Picking Up, and Then Some!

I completed treatment last March (I wrote "finishing" at first and that seems like tempting the gods. Who knows if I'm finished? I'll be having a mammogram every six months for the next five years. So, let's just keep those clean so we stay "finished" and don't have to "resume" any treatment activities.)

And there you have my frame of mind. Last March I hit the ground running--literally. My friend Robert and I took Emily to San Simeon on her Spring Break (with a stopover in Cambria for lunch and a night at the amazing Madonna Inn). Then I met some college friends for some fun in Bloomington, IN and my sisters for even more fun in Chicago. Frank and I spent our 25th anniversary in NYC and then all four of us enjoyed a week in Twain Harte--one of our favorite places--at the end of the summer.

Maggie has started high school and Em is deep into the theater program in her sophomore year at UCSB. I'm taking on some of the projects I neglected last year at work and I'm a busy volunteer again.

Mostly, life has been getting back to normal. We like routine in our home. We like being together, and we also like the constancy of all of us being at home. It feels good. And right now I am throwing a bit of wrench into all that.

Last night I did something I've been wanting to do for several years now--I've joined a choir. It's been a while, so my sight-reading is really lousy (I was all over the map last night in practice). But the director said I have a "nice sound" and he appreciated my range. So, we'll work out the kinks as we go along, and I'll thoroughly enjoy doing it. And this Thursday I'm starting a Bollywood dance class at the Berkeley Y with some girlfriends (Hi Karen & Sarah!).

I figured out my schedule for the next 8 weeks or so, and I'll be out of the house two to three nights each week. In the somewhat recent past, this all would have felt a little much. But right now I'm very much in the mode of "what exactly are we waiting for?" and doing the things I want to do.

Frank, as usual, is nothing but supportive. He likes hearing me sing and so is glad I'm getting to do more of it. And I'm sure I'll have fun learning the Bollywood dancing, and Frank is sure I'll have fun, too.    ;-)

And now for some philosphizing. (Warning! Deep Thoughts Ahead!)

I was recently chatting online with a young woman who is finishing up cancer for breast treatment (or, as she calls it, "The Bullshit") and I was telling her that there's no going back. That it's happened and the treatment is part of who you are now. And then it hit me, duh. That that's always been true. I'm sure that's obvious to all of you, but sometimes these very basic truths hit me right between the eyes. It's sort of like when I got to age 35 and it struck me, pretty much like a thunderbolt, that this is it. It's not a dress rehearsal: this is life. And I'm never going to be a rock star (that was a hard one to let go of...), and if there's anything I want to do, then I'd better get on with it.

To a great extent, I think I *do* do that. With the big things, anyway. But life intervenes, and it's easy to put some things aside for later.

I'll continue to put some things aside for later (becoming a world famous cabaret singer, for example). But some things, I'm figuring, I should do if I want to do them. And so through mid-May, I'll have choir practice once or twice a week. And for the next eight weeks, I'll be dancing along to fabulous Indian music at the Berkeley Y. Now I just need to figure out how to find the time to see the Oscar nominees before the awards show...