my self-esteem. Neither of which get me to the healthful relationship (with myself or with someone else) that I’d like.

Some of the men on my list are simply fucked up and/or unavailable, and strangely(?), the last two remaining are in this subset.

It’s not that they’re just my friends who I flirt with; it’s not as innocent as a few extra “likes;” these two are possibilities in relationship-land, except that they’re not. At all.

And these are so hard to let go of, because they’re the most ambiguous, the most possible, and the most delicious. Delicious Evil: the curl of the lip when you think about them, your flirtation with them, what you’ve done with them, because these are not Rated G acquaintanceships you have had.

You like the thrill, the quickening of the pulse, and the slight tensing of your thighs.

Who.Wouldn’t?

But.

Here is where my current work comes in. I don’t want to stop these flirtations/more than flirtations, but I know this bus is not going to get me where I want to go. These are not available people. And despite the purring coo my body radiates when I consider them, my brain and heart can’t really take it.

I do want a relationship, with someone available to me. It’s nice to get the milk for free, but I’m ready to invest in a cow.

I’ve spoken to a friend of mine who has similar patterns with men and relationships, and I asked her honestly if there was the same kind of Icarus-style pull in her marriage. If there was that same forbidden, lustful quickening. If there was that, We’re going to blot out the sun with the heat of our passion. 

And, she told me, Honestly, No. It’s different.

You’re not going to get a cocaine high when you’re sober. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth being sober; it just means, No, there are some experiences that won’t be replicated in a healthy relationship.

Sure, it’s just one woman’s opinion, but I trust her, and I understand her analogy.

No, you won’t blot out the sun, but you won’t go down in flames either.

It’s up to me to decide which life I’d rather live, and which course I’d rather take. I know where this current “intriguey” bus leads – right back here, again.

So, I’m going to have to make a choice to be brave, and let this bus drive on without me, and trust that if I do, there will be a different one coming. (pun intended.)

T’shuvah

(In my vague and limited Jewish knowledge) T’shuvah refers to the time in the Jewish calendar between Rosh Hashanah—the Jewish New Year—and Yom Kippur—when our names are sealed in the “Book of Life” by G-d for the next year.

T’shuvah literally means to return, but most interpretations take it to mean a time of repentance. A time of atoning for our “sins,” and to acknowledge where we’ve “missed the mark” of our own moral target.

I’m not one for “sins,” or for “atoning,” or for asking forgiveness from a spiritual entity. In my own spiritual practice, there is a habit of taking note of where we’ve been wrong and amending that behavior, whether through direct conversation with someone we’ve harmed or through choosing to act differently in the future.

But, the idea of asking a “higher power” to forgive me for anything at all has never sat well with me. I simply don’t think that anything that has the power to create life and death and change and love would need my asking. I believe that whatever “G-d” is, “it” is much too loving or non-personified to ever require me to ask it to forgive my behavior.

As I said, I still think the process of taking stock of my behavior and righting my own wrongs is very important to my emotional wellbeing and my personal relationships. But on the spiritual plane, G-d would never need me to ask for forgiveness. There’s nothing to forgive – there’s only love, acceptance, and a desire for me to be my best self.

That said, I have been reflecting that this week of t’shuvah has certainly been one of returning. I feel that my actions are those of a woman returning to herself and her values; returning to my true nature, and returning to ideas and hopes that were feared or abandoned.

I am in a musical. I’ve returned to that dream of acting and singing, despite the fears and self-judgments it still brings up in me.

I have officially announced this week that I am moving on from my office job. Again, a return to my true desires, my internal compass. I have stopped hitting the Snooze button on my instincts and drives.

No matter what comes of it, disaster or “success,” I am trying something brand new for me. And that is certainly a return to curiosity, innocence, hope, and creation.

I told my coworker that I boycott Yom Kippur these days. The fasting and the communal atoning of sins. I shun this day and its activities because the idea is that by atoning for our sins, we will be “inscribed in the Book of Life” for another year.

According to the Jewish calendar, in 2012 the evening closing Yom Kippur was the moment of my Leukemia diagnosis. I spent the day of Yom Kippur in an ER. And closed the chapter of that day with cancer. I was 30 years old.

I have done a lot of work around turning that diagnosis into the seeds of a new life. But I will never deny that I have a few wheelbarrows full of anger and grief that still need … sorting or composting or alleviation. Or simply time to feel them, and then to let them go, perhaps, if that’s what happens.

But for me, the idea that on one of the most holy days of the Jewish year, on the day when a person is either granted another year of life or is not, I cannot hold the tragedy of being told half my blood was cancer on that same day. 

And, I imagine, my feelings toward all of this will transform, lessen, or evolve. But, for now, I boycott Yom Kippur.

I have used this week of T’shuvah to take stock of where I am desirous to return to and acknowledge and rejoice in the truth of my soul, and to note where I already am. I have used this week to affirm that life can be new and different and fulfilling.

I will never need the forgiveness of an entity that is either made of benevolence or simply is the indifferent force of Life itself.

My week of T’shuvah is and has returned me to a place of excitement and possibility. I don’t need a communal atonement to reward me for how exceptional that is. 

That said. Shanah Tovah u'Metukah -- May you have a good (tovah) and sweet (metukah) year, friends. And may we write our own Books of Life. 

Undocking is not the same as Unmoored.

A friend of mine was a CPA working in the corporate world. She was making good money and working long hours. And was not happy.

She gave up her apartment, put her purged belongings in storage, and moved to India for 6 months, studying at an ashram, with no need for income or work, except inner work.

Then she came back to the States.

You can’t pay your bills with enlightenment.

She found that she had to create a middle-ground, and now, 10 years later, runs a private practice counseling others toward their own financial/spiritual balance.

I have a feeling I’m about to embark on a similar journey of finding my middle-ground between financial independence and creative expression.

Well, I guess I can’t really say embark, when what I mean is “continue” to simply push the boat out of the harbor. A boat isn’t meant to stay moored, and you’ll never find out what its strengths or weaknesses are, or what your skills as a sailor are if you don’t leave the safety of the dock.

To be concrete: I have informed my job that October 31 will be my last day there.

And the options that I have before me are less than concrete!

I’ve known for a while that it’s time to move on. In support of that notion, earlier this year, I not only put in for my own promotion at my job, but when I was told, “No resources for that,” I went on an active job search, engaging the help of friends to revamp my resume, made networking dates, and went on many interviews.

I was even offered a few jobs. Jobs, that perhaps before, I would have taken.

But the jobs offered, I came to realize continued marching me up a ladder and on a path that didn’t feel like where I wanted to go.

Despite my “big realization” many months ago about wanting to move in the direction of an executive director or program director position… I began to find out more about what that kind of job and life would mean. And it would mean more hours of my life than I want a job to be.

I found, through that job search, that I don’t want a bigger title with a mildly bigger salary. That the trajectory on which I am positioned and was looking to be headed was not one that ended in work-life balance. In a non-profit, there is rarely such a thing!

So, in came the notion of the “fulcrum,” endeavoring toward a job or jobs that generated more income with fewer hours. Leaving me the time I need to create.

When was the last time I picked up a paint brush, or even a pencil? Have I worked on that essay my aunt suggested I submit to publications? When was the last time I could really call myself a poet, despite my Master's degree in it?

Time. I discovered I wanted to literally buy myself time.

And so, I began to vaguely think about career paths or jobs that would be in that direction. Then came the High Holidays at work… and the play… and a halt to any developmental thinking.

But, the holidays are nearly over. It was finalized that there can’t be a different place for me where I’m at, and after too many days crying at or after or on the way to work, I am making a leap … not of faith, but of action.

With the faith that my action will lead me to something different.

For the past 16 years, since I was 16 years old, I’ve been a secretary. I’ve adjusted more margins and input more data than there are guidos in Jersey.

And so I am doing what conventional wisdom says never to ever do. I am quitting without a job lined up.

I have had a professional-direction conversation nearly every day since my decision, am having and have had coffee with people to bounce ideas off of and to network with. I have closed the browser window when I find myself looking again at jobs that say “Administrative” anywhere in the title.

I have been in a rut, and the only way to un-rut yourself is to lean into the discomfort and the growing edge of change. To watch when I’m teetering into despair, into habitual job search words, … into a Netflix binge, and to push myself onto the high ground again.

Another email, a sudden “crazy” idea, a phone call for some more information.

The experience I find most different about this job search than all my previous “quit with no plan” moves, is that I feel supported by my current office and all the people I’ve met there. This doesn’t feel impulsive, even though there’s “no plan;” everyone at my work supports my move, and though they’re sad to see me go, they have every faith in me that I can do whatever it is that feeds me.

I am reaching out to so many people I’ve met there. This isn’t a “here’s my two-weeks’ notice” email, as I’ve done a dozen times prior. This is actually slow and supported in many ways, and I feel it that way.

I am nervous, of course, but I am excited. I feel glad to notice that my brain is coming up with ideas that might be viable that would have been totally out of the box, and therefore dismissed, before. I’m not looking for another 40 hour a week desk job. I am finally willing to look at a patchwork living.

This is my own “move to India” move, though maybe it’s closer to the center of rational than I know. I’ve never been willing to have a few jobs and put them together for a living, because I thought it was too hard, or too undisciplined, or too “artist.”

I’ve been afraid of judgment: my own, my family’s, my peers'. I’ve been afraid to try to cobble together a living, because that “sounds” so hard.

But for 16 years, I’ve worked the 40 hour job. I’ve had the regular pay-stub with the paid-time off and the health insurance. I’ve had the computer log-in and the number to the copy machine guy memorized.

I’ve done “normal.”

But, dears, I’ve never exactly been normal.

Here’s to Voltaire’s Candide-cum-internet meme:

"If we do not find something pleasant, at least we will find something new.”

Third Star to the Right...

Call me a navel-gazer, but as the Jewish High Holidays approach, I get reflective.

At work, I'm neck deep in preparation for them, and acutely aware of their significance on the calendar than I ever was: Two years ago, at the end of September, I was diagnosed with Leukemia on the evening of Yom Kippur, our "day of atonement," the day on which we are either "sealed into the book of life" for another year ... or not. It's a pretty significant day on the Jewish calendar, and I have come to hate it.

I hate what it "means," about being sealed or not into the book of life. I hate how much changed in an instant, with one sentence told to me by a doctor. I hate remembering the sore throat that began the whole prelude to my ER visit, which kept me working from home, and feeling so badly about it since it was a brand new job.

But, what remembering this day also does for me is cause me to reflect on what has changed, and what has happened in the two years hence. I have endeavored to create "a life worth living" for myself against all the internal railing and nay-saying, against all my own self-sabotage, against all the foot-dragging and self-immolation I had previously submitted to.

In the last two years, I have dragged myself kicking and screaming into a life I consider worth living.

This isn’t to say that I’d done nothing beforehand, but here’s a list of experiences I've had & actions I've taken in the last two years, post-cancer:

Hosted my Creativity and Spirituality Workshop

Began blogging daily again

Went to Hawaii for the first time

Got a bedframe for the first time since childhood

Sang at a café with friends

Joined their band on bass

Played shows out, nearly once a month

Started ushering at Music shows for free & have seen, among others:

     - Paul McCartney (about to see him again next week)
     - Red Hot Chili Peppers
     - Doors guitarist Robby Krieger play "People Are Strange" with Warren Haynes...!
     - About to see Dave Matthews

Bought a car

Celebrated July 4th near my old hometown with my mom and brother

Busked on the streets of Oakland and SF singing Christmas caroles

Got real headshots

Auditioned for plays and musicals

Got cast in 4 shows

Modeled for friends

Submitted photos to modeling agencies

Visited Seattle for the first time

Visited Boston to try out a new relationship experience

Dated with craziness

Dated with less craziness

Got laid well

Got laid poorly

Visited a best friend and her newborn baby for a week

Hiked Tilden & Marin

Took accredited acting classes

Took voice lessons
Flew a plane(!) -- and landed it ;)

Any of these things could have happened beforehand (and some were indeed happening, with less gusto, determination & regularity), but most of the activities on this list are new to me.

I was talking with a friend a few months ago, another cancer survivor, and she said that she feels complete with the world – that if she died today, she’d be okay with that. I noticed how not okay I'd have been with that; virulently not okay.

Granted, she’s about 10 years older than me, has a daughter, teaches in a way she loves, is married.

And I think those are key differences. Having created your own family, having a career you feel impassioned about. Those are items that are not yet on my above list, and I want them to be before I expire, thank you.

I do however, write this list to reflect to myself that there are things that I’ve done that are miraculous, fun, and inspiring for anyone to have done, let alone l'il ole me. I forget this, frequently.

It’s hard to admit this here, and it’s not precisely the entire truth, but if I were to expire sooner than later... Well, I won't say, "If I died today, I'd be okay with that," but that I am exponentially grateful for this role I’ve recently landed. To play in a musical, comedic role at a community theater is the cat’s pajamas. (If I have to go soon, I hope it's after we open!) 

When I returned from teaching English in South Korea almost 10 years ago, I said I was coming home to “break onto Broadway.” Then instead, I got sober!

And now, 8 years since then, I’m taking steps that are developmentally appropriate to that dream. It’s in the right direction, even if I never get there. It's my impassioned avocation, even if it’s not a vocation.

I do not wish to expire soon. I have more experiences I want to add to that list, and more sanity and evenness I wish to accrue. But I feel more comfortable now than I had been even a few months ago in noticing that I am accumulating the experiences that, to me, express a full and well-lived life.

I wouldn’t have as many regrets if it were to happen soon. I have a few regrets of things I’ve done & ways I've re/acted in the last two years, sure. It’s not as if I’m a saint, and sometimes I still choose experiences I know are more damaging than useful.

But instead of waiting to be "inscribed in the book of life" by some entity or religion or benchmarks of success otherwise prescribed to me by my childhood, my faith, my inner critic...

Instead I am coming to believe that I am following my own North Star: I may never get there, but I'm headed in the "right direction."

And for the first time ever, I deeply feel that. 

Card Reading

I had very specific plans for when I came home last night: watch Apollo 13, “take care” of myself, and go to bed by 10.

Only one of these happened.

For most of the day, I was out & about in lots of conversation with lots of people, expending lots of up, outgoing energy, and I wanted to counter it with some quietude. Before coming home for the evening, I was in a coffee shop, finishing up some extra work, and addressing cards for some friends.

I didn’t have the address for one, so I texted her for it, and told her that I must have 10 of her envelopes at home with her address on it; in fact, I had one of hers on my mantle.

She asked me which one, but I couldn’t recall exactly, and told her I’d send her a photo of it when I got home.

This, was the first domino toward the hijacking of my evening.

I did come home, take a photo and send it to her, a lovely decorated envelope with stickers and curly-cues and kind words, like all of hers. Next to it on my mantle (well, the top of a bookshelf, really) were a card from the director and one from the assistant director of the play I was in in April, with deliciously glowing, appreciative, complimentary, and supportive words. Such kindness and such a reflection of my being “seen” by them, in one of my aspiring avocations. The last one up there was a thank you card from my best friend on Long Island’s wedding, thanking me for being there and what a treat it was to have me there, literally in her bed, the night before the wedding, and helping/watching her get ready the next day; that it wouldn’t have been the same without me.

You can see why I keep these things.

But, it was also time to probably pack them away, do some cleaning. And I wanted to send more photos of my friend’s envelopes to her, since I knew she was in a space to need her own (literal) sparkle reflected back to her. 

And, down the rabbit hole we go, into the desk drawer where I keep cards, envelopes so I can remember return addresses (yes, I know there’s a better way), and art inspiration bits, like postcards from galleries or pages torn from magazines.

I’ve known this drawer needs attending to. If, god forbid, I were to croak, it would be hell for the person cleaning it out, and I know they’d just trash the lot, since, who keeps someone else’s old greeting cards.

But, also, it’s unusably full at the moment. Because in it, too, are all the cards I received when I was initially diagnosed with Leukemia in late September 2012, and also a host of them came in around the Hanukkah/Christmas season that year.

I’ve been avoiding having to carve through them. Because how can you discard those messages?

When I was sick, I lined all the cards up on the walls of my hospital room. I taped every single one up around me, to remind me of the network of support and love that I had. Each card, a message of love, faith, healing, fortitude, just for me. You couldn’t come into my hospital room without immediately knowing that I was loved. And how f’ing important was that.

This was not the room of a dying woman. This was not the room of a woman told she had a 40% chance of living through the next 5 years, even with treatment. This was not the room, either, of a woman who looked like a patient, despite the baldness, weightloss, and IV stuck into my arm and chest. I wore jeans and a sweater, like everyone else. I was a human, not a patient. I was a woman loved, not a pity case.

How rallyingly important was that to know, feel, and remember every single day.

But, when the trips to the hospital were finally over, and it was time to reacclimate to living in my apartment full-time, what to do with those cards?

I’m a keeper of things. Sentiments, magazine pages, interesting rocks I find on a mountain or beach. I wouldn’t say I’m a hoarder, but I do have a bag of gently used tissue paper in my closet … but it’s folded neatly and in color blocks, so it’s okay, right?!

I also have a bag in my closet of the covers to theater booklets of plays I’ve been to; movie stubs; plane tickets; the brochure for a place I went camping or an attraction I toured.

The trouble is, I’m not a scrap-booker, so I just kinda carry this bag of non-chronologically ordered “crap” with me from home to home. But, that’s okay. One day, like the cards, I’ll go through them.

But, last night was for the card drawer.

It was slow-going. I had to take a deep breath before taking the rubber band from around the batch of 2012 holiday cards. I knew this was going to take a while and probably bring things up.

But I began. And with each card, I was reminded of why I’d kept them until now.

Here’s the one from my college classmate, now in LA, saying she’d enclosed a gift card to Trader Joes.

Here’s one from a former colleague saying she loves getting the bloggish updates I was posting then to my lotsahelpinghands website.

Here’s one handwritten from an Etsy company saying “a friend” was thinking of me and wanted me to stay warm. This, I remember, accompanied a package of 6 “chemo caps” ranging from thin to thick, the one I wore most, a fuzzy leopard print that kept me feeling fun and warm. I still don’t know who sent those, as there was no name. Thank you, whoever you are.

Last night, with each, if I knew the sender and their cell number, I took a photo of the card, and sent it as a text with a note of thanks to them. Each text, a reminder to us both of what friendship means, even for people who aren’t close.

It was nearly 11 when I finally decided to stop. I’ve barely made a dent into the drawer. But was able to cull a few things out, deciding that with some, having a photo of them now is enough.

At the closing of this activity, I found myself in soft tears of gratitude. So many people surrounded me with love. With funny cards and sentiments, with crazy wacked-out envelopes, with heartfelt messages of hope and healing. And only a handful of these folks were people I keep in regular touch with. So many people came out of the woodwork to support me.

I was told once during the time I was sick, that I had no idea how many people were rooting for me. I agreed. I knew I had no idea, and I knew that was astounding and one of the greatest showings of human generosity that I’ve witnessed.

I had priests, rabbis, Muslims, and Buddhists praying for me. My mom’s hairdresser and my Aunt’s student. I had a class of kindergarteners praying for me.

I remember, too, when I was sick, trying to figure out how I could send thank you cards to everyone who’d contacted me, but I could only handle a few.

In this retread through the cards, in sending them back out to their sender with my note of thanks, I hope I am closing that loop of love, and letting you all know:

Your prayers worked, and I love you back.