Y’all haven’t heard from me in a while. I’ve been surprisingly busy, and that’s a wonderful thing!
I’m approaching my five year milestone, rapidly. It’s a lot to take in. Exhilarating and yet a bit scary. Life has changed. Life is different. Life is great but life after cancer is never the way it was before cancer. When in treatment, we know how to take care of ourselves, we live treatment to treatment. Then we are done. We are taught how to not to die but no one told us how to live after cancer treatments have stopped. We see all kinds of doctors every few months for one thing or another, so it keeps us in the mentality of living from appointment to appointment, surviving. That’s not thriving.
The pandemic complicated things for me as I couldn’t really run out of the cancer life and embrace the sunshine. Then we moved, and everything was very different. Life definitely could not go back to the way it was for me. I had to learn what my new normal would be. That was, and still is, exciting to me.
I have always been active, mainly a runner, but a few years prior to being diagnosed, I was taking classes in P90X, Kickboxing and PiYo. I couldn’t do it after cancer. Thanks to my body betraying me, my flexibility was gone and my arms don’t work like they used to. So, I went back to straight up running and using the gym for weight training…but I missed my classes tremendously. During classes, I could focus solely on the class itself and everything else faded out of my mind. I needed that glorious feeling back.
Where I live, there are various classes at the fitness center and pool. After 2 years of living here, I decided to take advantage of it. I’ve been utilizing the gym but felt the need to take the next step. I decided to start taking an aqua aerobics class twice per week, figuring how bad could it be? I have taken them while on vacation in Mexico, usually with a margarita in hand and survived. So, with the nudging of a friend, I went and got hooked! That first evening, I was exhausted, arms and legs aching! I took a chance and am now a regular and am noticing some changes I like. I enjoy the comraderies and the brain break I get. I can once again focus solely on the class and not anything else, which is a vacation for my head.
Thanks to one of my sons, I have added something else to my life that gives me the same break I would get while taking painting classes at a local coffee shop in North Jersey. I could just be me, nothing else. Aches and pains fade away as does the fears of recurrence. I have started volunteering at a rescue ranch locally. This is better than learning to paint. This is bigger than just me. I get to learn and do something that matters. That is important to me.
The place where we volunteer is called Second Chance Ranch. These wonderful creatures get a second chance at a good life, they have a wonderful life on the ranch, for sure. Puppies that came in are living out their best lives on the farm, many barn cats that are permanent residents and some for adoption, ferrets, bunnies, guinea pigs, large pigs and piglets, goats and their babies, chickens, roosters, raccoons, a coatimundi, skunk and horses and I am sure I am missing a few others. A beautiful pig who did not make weight at the fair has found himself a new home there, thanks to the fundraising of the community. They are all getting their second chances.
Those second chances aren’t just about the animals. It’s for all of us who are there. Everyone carries something from life with them… but there, we get a chance to drop those things and be free from them. There’s a lot of hard work to be done there but there’s more laughter and love than could be imagined. I am finding myself, after almost five years, learning and growing again and dare I say it? I am thriving.
As the journey of life continues, it’s important to keep learning and growing, especially in adulthood! Developing new friendships along the way, learning new skills and interests is what keeps life interesting and keeps me thriving.
Cancer stopped my life for 16 months and put it on hold, the pandemic and out of state move gave me a plot twist. My entire life was reset. Now, I am out and about, discovering new things about myself while establishing new friendships. How many of us get the opportunity to just start over in life…a second chance…
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