Taking It Off Auto-Pilot

Happy New Year everyone! It’s been quite awhile since my last entry. I think that’s partly because I felt like the entries were such downers when I wasn’t really feeling all that down. I think it’s also because I was blessed with an odd sense of peace in the last half of 2009. It’s also probably because I realize I have been allowing myself to live on auto-pilot for the last 3 years or so and auto-pilot has left me a little under-motivated. It’s really hard to turn that switch off and re-take control. I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out why I somehow just stopped steering my life. That’s so unlike the Andrea that I know. If I am completely honest with myself, it probably started happening before the OC but the problem has become exponentially worse since its arrival. I’ve decided that it’s an ugly side effect of successfully being able to push the fear to the back of my mind. It’s never gone, but it doesn’t make its presence known with the same ferocity that it did for the first couple of years. There are now mornings (maybe even more often than not) when the first thing I think about is not the OC. Sometimes I realize I have had almost a whole day of not thinking about it. Of course, those are the days that I am flipping channels on the tv just in time to hear Dr. Oz say, “Today we are talking about a woman’s most deadly killer…many call it the Silent Killer. Today we are talking about ovarian cancer …the most lethal of all cancers affecting women.” I suppose shows like that are important from a prevention standpoint and if they save even one person, blah, blah blah…but I am here to tell you that is a real buzz kill the day before Christmas.

I think it’s those constant reminders—or (to put a more positive spin on it) those opportunities for “heightened awareness”—that make it hard to keep charging forward with reckless abandon. Here’s the irony of the situation: the more I allow myself to fully live, the more I have to lose if this doesn’t work out the way I hope it will. I know the logic is flawed but it is scary to be happy because if I am truly happy then I will be truly sad if the OC comes back and I have to let it all go. As a result, I think I have directed the majority of my effort at finding peace…but not Joy. I think I had a breakthrough on the peace issue on my ski trip last month. I was in the shower and overwhelmed with a tremendous feeling of peace about dying. The superstitious person in me is scared to write that I am at peace with dying in case even uttering that would somehow hasten the return of the OC—but I had peace in the sense that I think I have finally started to figure out how to fully live in the ways that count. I have cherished the things that really matter in my life on a new level and I hope I am letting go of things that once mattered so much and now matter not at all. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that I think I have finally realized that I could die with no regrets. For the longest time I selfishly thought that it would have been so much better to have just gotten smacked by a bus and have it all end quickly. Really looking at your own mortality can be torturous. I think I am changing my opinion on that. I am thankful for the time I have had to let the people I love know that. I am working hard to make sure that when the time comes there won’t be things left unsaid. Maybe that is the much talked about “cancer blessing.”

So back to the issue of Joy and where I am going with this. I think it is time to step out of my comfort zone and start learning to let Joy back in my life. Don’t get me wrong…there has been lots of Joy. But when Joy starts taking over I always force myself to pull it down a notch. Being too Joyful feels like being out of control of how Sorrowful I am going to be if I have to say goodbye to it all. In 2010 and in honor of the new beginning that the New Year always presents, I am going to stop playing with the safety valve that I have allowed to control my emotions for these many months. This is going to take a lot of work. Specifically, it means taking my life off of auto-pilot and actually starting to live deliberately. I said I was going to do that in 2009 but in many respects I failed. So here it is, in black and white: In 2010, I resolve to live each day deliberately--no excuses, no auto-pilot, no delays, no shortcuts, no fear. Learning how to put my life on auto-pilot and having to write sentences like “I am at peace with dying” are two more “fun” things I wish I didn’t know about Cancer.