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Making peace

 I hope you can make peace with your ghosts. I hope to make that peace with my own.
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Saturday in the Park

Again, my head resounds in song. Who doesn’t love a Saturday. It has traditionally become that first day of the two we mark as time to refresh, to pay attention to the things that collect, resulting in two days that lend to very little relaxation and rest or if at best, they are rushed. So many have gone to a four day work week, which frankly makes a great deal more sense, but for many the tradition remains.  Recently, the question of the first record purchased came into my ear. I remember mine well. It was in fact “Saturday in the Park” by Chicago. I believe the purchase was made at the Woolworth store on Main Street, downtown Canon City, Colorado. Home to my fondest memories of a lifetime grown and remembered. One of the “olders” had a blue record player that I absconded with upon their moving. I believe it came from the male side of the family but who knows what I don’t actually remember. Anyway, the record came as a 45 rpm with a paper sleeve that I cherished. That first record...

Those “take your breath away” moments

As I reflect on those words, I smile and remember my mother. I grew up with mother saying these words about things that excited her and remember fondly the eye rolls and smiles we all began to share, when over the years, these words were spoken. This is a memory of my own but believe those who know best can affirm. Whether she was taken by a view that reflects great beauty, a scare, a happy event, news, just about any excitement you can name, mother would say, “It takes my breath away”. As life goes, we all have those moments that “take our breath away”. Whether that be something that brings joy or those moments that stop us in our tracks. Those are our moments. It is how we react to those moments, that become who we are. As we mold the event to fit the life we live, we create it to become what we need it to be or how it can bring us the greatest amount of peace. These events come in moments over a lifetime and grow from happenings as simple grade school play, a high school romance, ma...

A calendar to mark the days.

I was in affect trained to mark time on a calendar. My siblings can attest. There are special days taught and those that become memories. I have come to a new stage in life where I mark time on the calendar as a reminder of what has been for what may be questionable later. I smile as I think these words.  I admired my mother for the years she kept a calendar of birthdays and events and was sure to give us a new one at each years end. This is not to say that I also likely rolled my eyes upon receiving. She marked time with ink on calendars but for the later years of life (in my recollection), after she and daddy settled into the Monroe house, she began to journal in books. She likely did it all her life for which I didn’t recognize until one year, as I was packing the car for a return trip to Wisconsin, she asked me to take two boxes of her journals. I reluctantly accepted thinking to myself…. well…. After many months and a few more days, I went through each book, not reading every ...

So it goes…

As I reflect on the past weeks I am taken by the fact that my hopes and dreams… while still big and positive… have again been placed into a reality that is… adjusted. This business of cancer is a difficult one. Once you think you have seen it all, you see a different view of life… once again. Let me begin by saying that I have been fortunate from the start for the care given by Rocky Mountain Cancer Center, those who work within the walls, those whose care is from behind a desk, and those who are never directly involved in my care but are there nonetheless, leaves you with NO doubt of the care given.  I began my new medication on January 1st. This was used as a land mark day for reference and it just made sense as I seem to have difficulty with the order of my days. My new reality requires that I take a hormone blocker daily knowing that it will require a 5 possibly 10 year commitment.  Edit in… the results of my bone density scan provided additional details, some that I was n...

Washing my hands

I come to the end of 2022, in a Pilate frame of mind. Frankly, washing my hands of the past two years is more what I feel.  Having dealt with health issues for the past two years has left me drained. We have found answers to stomach issues that I had never heard of and have learned to live within. Giving up things that bring joy and still treating myself when the moment arrives has been a lesson learned. There are many things that I should not eat, things that leave me wishing I hadn’t, yet knowing a treat is just that… a treat. Sugar is the enemy I've learned to embrace and realize not everything sugar free tastes like crap… LOL!! So, for two years I have learned to and lived with remarkably well with something referred to as CSID (Congenital sucrase-isomaltase deficiency). Dealing with CSID has left me considerably down in weight, a loss of energy, but NEVER a will to survive. Some pain is worth the joy!  In walks cancer. Cancer changed all of what I had begun to know. You d...