Maybe

On Learning to Hold It All Loosely

In a year full of difficult news, I finally, thankfully, have been graced with some good. My scans and a following blood test show no active cancer in my system.

Yesterday, my phone blinked with the notification as I was driving, and I immediately pulled over. I had been mentally preparing for the possibility of a month-long hospitalization in Germany for a highly effective, yet potentially fatal, T-cell therapy treatment. I held this as a distinct possibility as I’ve approached life so far this year. I went to a planning workshop with friends over New Year’s, but refused to put deadlines on any of my desires because I didn’t know. I refused to commit to anything beyond March and have quietly checked off my remaining bucket list items. I didn’t want to die having not seen the Northern Lights. I didn’t want to go back into treatment without catching a few waves first.

As I opened up the page and saw the news, I felt the same detached and stunned sensation I had when the doctor told me I had cancer. I cried, I screamed, I immediately called my mom. I am thrilled with the news, but it’s more nuanced than that. It’s one data point of what my body is like right now. This does not mean that I am cured forever, this does not mean my treatment is over - I am still on immunotherapy and a cancer vaccine - but what it gives me is the confidence that if my cancer returns, I know it could go away again.

It’s been a tricky balance of expectation setting, of living life in some balance between offense and defense. I want to believe I will live to 100, that I will continue on this miraculous recovery, but am also holding space for the very real scenario where it could come back and limit my life to less than five years. All I know is where I am now.

There’s an old Chinese parable, told by Alan Watts, that’s been living in my mind all year:

Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. They said, “We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.” The farmer said, “Maybe.” The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening everybody came back and said, “Oh, isn’t that lucky. What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!” The farmer again said, “Maybe.”

The following day his son tried to break one of the horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors then said, “Oh dear, that’s too bad,” and the farmer responded, “Maybe.” The next day the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again, all the neighbors came around and said, “Isn’t that great!” Again, he said, “Maybe.”

Bad luck brings good luck, good luck brings bad luck. It’s an integrated cycle. Each door that closes opens a new one. Each experience moves me away from the pack, towards a specialized field of my own. In the worst of times, I kept my spirits up by thinking about how lucky I was to be having an experience that few ever would, that I was being shaped into something I couldn’t have become any other way. If I can get through this, I thought. Cancer changed my life the way a river reroutes after a flood, the earth shifting, the old channel running dry, a new path cut. I had lived to prove my worth; now I live because living is more than enough. And in the carving, somehow, room for more joy. Spring comes because we have winter.

I feel the green sprouts of my life peaking up underneath the snow, grasping for life. I am overwhelmed with caution, aware of my fragility, the ease with which I could be trampled. I want desperately to give back all that I’ve received, but I’m also acutely aware, for the first time in my life, that I need to take care of myself first.

There is no more room for stress. The changes I made to survive treatment are the terms of my life now. Even as my energy slowly returns, I know I am operating under different conditions permanently. I care less about how big my life looks than how light it feels.

I cannot be who I was, but I have a profound opportunity to live as who I was meant to be.

I believe to the depths of my soul that I’ve been given the gift of a lifetime this year in everything I’ve gone through. And as I emerge from the other side, I vow not take any of it for granted.

I would love your help in holding me to that. Remind me to slow down if I falter. To sleep more than I think I need. To create for no purpose but the joy of it. And more than anything, to never take a moment of this beautiful, magical, wild life for granted.

I love you.