Too often I hear people saying that my generation takes things for granted, that we act entitled and expect more than we’ve earned from life. And like all youth before us, we believe ourselves invincible, unstoppable, immortal. And while logically, I know that this is not true, I am guilty of acting like I have an endless string of tomorrows, too.

I like hamburgers. A lot. I have a thing for classic American food, like fried chicken, milk shakes, and French fries. I love McDonalds. And I’ve been known to down four Red Bulls one right after the other and still yawn at the end of the night. I don’t sleep enough. I push my schedule to the limits, suffering small breakdowns, edging out relaxing activities, and parsing out tiny increments of time to family once a quarter.

What I’d been doing was waiting until tomorrow for well, everything. I’ll just have a hamburger today, tomorrow I’ll eat healthier. I’ll see my family next weekend, when work is less stressful. I’ll start leaving the office sooner after this quarter is over; I’ll take a do-nothing day sometime later, once my business is off and running.

We treat life like bottomless chips and salsa – there will always be more when we run out.

Somewhere around the time Date #4 and I were splitting up, I got some unexpected news from my doctor. I needed a biopsy. I’ve had two biopsies in the past and some minor surgery to catch some low-level growth on my cervix before it progressed. No big deal. So I had the biopsy and waited, rather impatiently, for the results over the long Thanksgiving weekend. [I'd like to note that Date #4 drove me to and from my appointment and took amazing care of me. He even baked cookies.]

My doctor’s office called and said the results were normal. No abnormal cell growth. But we want you to come in and talk to the doctor anyway. Sure, sure. Great. No worries. I hang up the phone.

Wait.

Why does the doctor want to see me if everything is fine? My sister the nurse reassures me. “She probably just wants to talk to you about getting everything back to normal and keeping it that way,” she said.

Instead, my doctor tells me that the biopsy was normal. For my outer cervix. What that means is not that there are no problems – it means that they are deeper. In fact, the problem is so deep that the kind of biopsy required could compromise my ability to carry a pregnancy to term. [I assume by now I’ve lost most of my male readers.]

I had a decision to make. I could move forward with the more invasive biopsy, which will require hospitalization. Or, I could wait and see. Sometimes these things can go away on their own, my doctor tells me.

The bargain I strike goes something like this: I have three months to boost my immune system and then I have another test. In the meantime, I run the risk that the growth, which we know nothing about, is bigger or faster-growing than we think.

I’d like to say that things have changed in my life since that day. That I’ve learned the fine art of doing nothing, as one of my retired friends likes to say. That I’ve slowed down, eat healthy, exercise regularly, and am on the whole less stressed.

Pretty much the opposite is true.

I’ve read a lot about cancer and seen the effects of stress on family members and their health. I took a class in college all about how our minds and bodies are connected. I know that the more I believe I will be fine, the more likely I will be. But what a mind-screw.

What’s happened instead is that every time I realize how stressed out I am, I think, “Oh great. I just gave myself cancer.” And then I get more stressed out. Because what if I do want to have kids? What if the partner I haven’t even met yet wants kids? What if I freaking have cancer? And the lump in my throat grows.

Every one around me tells me it’s not a big deal; lots of women go through this. Yes, I know. But it’s not your ability to bear children, is it? I always think. It’s not you with the crap medical insurance in the hospital, is it?

And I stop and realize that none of this is helping. It’s actually making it worse.

Here’s what I should be doing, and my hope is that by putting it out here I can somehow make this next month go the way it needs to. Because in some sense, my life depends on the way I live.

Physical elements
Eating right – Cut out the crap. Insert the fresh. I prefer to eat six small meals throughout the day, and already have a meal plan for this. Guess what’s not on it? Fast food or junk food. It’s all about the many colors of veggies and fruits, with a healthy dose of lean proteins and whole grains. Bring it on.

No caffeine – I love my lattes. I was able to cut out caffeine for three weeks before I caved into Starbucks, aka the monkey on my back. It’s a comfort thing for me, and thus I won’t cut it out all together. Once a week shouldn’t hurt. But I’m glad to say I’m off my three-cup-a-day habit. I can honestly say I have more energy.

Lots of water – Water flushes the body out. By cutting out all other beverages, I realize how little water I would drink otherwise. I also firmly believe my mother’s gorgeous skin is due to her water addiction. It’s all that woman drinks and she’s got the skin of a 25-year-old.

Exercise – Up until the past two weeks, I had a rigorous exercise routine. Three 30-40 minute runs per week, a day of upper-body strength training, a day of lower body and a yoga/cross-training day. This was a good mix for me. The cardio helped my immune system, the strength training builds strong bones (which important for women since we’re prone to osteoporosis later in life – how many of us think of that every day?), and yoga or whatever other physical activity like fishing, kayaking or hiking allows me to be active in my life and enjoy it.

Vitamins – I’ve been taking pre-natal vitamins from the get-go. They boost your immune system like nobody’s business, plus they make your hair and nails grow super fast. It really makes you realize your body is a machine that works harder the more you take care of it. I’ve also been taking calcium (see osteoporosis comment above) and fish oil. I drink Echinacea tea once or twice a day. Hey, man, whatever you say might work, I’ll do it.

Mental
You’ve got to believe you’re going to be OK – This is what everyone tells me, including my doctor. I remember a study from that college course that showed that terminally-ill cancer patients had a higher s
urvival rate if they were in denial than those who accepted their impending death. See also: The Secret.

Keep stress levels low – I have no idea how to do this. I thought perhaps if I could keep my schedule clearer, I would have more downtime and feel less stressed. But that doesn’t seem to work for me. I love all of my activities and have yet to learn the art of saying no. It’s hard to turn down projects when you want to grow your own business, especially when the economy is the way it is and you work in a dying industry. A friend recently told me I needed to embrace this about myself, and that would be the key to unlocking my stress. I do try to have one night a week that is clear of any activity. I spend that evening relaxing with a book, enjoying the quiet. This is definitely my weakest area and I welcome all advice related to this.

Renew – My life coach gave me some tips on how to do this. One is laughter. So I try to be around funny people, laugh at everyone’s jokes, and watch funny movies. It does help. Another is sleep. I try to get 9 hours a night, 8 at a minimum. Being in nature is another, and Date #4 has been kind enough to let me visit his country place out in the Hill Country. It is super relaxing, and I love tromping through the woods with his dogs and lazily kayaking in the river. Anything spiritually-related is good, which I’ll talk about below. Finally, believe it or not, music can be an invigorating activity. I love Explosions in the Sky for inspiring and uplifting me.

Visualization – OK, this is kind of gross, but part of what I do every day is to spend time visualizing a healthy, pink cervix. I even looked up a picture (thanks, Google Images). It looks like a fluffy pink doughnut, basically. I say to myself, I have a healthy, pink cervix. And I imagine it. Weird, I know, but again – I’ll do whatever will work.

Spiritual/Emotional
Faith works – Numerous studies have shown that people who have some kind of belief have higher rates of survival when facing illnesses. I’m not a religious person. To be honest, it just never worked for me. I do consider myself a relatively spiritual person, however. I believe in things like karma and hope reincarnation exists. I think that there’s a reason for things to happen, and I believe that things will turn out the way they’re supposed to. I also think that there is something bigger than binds us all. So, in some sense, I just try to trust that.

Prayer/meditation – In that same college course, I found out that people who had others praying for them generally survived also. I thought this was really interesting. There didn’t have to be a connection between the patient and the prayer-er. I like to think of it as “good vibes.” You’ve got all these good vibes coming in your direction – that’s gotta help, right? Spending quiet time in meditation and prayer also helps center an individual, quiets the mind, and can lower stress levels.

If you’re facing the same situation, I’m not sure what to tell you, except that you aren’t alone. Maybe that’s why I’m writing this. Because even though my friends and family are very supportive and kind, it’s an isolating thing. It makes you question your priorities, your lifestyle, your past decisions. It makes you realize that life is not bottomless, and that the things you feel entitled to, that you take for granted, may not be there in a month.

Photo: Courtesy JPhilipson via Flickr.

Eating crow: humiliation by admitting wrongness or having been proven wrong after taking a strong position

Eat humble pie: to apologize and face humiliation for a serious error

I’m not sure either of these describes exactly how I feel, but they come close. I had a particularly, and unexpectedly, emotional day. Around noon, I learned that a friend’s sister overdosed last night. I didn’t know the sister, but this recovering alcoholic can tell you that there is something about hearing that this disease has claimed another person that shakes you at your core. I believe it was that shaken state that allowed everything to bubble up to the surface.

I can’t write list posts or tell you how to get through your first day of work or even how to make more room in your life for love. The only real thing I have to offer is a candid view of the way I live my life, and to be as achingly honest about it as possible. And I’ve been wrong. About several things.

It started innocently enough. I stopped by Old Navy on my way home from work to pick up a pair of pajama shorts since it’s become clear to me that Date #4 will not take the hint and leave behind the necessary boyfriend boxers I would prefer to sleep in. While there, I decided to be a good auntie to my cousin’s 1-year-old daughter and pick up a few cute little things. I dumped it all on the bed when I got home, changed into my new shorts (ah…) and stared at the clothes. They were so cute, so little, and I couldn’t wait to see her in them. A feeling started to come up… and I shoved it back down.

All day, I’d been shoving it back down.

The loss of my friend’s sister stirred up my still-raw emotions over the loss of my friend Maureen back in March. I shoved it back down. Date #4 not being able to spend his birthday weekend with me stirred up feelings of jealousy, resentment and fear. I shoved it back down. As I stared down at the little girl’s clothes, it stirred up emotions of something I’d lost years ago, and I shoved that down too.

But it wouldn’t stay down.

As I tried to finish going about my night (I needed to blog, get my work and running clothes ready, make some concrete business decisions…), it just wouldn’t stay down. Something wasn’t right. It’s been this way for a few months but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I thought it was maybe my sinuses, maybe not exercising, not having my work and life balanced just the right way or not doing the right kind of work. I searched, all the while shooing away this nagging feeling that I wasn’t working something important out. Shoved it down.

It came up. All at once.

I miss Maureen and her death has affected me. I can’t ignore that. I don’t want to feel that pain because it is so very strong. I am missing a friend, a person who totally got me, who gave to me and took from me, to whom I told “I love you” every time we said goodbye. I wasn’t dealing with those feelings, that grief. I ignored it.

What I really want when I imagine a good, fine life for myself is to own my own café, just as I envisioned it in December, an airy cozy shop full of funky vintage furniture, good coffee and an owner (me!) who knows everybody. I would be in a cool town, maybe not too big but too small. Somehow I got the notion into my head that it just wasn’t grand enough a business for a smarty-pants like me. So I shelved it, said it was best left for retirement.

The most startling realization to you, my readers, might be what else I see in this picture. As I run my own successful café, I very clearly see children running around my shop. I want children. Three years ago, I was an alcohol who could not bring myself to bring a child into my world. That experience has been far more impacting than I ever thought, and fear has driven me in that regard.

I realize now that when it comes to the emotional things in my life, it’s going to take much longer to heal than I thought. It wouldn’t say much about my friendship with Maureen if I weren’t still moved to tears a mere five months later. I am. It wouldn’t be treating my disease with enough respect to think that the choices I made years ago because of my drinking would just go away on their own. They haven’t.

As to my business choices, I think I simply veered off course looking for something perhaps a little more glamorous, a little more grand than my simple dream of owning my own coffee shop. But now that I’m back there, it’s like a warm blanket, familiar and just right.

In some respects, I’m back where I was in December, which isn’t necessarily bad. I feel a little sheepish, a little humbled admitting that my ego inflated as I attempted to fluff myself up to meet these grand ideas. I don’t always know what I’m doing. I thought I was just putting on a brave face. When I put a brave face on, I only fool myself. And fool myself, I did.

Life is a tricky thing. I’m skeptical of anyone who says they’ve got it all figured out. Especially in these early years, as we try to form ideas of who we want to be and how we can become those people, certainly we’ll look a little foolish along the way. I guess I’m just happy to be trying.

Like Linus, the Peanuts character whose blue blankie is ever-present, so I am with my tan-and-black workbag. It contains whatever two or three books I’m reading (currently Eat Pray Love, Rich Dad Poor Dad, and E-Myth), my planner, two journals (one personal and one career-related), pens, pencils, highlighters, and all the lovely little things that go in a normal purse.

I lug it around with me everywhere. I get razzed endlessly by my friends, family, or whoever else is around to be embarrassed by what is clearly too large and inappropriate for the movies, a restaurant, or shopping. “What do you need all that for?” is a frequently-asked question.

What do I need it all for? Well, just in case. In case of what? In case I have a free moment. In case I end up somewhere alone. Just in case.

So, here I am in my hometown of Pensacola for my grandfather’s funeral, lugging around my bag of work gear endlessly, not getting anything done. I have nothing to do. My work stuff is all at the office. Staying with relatives means no Internet (slinking away from relations for a daily dose of coffee and Internet seems addict-like), so I can’t work on the blog. Endless chaos and noise and relatives you’ve not seen for years do not make for an environment conducive to reading or journaling. So, my bag is useless.

Which means I CAN’T WORK. For some reason, this has me geeking out more than anything. I have no routine. All of my pet projects, all of my entrepreneurial endeavors, everything that has defined my waking (and sometimes sleeping) life is unavailable to me. A big gaping hole of non-productivity – that’s what I feel like. It’s like an itch that can’t be scratched. I guess the real problem is that I want to be back in my life.

In reality, I simply don’t want to be here – not here in Pensacola or at my grandfather’s funeral. I don’t want to be going through this.

I don’t think that it’s uncommon to use work as a security blanket. Often times, we simply don’t want to deal with the big emotional things looming larger than life – surely updating the margin widths of my website is of the utmost importance. Hmm…

I won’t go on a lengthy diatribe about how detrimental a workaholic attitude (the use of work as a way to not deal with emotional pain) can be. We know that it ruins marriages, families, relationships, and friendships, and can lead to even bigger isms (alcoholism, obsessive compulsive disorder, depression). It also doesn’t get you anywhere.

Someone once told me that painful things will happen in life and you’ll have an overwhelming urge to do something, anything about it. You will be frantic trying to find a way to fix it, to plug the hole through which emotion is flowing, like the Dutch boy with his finger in a dam. Unfortunately, we come across situations that we can’t do anything about. There is simply nothing to be done about losing two people you care very much about in less than two weeks. There is nothing to be done about 12-hour drives, crazy families and heartache. The only thing you can do is feel the pain. All you can do is simply stand.

I don’t really know how I made it through actually. I can tell you that I feel somehow stronger knowing that I came through all of it without any crutches. I know I can survive almost anything. Asking for a raise no longer seems like the earth-shattering event it was three weeks ago. The thought of not seeing that guy anymore is no longer life-altering. Everything seems somehow smaller, paltry. I know I weather any unexpected storm. I know I can stand.

Stand undeterred.

Through a combination of events, some of them brought on by my own self and some of them acts of god, my life has completely and totally derailed in the past week. I mean, we’re talking wrapped-around-a-garbage-can, laying-on-the-floor, we-might-need-to-go-the-emergency-room derailed. Part of this was shock from the loss of my friend, but part of it was also that I was simply pushing myself way too hard.

The Problem
My philosophy in life is to get out of the problem and into the solution. With the funeral behind me this morning and a still-full schedule ahead of me, I made an internal decision to get with the program today. After all, the apartment is unbelievably gross right now, laundry is unwashed, food spoiling in the fridge… it’s all I could do to wake up and zombie-walk myself to where I’m supposed to be at any given hour this past week. But into the solution, right?

If you’ve got a full schedule and you’re derailed, how do you get back on track? It can be difficult when you run a tight schedule to catch up on the things you missed and keep up the pace you’re used to operating at. After all, you’ve pretty much just been bombed. Now that the shock has worn off, you have time to survey the debris.

The Solution
So, that’s where I start. The apartment needs to be cleaned, the laundry done, the dishes put away and the fridge cleaned out and restocked (oh yeah, we’ve forgotten to eat haven’t we?). The car needs the oil changed and the tires rotated. I need two new pairs of jeans and new running shoes. Oh crap, I forgot to pay the electric. Clearly, this is going to take a few hours. I don’t have a few hours. I don’t have a half-hour, for crying out loud. 

I wish I could say I had a magical solution, some brilliant piece of wisdom you’d never in a million years think of. But I don’t. And that’s unfortunate for both of us. Because my answer is to take half of Friday, the day I was supposed to be in Austin for South by Southwest with my best friend from NYC who I haven’t seen in a year, and get all this crap done. It sucks, but that’s all there is to it. 

‘Be Excellent to Each Another’
Oh, the wisdom of Bill and Ted… The fact of the matter is I can’t get back on track after something like this without taking the time to be good to myself. I’ve been treating my body like crap this week. I haven’t eaten right; I haven’t jogged, done yoga or slept. I am in debt. I cannot simply go back to cash; I have to pay off my deficit first or my body’s interest will compound. And bad health debt has a high rate – 20% at least. It doesn’t take long for it to get out of control.

Buddhists say the definition of suffering is the desire to be anywhere other than where you are. I wish this hadn’t happened, I wish my little life hadn’t been bombed, but it has. Now it’s time to pick up the pieces, rebuild and move forward. Hopefully, life will balance out again soon. It’s just going to take some patience with myself and a little time to be good to myself again.

Survey. Respond. Rebuild.

Well, dear readers, if I am out-of-pocket the next few days I hope my excuse is valid. I lost a very dear friend this weekend. I am still sorting through the emotions, and the shock has only just worn off in the past few hours. Every hour brings a new emotion, a renewed sense of sadness and loss, and a glimpse of the profundity of this event. I know that something is happening in my soul right now that will impact me forever. I don’t know what it is yet, but that’s part of the ante when you agree to let life guide you.