A few weeks ago, attending a small birthday celebration among friends, the birthday girl asked the members of the party to reflect on the year that was coming to a close. When it was my turn to speak, another friend interrupted and deflected the conversation into another topic. I was a little put off, and a few minutes later was talking to a third friend, telling her what a positive experience the past year had been, when she asked that I wait and share my comments with the group. And yet, when the topic came up again, I was once again interrupted, and the birthday girl was distracted with another unrelated conversation. I never did get a chance to speak.
In some ways this conversation, with all its attendant frustrations, is a mirror for my year, and, in fact, much of what I was hoping to say that evening. I can state upfront that at that moment I felt unheard, and uncared-for, as if my year and my thoughts were somehow less valid than anyone else's. But that was also a fleeting feeling, and like so many disappointments in life, one can either hang onto a momentary flash of negative emotion, letting it shape and color your being, or one can simply release it into the air and let it go. I chose the latter, just as I chose, despite a year that many would consider challenging, to see it as a good year, chose to count my blessings rather than my losses.
In fact, what I was going to say that evening was not about cancer or struggle or how hard the year had been; everyone in that room knew what I had been through, knew my struggles and that was not the time to reiterate them. What I had actually been about to say was that through my experience I had been offered an opportunity, and in a way a blessing, because I was forced out of the comfort zone of habit. Habits are not always to our benefit. It was only through the process of falling apart that I was able to realize the possibility of rebuilding, of rebirth if you will. I am in fact happier today than I was at this time last year; I am happier today than I was two years ago. That does not mean the road was easy; in fact it was damn difficult at times. But no one ever promised any of us an easy road, and the more mature I become the more I see that ease and comfort often hamper growth and creativity. I would not wish cancer on anyone. But at the same time, increasingly, neither would I wish anyone bland comfort and ease. There is something in our essence as Homo Sapiens that needs to be challenged, that needs to create, and the process of creation is a process born of destruction. We cannot live up to our full potential without constantly dislodging ourselves from the dead-ends life has imposed on us, no, that we have imposed upon ourselves.
In retrospect I saw that my friend, fearing I my comments would be something of a "downer" was deflecting, as she had been reared to do, steering the conversation away from unpleasantness and toward idle chatter. Of course this did mean that my thoughts went unheard; it also meant that on some level she expected something less of me than I was going to offer. But it also presented an opportunity for forgiveness. I realized that my thoughts were no less valid for not being heard. Yes, we all want to feel heard, and that is an important part of feeling loved. The crime was not really against me, but against herself and the others. In choosing to deflect, she was choosing not to engage on a personal level, to live on a surface level, which is both her choice, and her loss. Yes, she was protecting herself from despair, but she was also closing herself off from the possibility of joy. The simple truth is that all of our words deserve to be heard. And by shutting down each others words we close ourselves off to the possibility of connection, and ultimately to joy and through joy, hope.
For that, it seems is one of the things I have learned this year, perhaps one of the many things I have known in my head for a long time, but which I have not always practiced in my heart, is that life is short, that I am very lucky, and that it behooves us all to treasure and hold onto joy. Joy has nothing to do with the trials of life; and although it often does us good to rail against pain and affliction, holding onto our grief, our anger and our sadness does us no good. When we cannot manage hope, we can still find joy. Through joy we can often find happiness and love. Holding onto joy teaches us that there are things we can let slip away, that forgiveness is not difficult once we let go of pain. Taking even hesitant steps toward joy starts us on a path that can lead us to finding hope in a world that occasionally seems devoid of just that.
In the past two years the median life expectancy in the US has dropped by 1.5 years. Regardless of the numbers, no single one of us is guaranteed anything, to live to the median, or beyond it. And yet this reminds me of something. The median life expectancy of an American is roughly slightly over 4100 weeks, perhaps less by these new calculations. I have already lived over 3200 of those weeks. No matter how I look at it, I am on the downward slope. It is easy when we are young to think we always have time, but it is not true. Most of my time is already in the past. When we look at years it all seems so far away; when I look at weeks, it all seems so short. I want my weeks to be about joy, whatever joy I am finding in the moment of that particular week. Last week it may have been about family. This week joy revolves around friends and fabric and creative endeavors. If I am lucky I have 900 more weeks, perhaps more, perhaps less. But the luck isn't in the number of weeks; it is in how I chose to live those weeks. The gift is that I can chose who I want to be. I can chose joy. It is not about what happens, or even time itself, but what I chose to make of my time in my life.
I choose joy.
