soo boo.

This past week I started a writing project with my kids. We are learning how some of the best pieces of writing are inspired by the people, ideas and experiences that are closest to our hearts. Because we are taught to model everything we want our kids to do, I shared with them the things that I feel will stay with me forever. So I shared with my kids that I am a cancer survivor and that going through a difficult time has made me stronger in the end…blahblahblah. I think my kids were pretty weirded out and the first thing they asked me was if I had lost all my hair. I told them I was indeed bald for a bit of time and they asked if they could see a picture. I’m bringing in one tomorrow and I had to look through some old photo albums to find it, consequently flipping through photos of a time in my life that was nearly six years ago and almost feels like a dream. 

I don’t know why, but seeing myself bald was really jarring. It was like I just remembered something really important, and then felt incredibly ashamed for forgetting it in the first place. Seeing my shiny ol’ head made me remember countless times that I lay and made myself not think about my possible non-future but promising God at the same time that if I survived I would be thankful everyday. (if that makes sense?) But I think why seeing old pictures and recalling old memories has made me so dang emotional is because I have not kept those promises, because that time that should have been so integral in the way I live now has not changed how I perceive and approach life. 

I find myself complaining, crying and whining everyday. Every minute to be more exact. I complain about my kids, I bitch about the administration, I cry over the littlest things and I worry about other things that are so trivial. And I’m not gonna lie, it feels good to cry, complain, bitch and whine. Yet here I am, healthy as a friggin horse! I have a job where I do what I care about, food in mah belly and a sweet roof over my head. Not to mention loving people totally surrounding me. And yet the attitude I carry is that of someone who has not made earnest prayers to God and HAVE THEM ANSWERED. I feel ashamed to say that such an obviously God-sent, crazy, life-altering situation has had so little impact on my character. 

However it’s actually my kids that are teaching me that change takes a really long time. Like a really really long time. If it takes my fourth graders a month to learn how to properly push in their chairs, I guess that I should be happy that I am able to frankly recognize my own lack of change in just six years. 

I am thankful for my baldness, my mom’s camera, the cancer, and the fact that it has prompted me to think about all these things. I just hope and pray that it will go beyond just this and that I’ll be able to look at these old pictures and be proud of the long way I’ve come.