The One I've Been Avoiding Writing

Please note, that is not our dog but Bonnie Blue - owned by Wren and Susan Munsterman. I own real dogs.

Let me preface this post with an apology for the typos - I'm typing but I'm not going to be able to see the screen through my tears and emotions. Sorry.

Since July 15 I've got a water problem - my eyes leak. I've identified the triggers which lead to this and have been doing a pretty legit job of avoiding thinking too much about a few things. Yet, I need to poke the wounds because I need to be able to get through these difficult thoughts just in case. OH GOD I hate typing those words.

It's that dreaded what if...and not the positive version. It starts with getting the urgent, nasty conversations out of the way. Jeff and I have slowly been having these conversations because I want to do it once - early - get it out of the way and then we don't have to talk about it for the next 50 years. We're going to make these hard decisions and then move forward knowing they've been made and are there when and if we need them. But hard thoughts lead to more hard thoughts: 

• What if... we have a very limited time together? We need to get some things in order such as executing our wills, documenting accounts and passwords, bills, access to bank information, etc. Really transactional things but important keep your life going kinds of things. ACTION ITEM: document the things! 

• What if... something happens during debulking that we aren't expecting and now we have to talk about living wills (what are my wishes about medical interventions and when is when). This one was oddly easy for me. Every day that I can wake up and look Jeff in the eyes and tell him I love him, or see and kiss and hug my kids is a day he has to fight for. Bottom line. That's it. Not a second before then - but after - hey I don't need you to be paying a medical bill for me years and years after I'm gone. That seems silly? ACTION ITEM: Execute Living Will and Medical Power of Attorneys. 

• What if...my kids don't get to know ME beyond their mommy who told them all day every day that she loved them and made the best chocolate milk ever. What about the things I believe in and what I think I stand for in this world? Oh crap! What do I think I stand for in this world?! What do I want my enduring legacy to be? HAAAAA. I'm 35 and I'm not especially interesting but I have lived some life and I do have some thoughts on how to be a nice person. Those are things before July 15 I thought I had years and years to impart on my kids. I can't accelerate that program because cognitively they won't understand it. Connor can't even pee in a potty and WJ is a superhero right now. I have to figure out a legacy now...before a surgery in a week or so. That's intimidating. And honestly the entire purpose of this blog. I'm not really writing all this for me or therapy - I'm doing it for my kids so they will one day have my thoughts directly from me on what I think it means to be a good person...just in case. These are the thoughts that are keeping me up at night. ACTION ITEM: Analyze everything you can possibly want to tell your kids about how to be a good person and document it in less than a week.

One thing that I found is that when I started on "what if" in a negative way, a major positive emerged. I'm not rocked at my core foundation with regrets and concerns. It's been the opposite. I feel like recent events have validated the direction my life has been going. It's confirmed that although there may have been a few imbalances in that all consuming quest for life's balance - the list has been pretty spot on - my emotional and spirtitual well being, my marriage, my kids, my family, my work, my friends. Being a nice person. 

About a year ago, I read an article somewhere about how you only have a certain amount of collagen in your face and the person writing hinted that you should reserve your smiles for when you really needed them or you'd get wrinkles faster. That struck me as the dumbest thing I'd ever read (and I read a bunch of dumb stuff). WHAT?! Don't smile because you'll get a wrinkle. I'm not particularly a devote Catholic or even that well versed on the bible (I'm a work in progress) but I do know how to Google. So, I'll merge collagen and Jesus for a second. At the time, it brought to mind the parable of talents (Matthew 25:14-30) and this is my interpretation so go with me here. Boiled down, you should share your talents with the world and not guard or protect them for fear of losing them. RISK. Use your abilities to spread things in the world - try to make them the good things. 

About the same time, I got into a comment war on Facebook with someone I'd never met, would never meet, and didn't even care about. It was around election time when the entire world seemed to be on fire and my opinions were strong. I can recall obsessively refreshing the post to see if this person had responded and wrote 30 minute responses and got so INVESTED. I finally walked away and said, this isn't healthy. I need a break. I need to look at the bigger picture here - I'm sacrificing my time for some conversation that means nothing in 1 month on someone I don't know. I could be talking to my friends or texting about gardening or anything else in the entire world but this. So I got off Facebook. I changed my password and have been very happy with that decision since. 

Along with no the Facebook decision I noticed that I kept having random internal dialog thoughts about people I would see or actions I would observe that were cool. Things like the girl at Chick-fil-A on Monday's always having the best attitude at the drive through window even when they were slammed. I appreciated her positivity and it probably cost her a lot of effort to maintain it but she didn't know I appreciated it and never would unless I said something. So I decided to start my own little social experiment - let's call it "the Power of One." I challenged myself to verbalize the nice thoughts I was having about people or things. To risk and share those thoughts. And off I went. I told the lady at the grocery store I loved her shoes. Asked someone about the funny shirt they were wearing. Told the guy at AT&T that I loved that song he was singing but he was a little off pitch, etc. And it has been awesome. People smiled back at me. They said thank you. And I like to think they took a little of that positivity home with them or shared it with the next person. "The Power of One-Multiplied." I also started buying Starbucks for the people behind me in line if I had an extra buck or two on me. Starbucks makes me happy and there's nothing better than free coffee. #fact.

All this to say, it's made me a happier person, and I hope other people happier, and that my kids have benefitted from a happier me showing a good example of how to smile at strangers and say hello and be kind. That's it. That's my big revelation. That's what I hope my kids understand about who their mom was and is 30 years from now when they are in Facebook comment wars, stuck in a slow lane at the grocery store on a Thursday afternoon listening to kids cry and wail. Smile at that kid, make a funny face, be patient, and make someone's day easier not harder by using all the collagen - all the time. 

There's nothing more attractive to me than a wrinkled face smiling. Really old, and ancient people - like in their 40s (haha - kidding - like the ones that are senile and play bingo - my spirit people) have got the secret to life nailed - they've just been telling us with their actions instead of words and their gloriously wrinkled smiles.

So, when people read my story and wonder why this happened to me at 35 with my precious, precious babies so young and at risk of me not being around to watch them grow and participate - because I know that's a real risk here - I want you to not ask that question or think that thought. We don't know. It's life. It really is in God's hands and His plan for us, it's not for us to question. We live life the best we can while we can as long as we can. You're the same as me - the only difference is that I know there's a medical situation going on with me. But...what if...I didn't have the seizure on July 15? We'd be in the exact same boat - neither knowing what the next minute holds - and that's beautiful. 

I want my story to maybe turn my "Power of One" into a lottery like multiplier. Over 2,000 people read my post about being diagnosed with brain cancer. That's 2,000 opportunities to use more collagen and smile at a stranger and make someone else's day slightly better. So, share my posts and let's use all the collagen in all the faces. 

And, also, if this makes it to Ellen Degeneres (my real spirit animal) I can do the Carlton like nobody's business (this skill was often used for free drinks in college and embarrassingly recently extra free wood cuts at Home Depot) and I think we could have a cool conversation about positivity. I know it's not selfies and #NuggsforCarter but meeting you would be a cool bucket list item!