Not everybody faces adversity with humor. Sometimes this actualy pisses people off. They think I'm not taking whatever it is "seriously" and they can't understand my reaction to unbearable situations. Well, in a sense, they are right. I'm not gonna get all frowny-face about anything if I can help it...life is too short for that. They don't understand that to smile in the face of adversity is a choice. I've had a rollercoaster of a life and I've overcome enough adversity to learn that it doesn't matter what happens to me, it matters how I respond to it. It may not be my fault, but it is my problem. Especially if I have cancer.
Which I don't know if I do yet or not, but isn't it funny that my doctor found a mass in my right breast the day after I volunteered to be team captian for the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure? I'm having a diagnostic test this week to find out what's going on. But it got me thinking, how would I react if it was the big C? What would I do?
I have tried to make light of hardships because hardships are hard enough without wallowing in negative feelings. Last year, I lost a baby and a lot of people didn't understand my dead baby jokes. Yeah okay, poor taste, whatever...but the alternative was despair and I CHOOSE LIFE! I choose to smile. When you realise that you DO have that choice, then it doesn't matter what happens to you - you can always choose how you will react and how you are going to feel. I wasn't happy for my baby to die and I certainly won't be happy if I have breast cancer, but I am not going to cry and just lie down and die. I am going to smile and fly and bounce around with joy at every moment I have on this earth, cancer or no cancer.
I've already spent so much time this last year thinking about how my life would be different if my baby had not died, grieving over her and the life I would have had. Now to be thinking that I might not have much life left at all has crystallised my thinking...I don't want to waste any time wallowing in sadness. There is only one point to life and that is to enjoy it, so I will do whatever I can to keep positive energy flowing through me. So if that means dead baby jokes and lumpy boob jokes, then that is how I choose to face my fear of death and laugh in its face. I'M STILL HERE!
"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, martini in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!"
As far as I can see, the only choice is to live the hell out of my life. I finally realised that there is no destination, it's ALL journey. This is just the next part of it.
Like the phoenix, I've resurrected myself from the flames of my old life more than a few times. I'm good at that...evolving and burning away the deadwood (evolve or die!). My career is finally on fire now and I am burning with enthusiasm for what I do, but a great career does not make me a whole person. There are many more fires to build. And I am pretty sure I am not going anywhere just yet.
Boba Fett, Elicia, Candace, D.V, Princess Leia, and me at the Susan G Komen 5K
