Thursday, October 2, 2008

About Yesterday......

Remember I told you I ran a bunch of errands yesterday? Well this has been in my brain since then, but I needed to think about it more and process my thoughts about it more, before I could write about it today. When I was standing in line to check out at Target, there were 2 women in front of me. Their ages are meaningless, as the story could apply to any age or sex actually. But before I tell my "Target story" though......just a wee bit of background on why I'm thinking and feeling this way. I think that before cancer (BC...how appropriate!!) we have a tendency to go through life on a kind of "auto-pilot" and have conditioned ourselves to think and respond to situations in the same old ways. I think at times anyway, we tend to exaggerate the stupid petty things in life and let them get under our skin, like a spill on the carpet, traffic on the roads, an irritating co-worker....whatever.....you know what I mean, life's little annoyances that we make ourselves crazy about. We tend , at times, to let them get the best of us and disturb our world, disturb our peace in the world, when really, c'mon.....they are just too petty to even dignify by letting them interfere in our world. Now that I have cancer and consider myself a cancer survivor, I want to think that I am beyond this stage of "conditioned responses". I feel I have been given the gift of seeing the bigger picture (on most days....hey I'm human!), I rarely even give a second thought to, what in the past I would have possibly let interfere in my life. I gave the person or incident power over me to change my mood (never to the positive LOL).....and steal from me the precious present. I can remember coming home or talking to friends and repeating whatever it was that pissed me off or irritated the crap out of me, which gave it double the power since it was still in my conscious brain! OK......now we're back at Target and I think now "after cancer" has made me a bit more observant about myself and others. As I was saying these 2 ladies were in line in front of me and there were only 3 registers open. I was the 4th person in this line. I will admit I think we did have a particularly slow check out gal, but oh well, that's the line I chose to stand in and Murphy's Law dictates it will always be the slowest!! These ladies in front of me started to get a little agitated and complaining (a bit loudly), which I will admit that I myself have been guilty of in the past. I was standing there listening to them, and I'm thinking to myself, dang.....I'll stand in line all day and be glad I'm alive to do it!! Having been through so much in the last 1-1/2 years, being so sick, more than I thought a person could ever be and still live, being given a diagnosis that surely meant a death sentence in the not so distant past, well hell...........I'm still here......I'm alive.....and I'm feeling pretty damn good right now. Cancer makes you realize that all you have is RIGHT NOW. You don't have an hour from now, or a day, or a week or a year from now. No guarantees people. So....back to Target (sorry I digress, as usual).....I felt like tapping them politely on the shoulder, telling them my story and then asking them if they possibly knew how many people would gladly trade places with them because it is a priceless gift to be alive and standing in line today. My motto these days is asking myself....."does THIS really matter?" "will it matter tomorrow or next week or next month?"....the answer is always a big fat NO. And oh yeah....one more thing......the gift of being thankful.

2 comments:

Susan said...

great writeup..isn't it the truth that things now look so differently than they used to. The rustling of the leaves,the singing of the birds,changing of the leaves,even the sound of the wind and the feeling of the wind blowing through my hair (just wait your turn is coming lol). Little things just mean nothing. Dust will stay on my furniture and the dishes don't get done...who cares...I don't. Take care..waiting for your next journal..

Anonymous said...

The gift of being thankful...Gosh I have so many wonderful blessings and dammit im that Target Lady sometimes...but Im so trying to be more aware and know that life is a precious gift.. You do keep me on track Jan...just knowing some of your journey and the insight and strength you have because of it...lu