friday

hello friday, good to see you. this is the first friday in six weeks that will be followed by a work day on monday. it is amazing how fast the six weeks off have flown by. i have mixed emotions about going back on monday. i love the projects i work on and the people i work with, so it will be good to be back in my routine. it will be great to have the distraction during the day to take my mind off of melanoma. on the other hand, i have some anxiety about going back to work.

before surgery, i had thought that if the results came back and it was melanoma, there was a chance that i would no longer want to work at all. but after the results came, and i had time to think and ground myself a bit, i decided that going back felt like the right thing for me to do. being back into the normal routine (minus some changes i am making to focus on my health) will be good for me. if i had decided to not go back, i would have been signaling to myself that bad news was coming and that i am just waiting out the clock. i also know that having a lot of consistent down time when i am on my own is not good for me. emotionally i don't do so well with a ton of time by myself these days. my mind starts to drift into the deep dark places i don't want to go.

part of why the work decision is so hard is that i don't want to make decisions that i will regret and beat myself up over later. that is tough since obviously hindsight is always 20/20. if the scans in april indicate that melanoma is back, will i regret the fact that i spent time in march and april at work? would i rather have spent that time with family or friends, or working on projects that i want to finish? i wish i had the crystal ball (especially if it showed clean results) to know how i will feel about decisions later down the road. regret...it is kind of at the top of the list next to my old friend guilt.

a big part of being brave is living. going back to work signals living for me - it is what i know. it is the job that i love, the projects i want to see built, the teams i have been a part of for so long. if the time comes when i know that my days are truly numbered, i may likely feel different about work. i may feel different when i walk through the doors next week and try my best to resume some normalcy. i have promised myself that i will take life day by day, and if i need to make changes, i will.

so for now i choose living. i choose work. i choose my routine. i choose being out in the world everyday and being constructive on something that isn't tied to cancer, or driven by my overwhelming fear that i will be forced to finish my fight with melanoma too early.

which reminds me, i am only going to say this one time because once is enough. if the time ever comes when my worst fears come true, please don't ever say that i lost my battle with melanoma. please just say that i finished my fight (and maybe add in that i put up a hell of a good fight). i do not like hearing people refer to cancer patients in terms of losing their battle, although i am sure that there have been times previously in my life that i used those same words. i don't anymore. i hope you will consider not using them anymore either.

ok, by this point i am making us all sad, so let's move on to a happier - and greener - topic. today i got my vitamix which is basically a machine that can turn any fruit/vegetable into a smoothie in what seems like two seconds. so i made a spinach/cucumber/kale/blackberry/apple smoothie. pretty good if i do say so myself. it is like a color show of juices around here lately. i wish that the color show also included jelly beans, but apparently those have sugar in them?;) bummer.

i hope that you all have a great weekend, we are very excited about ours. it is going to include s'mores, ice skating, movies, pizza, swimming, playing games and other adventures. i will fill you in on the other side of the weekend (hi michelle s;)).

enjoy your weekend. capture the moments. take them all in, and please - eat some jelly beans for me. lots of them. xoxo