Time Flies Out of the Clock

I heard this morning that a small coffee shop in Calgary is closing its' doors next month. The news makes me sad and sent me on a flying trip down memory lane. You see, I spent time in this little restaurant when I was going through my chemo and radiation treatment. This tiny spot, with less than a dozen tables was a place of sanity for me, a place where I could pretend in my head that THE CANCER was not happening. The food was good, and simple. A bonus for my family: they would sometimes have porcupines on the menu. Porcupines so much like my Mom used to make - meatballs with rice and tomato sauce. And they called them porcupines, just like we do! A touch of home and a touch of sanity outside the daily routine of dragging myself from the hostel to the radiation centre, outside the rest-of-the-time reality of sitting for hours waiting for my chemo baby bottle to be changed, wondering if I would survive, feeling so very tired, fighting itchy, blistered hands and feet, swollen eyes and swollen face. Central Grounds is where I first met The Little One, my great-nephew, only a few weeks old, smiling up at our adult faces and giving me hope. My usual order was an egg scrambled with spinach served on a baking powder biscuit, and maybe a cup of decaf if my stomach was behaving that day. I couldn't face trying the porcupines, and that made me sad. Brief times spent here with various members of my family, laughing, talking, eating, with them making sure I was loved and supported.

Not so very long ago, someone made a comment to me about how often I spoke of my cancer. I don't remember the exact words, but it was a comment to challenge me about living in the past and not getting beyond my cancer. I was very hurt, but I knew this person did not understand. And she was right - - I do talk about it often and my life in my mind is firmly divided between by before-cancer-life and my after-cancer-life. I'm sure this lady had no intention for making me feel bad. It was honest feedback, and I did need to spend some time thinking about what she had said. Perceptions of others could easily be coloured by my speaking of my cancer. I came to realize that if others believe I am in living in the past or can't "get over" my cancer experience or think I'm looking for a break or favouritism or sympathy because I talk about it, then that is their road. I decided I would not filter my thoughts, emotions, beliefs about cancer, about life, about myself because someone else is uncomfortable. I truly do not want to bore people or have them roll their eyes with a "Here she goes again" shrug. My life lessons from this life changing year need to be shared. I'm sorry if that makes anyone uncomfortable, angry, frustrated. But I won't and can't quit exposing myself. I trust that some days what I am saying makes a positive impact on one person, if even for a brief glimmer of a second.

There are no "three things' today, listed here for you to mull over. Eight years ago I was just off work, waiting for treatment to start, scared, angry, surrounded by others but yet alone. I was waiting for a previously planned trip to Toronto; it would be my first trip there and most days I thought it would be my last. Seven years ago I was just back to work, struggling to have the energy to work four hours a day and excited about a "being alive" party that my family was planning for me. Last year I was fighting my own emotions through one of the hardest times I've ever had at my job, and waiting to go on my first ever trip to California, where I had a different type of life-changing experience at 'meditation boot camp' at the Chopra Center.

I need to remember. I need to make the connections of why I am still here and how each event in my life played into today. I, like you, am here for one very important reason - to serve others. The rest of it is gravy, a bonus. I walk my way towards each day, growing in spiritual, intellectual, emotional leaps and bounds or growing in minute baby steps as I sort out my life. The coffee shop is closing; I hope to get there one more time before the doors are shut. I may not. It will be there forever in my mind as a place of sanity and reality during the very real horrors of cancer treatment. It will be there forever in my mind as the place where I first laid eyes on The Little One, who is an old soul and wise beyond his years, where I first held The Little One who told his Mom recently "Time flies out of the clock". And it does. I live for each day with my opportunity to have this most important do-over, with the before-cancer and after-cancer years as different times in my very different life. Time flies out of the clock. Take advantage of the time you have. Be who you are. Reach out. Love, laugh, sing, cry, scream, but LIVE!! Time flies out of the clock. It does. It does. Thank you, Little One.