Life is like a sandwich...enjoy the big bites.: A time for adventure

Leah & The Machine

Nobody's life is easy.
Each life is put together with so many little unique pieces, assembled in a way that each piece becomes integral to the other. Without us even knowing, this intricate assembly of pieces ensures that, in general, our lives are complicated.

We don't know how complicated until one of the pieces falls out. Then we have to rebuild things, fill in with different pieces and rework the whole set-up. Most times, or so I hear from conversations with many friends who have had major change to the 'set-up', our perspective can change radically.

Though I left my job two months ago, nothing has changed in terms of my heart and my devotion to giving. Several friends and colleagues reached out and helped me reassemble inner pieces to fill a void. It's been a blessed time, rebuilding, relearning, reconnecting - and of course, making new connections and rekindling old connections.

I say 'blessed' because I truly believe sometimes we lose our sense of self in pursuit of keeping things "together" and keeping all the pieces in place. It's only when a piece falls out that we realize life is about change. Adapting to this change is the real key to understanding that our crucial or core pieces are strong enough to keep us going while we look for the other pieces. Sometimes we become better by rearranging the pieces - by force or by choice.

The last time I was rearranging like this I was not alone, I had family and good friends. Yet this time, I have a husband, a partner, a co-pilot. Wow, is this a new experience- rearranging the pieces together as a team. And again, all the more reason for it being a blessed time of learning and growth.

Rearrange, Relocate, Reconstruct

Patrick, you see laughs in the face of "rearranging". His career is constantly shifting and changing. And he teaches me every day about how he thrives by these little changes to the moving parts in the machine.

Months ago he got passed over for a part. It was an oversight that really hurt (at the time). Yet, little did we know the universe did him an incredible favor. In the time span that would have encompassed the part he lost, something came up that proved far more incredible. So, now he is embarking on a new role...and out of that also came several other opportunities.

For the time being New York, a city of 8 million is again calling his name and for once, his opportunity is aligned with my ability to join him.

The universe in its crazy way spoke to me. Here we are riding this wave together as husband and wife. I will be joining him in this crazy city in just 10 days. It's the same crazy city he picked up to leave to be with me.

An exciting possibility is rising to the horizon for me too. While I figure out my own shifts in the parts and pieces it's a time to realize discovery in itself is a blessing. Though nothing in my path is yet to be settled or solidified, it's a remarkable gift to know that my talents won't be wasted. Yes, I CAN reinvent. I just have to have the tiniest faith in reconstruction.

Changes and restructuring scare me. I'm not the person I was before cancer. Yet, I'm incredibly grateful I've gotten the chance to restructure.

In Her Voice, 'Go Get it, Girl'

At times like this, there's a deep echo of loneliness for my friends who have died. I really do think about them often. Maybe it's because I want to share little stories with them and hear theirs too. Maybe it's because they knew me before, when we were all finding our way and for a time we were uncertain together.

I've learned so much from these friends, through a disease I've grown so intimately to resent. There is a difference between resenting the disease and resenting where it takes us. Resent the disease itself, not the path it leads us on. Without cancer, I would have never met Jen. She is one friend I have been thinking about a lot lately. We shared that same fun-loving and devilish spirit and the desire to have our fun by challenging the ordinary.

Jen was the kind of friend to invite me out to dinner with her and her husband, knowing instinctively I wouldn't feel like a third wheel as the single girl.

She was the kind of friend who had no problem telling me 'girl, you need a new haircut.' This was convenient because as a salon manager she found a way for a really thrifty girl to get a really nice haircut for free.

Jennifer embraced life and friends

She was the kind of friend that begged me to tell her about my adventures in detail even when her own life was limited by doctors appointments. She prodded for more when I held back...she loved hearing the stories.

She was the kind of friend who called me up after four months of falling out of our chats to invite me to her house to visit her because she knew I would not be afraid of how she looked or the hospital bed or that she was dying.

She was the kind of friend who when I asked if there was anything I could do for her, she answered honestly. With gratitude that she gave me a chore and with no hesitation I went out and got her the makings of a ginger ale float.

She was the good friend I never really got to know as deeply as I would have liked. Yet, she was the friend I knew deeper perhaps than our time had allowed. She was the soul that I would have liked to have a lot more time with because we could laugh endlessly about the stupidest of things like old friends. That last crisp fall afternoon we spent together in her living room-turned-makeshift-bedroom was an absolute gift. She told me not to be sad for her because she had accepted her path, but she was excited about following mine. She was that generous of a human being. And then she said something which would have sounded crazy...crazy, if you didn't know Jen.

She told me she was feeling a little clairvoyant facing death. She chuckled. She was confident I was going to meet someone who was going to change my life, this guy would just make sense. I nodded. But she knew. She smiled with an almost playful rebellion. I didn't believe her and she knew it. She knew I doubted the whole "Mr. Right" bullshit. I'd seen proof of so many wrong fits.

She really underlined her statement by grabbing my hand and smiling right into my soul. "It's gonna happen and I can't wait to watch." It was kind of eerily the same message my own grandmother gave me a year before, on my sister's wedding day.

I have to admit delightful surprise both Jen and Grandma were right on that count and proved me wrong...Patrick was unexpected. :)

I don't know what's ahead. I really don't. Who does. I'm just gonna follow my heart again and work at things the best way I know how. Those dreams keep us living. The connections we have with those who inspire us...they keep them living too.

Crazy to think my next adventure is now an adventure for two.