The Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with One Step

To my friends,

I have been living the past while in the much celebrated style of “living in the moment.” Everywhere you turn nowadays there is something or someone touting to live this motto…that it is the best way to live. So, faced with a new life of sorts, I felt I embraced such a motto as my own.

Paired with living in the moment, for me, is the title song by Tim McGraw, “Live like you were dying.” They seem to go hand in hand…living in the moment and living like you were dying. For me, it is about being present in your life, each day. To let those who are close to your heart aware of this. To reach out to others. Basically to love yourself and love others…to be vulnerable.

It sounds exciting, fascinating, fun, spontaneous, and energetic to live in the moment…living a life of passion! It has much appeal…and these attributes I ascribe to living life in the moment are ones that appeal to me. Just as some prefer contained, safe, ordered, preplanned, and routine ways of living, I prefer the former.

I am a passionate person…with all the good and the bad mixed in there (the good and the bad being I tend to leap before I think). Living in the moment is my default way of living…it is not new to me. Rather, I embraced the modern day chant long ago, before it was popular. But I’ve lost my way.

I’m hiding out.

As I have been trying to live as I always have, I have discovered I am afraid. I have been burned bad and the scars are fresh, red, swollen, and show traces of bleeding.

My life is changed…my mode of thinking about life is changed…my ways of living are changed…my thoughts and priorities are changed.

I am scared to live.

It is almost as if I have embraced a new motto that states, “If I have nothing, I have nothing to lose.”

How did such an empty, lonely motto come to be for me?

I know the pain of losing all my hopes and dreams and aspirations in the blink of an eye. I remember the moment I was told I have cancer…I was sitting in the examination room, the doctor was sitting on the examination table in front of me…there were a lot of spots where the word “unfortunately” was used and I noticed she had a sad, remorseful look about her that all made sense to me when, with tears in her eyes, she stated, “You have cancer.” In that moment life was sucked out of me…I watched my hopes and dreams and aspirations wave to me just before they each jumped out of the ninth story window. I knew the life I had envisioned for myself was gone and I had no idea what this other life looked like but it scared me…I knew it involved facing my mortality in a very real, very raw, and very honest way.

Then came the 2:30am call from my mother that Jason had been killed in a car accident...

Then came my gyn/onc telling me, 34 hours after I found out about Jason dying, that my cancer was metastic...

Then came my ex walking out on me while I was sick in bed from chemo...

This new “life” is what I am trying to figure out.

I have experienced many tragedies in the past year and a half.

Living in the moment is a natural part of me…it was easy for me…before I was scared to live. I have no doubts I can get there again as I heal…but the hard part is seeing myself further along on life’s path. It is blank there for me. I see a whitewashed wall…and that is it. I try to paint a picture on it but it is stunted and impossible. I try to splash colour on the whitewashed wall but it immediately runs off.

It is so perfect and serene, this whitewashed wall, but it is boring, safe, and empty. It screams to me, “If you have nothing, you have nothing to lose!” It is playing on my fears.

I am not sure where to start.

As I type that I am reminded of the coaster plaque I gave to my brother about a year before his tragic death. It said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” I have that in my possession now, displayed by my picture of Jason in my living room. We displayed it in Jason’s coffin at his visitations. When we took the boxes of cards, flowers, and display material home after the funeral my Dad, wanting to keep that little plaque himself, gave it to me saying I could use it more.

There is a lot of wisdom in that simple sentence.

As a baby I was eager to get walking, to move on my own accord and direct my own steps. Yet, here I am, able to walk but afraid to step somewhere…anywhere. Yes, I have battled cancer and if or when I have to battle it again is unknown…but I STILL have the ability to live, to love, to laugh, to pray, to embrace, to feel, to touch, to see, to grow…

It is not death I am afraid of but rather time…and wasting it.

I am changing the second half of my motto…no more living like I am dying. I think James Dean's quote, "Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today" contains some wisdom.

For certain we have today and this moment and, on this day, I will suspend disbelief and live, and dream, like I have 60 years ahead of me.

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”

Forever and Always,
Liz