Hi. If you’re following along, we’re going to get reeeeally comfortable with each other. I am thrilled to have this platform. After my diagnosis, I started writing – writing to escape, writing to release, and oddly enough, writing to remember. I suppose I knew that a new “me” was on the horizon and it might sound strange, but I just felt like I wanted to look back and be able to remember everything. I didn’t really share much on social media. I really admired the people who could, but it just didn’t feel right to me at the time. So again, I’m excited to tell my story here, if it can just help one person laugh, or cry, or say “yes!” as you read this, because you’ve been there, too (or you’re there right now).

We talked about choices in our thriving circle last week. Think about all the things you know you have absolutely NO control over. So. Many. Things. And then think about all the things you CAN control. There’s only one thing. It’s you. The only thing in this crazy, unpredictable life that I can control is me – my thoughts, my attitude, my happiness. If I just sit with that thought and wrap myself up in it, I realize how much power I have, even though it sometimes feels like cancer took so much of that away from me. I can choose every morning how I am going to show up for myself today.

I grew up five hours south of Omaha in a small Missouri town. My parents and younger brother drove to Omaha for my biopsy. I will spare you those details (but if you are interested, please let me know – happy to share!) Later that night my mom and brother went to pick up dinner and my dad stayed back at home with me. I was standing in the kitchen and he was within my line of sight, sitting in a recliner in the living room. He’s not a man of many words, but I usually find his advice to be on point when it’s offered. As casual as he would have said something completely unrelated to his daughter having cancer, he said, “Well, if this is what you think, I guess you’ll just have to do whatever it takes…whatever you have to do to get through this.” It seemed so simple. I had a choice in how I would show up for myself throughout this journey – every single day.

And as I type all of this, I realize that it could be either completely freeing or completely terrifying to think about the fact that you have no control over anything but yourself. I would encourage anyone to just let go, and choose the freedom.