Writing & Waiting

When I started my new blog, I felt that writing would help. That as words poured from my fingertips I would feel less aimless in the waiting. It's the second night I've pulled an all nighter. Ironically, I'm tired, but nights have kept me from sleep. Nights are harder. The haunting questions stir as I read the pages of Cheryl Strayed's Wild, or type into the writing I promised myself I would do during this time to take my mind of the waiting. Today I decided though, if the pathology results were troubling surely they would have called me sooner to get started on some sort of treatment (never mind the fact that my surgeon, who they would call first, is still on spring break in Mexico with her family). But I'm justifying the two week wait with the thought that it must not be any big deal.

At night our sweet cat, Baby, has taken it upon herself to be my nighttime rock. Not much of a cuddler normally, although she slept on my bed for short bits when I lived at my parent's before, now she moves from the arm, to the head to the foot rest of my recliner, choosing to sleep near me for hours, purring well into the night.

I find comfort in this.

I grow stronger by the day and food actually tastes good and for the most part, stays down, for the first time in over a month. I savor the simple meals I eat as they taste like the most delicious thing I have had in weeks. This morning I actually got up the nerve to look at the full length of my healing, stapled wound, a line that splits my center from breast bone, jagging slightly around my belly button, and continuing down another 15 staples. I can't help but think of the three people who told me at the hospital that I should get a cool tattoo over the scar, but I'm not sure I'll want to cover it. Somehow it seems a reminder that I am alive and that March 17, St. Patrick's Day, was the day I got a second chance.

Today I sat in the recliner in the living room under my green blanket watching big feathery white flakes of snow swirl to earth from the sky, watching the morning dove in the tree who kept her eye on me for awhile, and I couldn't help but find solace in the thought that right now I am the luckiest girl in the world. Another bouquet of flowers arrived and one of mom's dear friends brought beef bourguignon, and I instantly thought of Julia Child... except this recipe was Ina Garten's and it melted on your tongue.

We ate dinner in near silence tonight, savoring the moment, savoring the last Sunday of Spring Break and watching it snow. The words of my blog title my mantra, my prayer, my meditation: love, write, be.

Be here in this moment, this space, this still waiting place and let the mystery unfold around you; let the unknown run it's course and soon, soon this will be a memory as we move forward into something new. Something equally as sacred and tender. That is what life is after all: sacred, tender, raw and holy.