Thoughts about Life

Now that I am faced with a life threatening disease I can't seem to shut off my wandering thoughts about my life plan. I have always tended to believe that we come to this incarnation with a purpose and a roughly mapped out path of how to accomplish what we need to do. I can go on and on about "why" this challenge came into my life... but that's not the direction my thoughts have gone today, instead:

I remember when I was a 20-something hot shot. I used to get courted by corporate headhunters quite often. I had a knack for selling. I was in a position where I was the top salesperson in a high-profile company. Plus, I was confident, young, single and well.. sorta cute. I enjoyed having these commission hungry corporate vultures try to recruit me. I never intended to leave my job; I just liked listening to them flatter me.

At some point they would ask something like, "where do you see yourself in 20 years?" This was supposed to lead into a presentation of their company’s retirement and stock options. But my answer always confused them. I would reply in all seriousness, "I don't know… I don't see myself here that long... I have no mental picture of my life much past 40..." Sadly that was true. It didn't alarm me like it should have. It seemed to me just logical. It was very hard for me to imagine my future past about 40. That haunts me now.

All that changed when I began to want a child. Now I see myself way past 40 watching my son do whatever amazing thing he is here to do... I can't bear the thought of not being here with him. And I can't imagine being anywhere other than right here in my beautiful Utah community making a home for us and being with my family. I could go on just like I am for many, many years to come and be so completely happy. I find joy in every day. This change for me happened years ago before I heard the word "cancer" in reference to myself. It came when my son was born.

When I was 25, watching the leaves bud on the trees and the birds return for the summer was a yawn... now I see it all so clearly and what a miracle all of nature is... how did I miss that??? What the hell?? Was it playing with Barbies that shaped what I thought was important? I don't know; but I feel like I missed out on a lot while I pursued stupid stuff. It was that damn movie, Wall Street... greed is good, 80's bullshit. What a waste of precious time.

When I was an undergraduate at Weber State University I had a quirky professor named Lyle Crawford. He once made us write the story of our own deaths. Then we had to read them aloud to the class. I remember in particular one sweet, rather shy girl's story she read so seriously. In her story she died a slow death from cancer. I particularly remember her words "my suffering was eased by being surrounded by my family and friends". I thought I was going gag and puke right there. Okay—remember I was waaaay young then. My story on the other hand, actually made the professor laugh out loud. I wrote a story of buying a new expensive sports car, racing down Pacific Coast Highway at speeds well over 100 MPH then having a brake failure and plunging to a painless death at the bottom of a cliff. The professor said that spoke a lot about my "personality".

Dr. Crawford went on to become famous for refusing tenure saying it made professors "lazy" and for giving up all of his possessions to live in a 1 bedroom apartment with a bankers box for his clothes, a sleeping bag on the floor for a bed and a bike for transportation. I don't know if he still teaches at Weber. Oddly, that's about the only thing I remember from his classes.

I no longer have a sports car. I'm very happy with my modest SUV and just to be safe I'm never going to drive down PCH in a sports car.