New Beginnings

What is not started today is never finished tomorrow. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 

So… Hmm… knowing where to start is always the hardest part, isn’t it? Let’s keep it simple, let’s start at Hello.

Hello.

So why am I here? I guess because many of my friends and family have blogs and I enjoy having that window into their lives. I coveted their ability to connect to strangers simply by painting a picture of their day to day lives… the fact that somehow… when expressed on a page….  even the simplest things can suddenly become so beautiful. I wanted my own window, my own picture.

I never really managed to start though, I guess because I didn’t know what to say… and I didn’t know that anyone would listen. However, somewhere along the way I realised…. it doesn’t really have to be about other people, now does it? Write it for YOU, if other people read it, that’s ok… but write it for YOU.

Sometimes I do just like to write, just to remember the things that happen to me, to crystallize my own thoughts, to muse, to ramble. The act of writing is cathartic… soothing…  But most importantly, it captures a moment for yourself. You can’t have a time machine… but you can have a diary. When I was young I only ever kept a diary for one year because I became too paranoid that someone might find it and read my terribly important preteen dramas to ever keep one again. But now, I treasure that stupid diary. That embarrassing diary full of inane nothing, the friendships, the break ups, the first love and the tantrums.

I treasure it because it is a perfect time capsule .

I remember that one year in which I kept a diary better than any other year in my youth…. not because it was an especially exciting year…. but simply because memories fade and that was the only year I had ever written down.

I guess this is something like that. A lot has happened to me in the past two years… last year in particular was the year that my whole life as I knew it stopped.

Because last year was the year I found out I had stage 4 cancer.

Everything after that was a new beginning. Nothing would ever be the same. I had to learn so many things. I had to become a new person.  A person who learned to live in the moment. Learned to fight. Learned what it meant to be brave.  I want and need to capture that. So that in years to come, if I am still here, I can look back and say, that’s what I did. I did that. I survived that. I don’t ever want to let myself forget.

Last year was when the old me died, this year was when the new me began.

And she is BROKEN but she is STRONG. She is SCARED but she is DETERMINED.

I want to celebrate her. Remember her.  So this will be where I tell her story. My story. My new diary in an electronic age.

This is mainly for me, but if it helps others who are going to be heading along a similar path than all the better. Cancer is a scary diagnosis and the journey won’t be easy. But you will learn things, you will grow, you will gain an amazing perspective on life that not many other people get. Life throws you challenges so you can learn from them. Cancer is one hell of a challenge. USE it. Even if all it does is show you how amazing you are just for getting through another surgery, another chemo or even just another day… that is enough. Everyone who fights this, you are already a hero, you should know it.

So anyway, this is it. Here I am. I am not sure how this will progress or even if it will progress…. but no journey is started without that first step.

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