Currie's Gratitude 31 July 2014

Sometime in your life you will go on a journey. It will be the longest journey you have ever taken. It is the journey to find yourself.   [Katherine Sharp]

Sometime is Now. That’s the secret I kept forgetting. And why I kept trying to get somewhere, someone, or something.

I feel like a traveller. At times a weary one. Still, for probably the first time EVER I am simply where, who, and what I am. It’s Enough. I am Enough. And what is is Enough. It’s like taking a deep breath. Or realising I’d been holding it for awhile.

The Journey isn’t necessarily measurable, like BEing the “longest” ever. It’s just that finally I know the Whole Thing is the Journey. My plans and schemes and ideas, they are just what’s rolling in me Today.

I have learned a HUGE lesson over the past 8 years: Forgive Everyone, especially myself. Even if no one hears or knows it, ever; even if it’s someone who I knew a long time ago, who probably doesn’t remember me, forgive them. Forgive myself.

And don’t BE afraid to remember someone or some time. Even if it stings. Even if it stings a LOT. FORGIVE. REMEMBER. And Let Go. Breathe. Make room for healing and Hope and things that will surprise and amaze…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 30 July 2014

A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.   [John Steinbeck]

Life is funny. Just a short time ago I thought I had a handle on mine. I was powering along, sometimes happy with the way of things, others less so, but mostly I was just going along.

Now I am often BEwildered about what it was I could have found to BE NOT to my liking. After all, isn’t this somewhat the way of humans?! We categorise and organise and summarise. We sum things up. We cut losses.

Today I am choosing happy first. I am deciding that whatever is is okay with me. NOT that I love it, but it’s my Life, my Day, so what’s the draw in choosing other than happy?!

Chemo has done a number on my mouth. Ouch Ouch Ouch!!! Can’t talk without pain. Eating is BEyond me.

So I am choosing to invent new-to-me smoothies and to stick to drinking water. I DO what I CAN DO to comfort or at least ease the pain. Even for a moment.

And BEyond that it’s all about trusting that this is simply my Journey.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 29 July 2014

The point isn't to win the game. The point is to play a beautiful game.   [Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear]

It sort of knocks me sideways when I realise the things I would NOT BElieve, the things I was sure were BEyond reason… This past week has given me many chances to “try another way” in terms of how I live with cancer.

The reason the oncology folks are so thorough about side effects is BEcause, just like cancer, we all get what we get. There isn’t just one way. We’re all just little snowflakes and when I think of it that way, it feels a whole LOT better.

I am determined to enJOY this new Adventure Life has given me, so, I’m finding the JOY in feeling how I am feeling. I am learning to deal with what is as just one more what is in my Life.

What doesn’t make sense, will make sense. [The Universe www.tut.com]

This was yesterday’s Perpetual Calendar message. I really liked the simplicity of it. Those who are treating and caring for me told me what could happen. This way things that DON’T make one bit of sense feel exquisitely ordinary. Simply amazing!!!

I am grateful. And I am grateful for how practising Gratitude let’s me BE happy in advance.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 28 July 2014

Some beautiful paths can't be discovered without getting lost.   [Erol Ozan]

When a thing is true for me, well, it is. And that doesn’t always make sense, even though I think it should…

Getting lost feels pretty awful and I won’t tell you I’d seek it out, yet Every. Single. Time. that I have been lost I have come back stronger, even a little wiser. The past few days have been potentially lost, yet simply by embracing the “ick” of them, I am finding my path to BE really quite lovely.

Some journeys take you farther from where you come from, but closer to where you belong.   [Ron Franscell, The Sourtoe Cocktail Club: The Yukon Odyssey of a Father and Son in Search of a Mummified Human Toe ... and Everything Else]

Life is a funny thing, eh?! I have wondered at my zig-zagging these past 8 years, yet Now it looks utterly, completely exquisite. A perfect fit. Who would have guessed?!

My hand-stitched wings itch to take flight to test the winds of change that inevitably blow  at the end of a cycle.    [B.G. Bowers, Death and Life]

Cycles are curious. Somehow they don’t stand out until they are Past. BEhind me. Over even.

So I’m learning to NOT make up my mind. And to remain openhearted.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 25 July 2014

Don't be discouraged if people don't see your vision, your harvest. All they see from their perspective is that you're watering a whole lot of dirt. They don't SEE what seeds you've been planting with blood, sweat, tears and lack of sleep. Make sure you don't abandon or neglect it because "they" don't see it. You have to KNOW and believe for yourself. They don't see the roots and what's budding under the dirt. But it's okay, because it's NOT meant for them to see it. While you wait, MASTER it. You continue to do YOUR work and have unwavering faith! Remember why you started planting in the first place. Your harvest WILL come!   [Yvonne Pierre, The Day My Soul Cried: A Memoir]

It’s NOT so good to NEED others or even another to get it… get me. I am really only finding this out Now.

That is enough though. I don’t so much mind, NOT as I would have imagined at all.

There is a sort of peaceful acceptance in me Now. I seem to BE understood. Or mayBE it is that I realise my own understanding is really all I have ever sought…

So far chemo has been stealing my sleep. Taking away my appetite. NOT so bad, really, NOT bad at all.

Making this possible?!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 24 July 2014

Life's journey is peppered with many bumps and pitfalls. If we make mountains out of each one, we will get nowhere. [Charles F. Glassman, Brain Drain The Breakthrough That Will Change Your Life]

Good thought. I used to BE a mountain builder and all too fond of drama. It occurs to me, then, that what is different Now is I trust all “mountains” I encounter to BE scalable. I trust that they are meant for me to grow from. I’ve lost all taste for drama which has allowed growth unimaginable by Me Then.

Take steps. Take enough of them and suddenly, you're somewhere. [Gayle Forman, Sisters in Sanity]

The whole idea of Life is to LIVE. To BE. To DO. To fail. To rise up again. Or BE still and quiet awhile sometimes. Even to push myself a bit harder in some stretches. Life is NOT about arriving or where I was BEfore, it is all about Right Now. This moment. This breath. This. As it is. As it is NOT.

There are no shortcuts on the road of life. Not a single one. [Eleanor Brownn]

I used to seek out shortcuts. And sure things. And a plan. And even a GUIDE [or certainly instructions].

Now I DO okay just following my path.

Taking this Life on JOYously.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 23 July 2014

It's not getting from A to B. It's not the beginning or the destination that counts. It's the ride in between...This train is alive with things that should be seen and heard. It's a living, breathing something -- you just have to want to learn its rhythm.   [David Baldacci, The Christmas Train]

A new ride BEgins. I feel hopeful. I have prepared for a multitude of possibilities and I hope that I have way overdone that. Still, it feels good to take care of myself. To listen. And respect what I hear inside me.

Abhor victimhood. Denounce entitlement. Neither are gifts, rather cages to damn the soul. Everyone who has walked this earth is a victim of injustice. Everyone.
Most of all, do not be too quick to denounce your sufferings. The difficult road you are called to walk may, in fact be your only path to success.   [Richard Paul Evans, A Winter Dream]

What I know Now that I did NOT know 4 months ago is that I CAN live with cancer. It has adjusted to me as I have adjusted to it. I surely did NOT see this coming.

I didn’t know how much I can depend on me. JOYously. Easily. And pretty much all the time.

Which is WHY I so deeply trust this journey…

I love you, Currie