Today marks 366 days of being back in Kelowna – tomorrow at noon will mark a full calendar year of me being home. Parts of me are astonished to think it has been that short – feels like the start of all this health stuff happened so long ago.
But parts of me feel like it was yesterday, waking up to catch my 6am flight home, feeling sad and frustrated that I had to leave SF, but mostly a just nervous as to what would happen next. I mean, I knew what would happen next – all the scenarios of what could happen were there, but there was no order, no sense to be made of it, and some serious disbelief that this was all happening.
Many times throughout this year I have felt like I am just going through the motions – following orders as best as I can, trying to figure out how to stay positive, feel okay, and how on earth to navigate this disease and its treatment.
Last night, Cayley and I went to watch the Hunger Games movie. It awoke some feelings in me that I wasn’t expecting. Maybe I had a hard time describing how I felt before, or maybe just seeing a scene portrayed on the big screen done so well just really captured how I felt at times during this past year, that I couldn’t help but be emotionally stirred by it.
Let me explain – now, I won’t ruin the movie for you, but for those who have read the book or know the premise of the movie will understand – those who don’t know, well I’ll try and describe it the best I can without giving it away.
The main character in the movie is a girl named Katniss. She is chosen to play in the “Hunger Games” where she must fight for her life in a basic reality show death match with other kids her age - 24 kids go in, 1 comes out. So not to ruin anything further, I’ll stop with the background story there. But the actress who portrayed Katniss did such a good job of one scene in particular that it stuck with me all night and all throughout today.
Right before Katniss is launched into the games arena she meets one of her handlers whom she has grown close to. You hear the announcer start the countdown to the games – 60 seconds. Katniss looks at her friend and starts to shake. She tries really hard to stay strong, but she is close to tears. You can see her looking around the room, almost as if for a way out of this fate. Her friend gives her a hug, gives her his vote of confidence and pulls away. Katniss is left on her own to enter the arena – she tries to pull it together, to not cry, and to put one foot in front of the other, knowing that she is entering a place that she might not make it back from.
Talk about stirring something in me. So often this past year I felt that way – trying to hold things together and shed as few tears as possible – but not ever really being able to control my emotions fully. Knowing what I had to do, what I was about to go through, but at the same time looking for any way out I could think of. Trying to turn off all emotion and instead turn to logic and reason to just push myself through things that my body and mind were screaming at me to stop doing.
I’m not going to pretend I’m as strong minded or willed as the character in this story – that girl has some serious guts! But I do know now how it can look from the outside to be going through something you don’t want to do, but gathering the courage to push yourself to do it anyways. I thought of this a lot today and how people might think that this is a sign that people are coping okay, or that things are going just fine – when maybe they are a lot harder than they want to let on. I’m not just referring to people going through cancer treatment, but people going through anything really difficult in general. It has definitely given me an appreciation for the strength that many people I know have shown in a variety of difficult life situations this past year.
Anyways, just some small ramblings from me today. I’m heading out of town for work next week and despite a bit of a crazy schedule, I am really looking forward to doing some work on the road with an amazing team of people.
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