It’s almost two years since I was diagnosed with TTP. What does almost dying do to a person? It changes everything and yet…it doesn’t. I still struggle to put first things first. I still want to be the best. I still want people to tell me I’m the best. I still want others to notice when I’m working hard. And when they don’t? I still battle deep insecurities. I still dream of being somewhere else. I still sometimes feel like I’ve made all the wrong decisions in my life and sometimes…sometimes I still dream of what my life would be like as a foot loose and fancy free single woman able to drop everything and run away whenever I want to.
The insecurities are not so crippling and I quickly remember my moment of choice when I was in the darkness. I come back to the reality of my loving husband and beautiful children much easier. I say “yes” when asked to share myself even when I want to say no. Sometimes this stresses me out but the alternative is to live an isolated life and that is not how I want to spend my second chance.
Because that is what this is. A second chance. A gift. I remember sometimes that I could be dead right now. I could be totally missing Katy sing off key as she draws. I could be missing Kenzlee’s morning cuddles.
This experience can remind me of the Love Boat. I loved that show as a kid. I loved watching people who were hurting and lonely find closeness and hope every week. But one day someone asked me, “What happens when they go home?” I realized that when these characters returned “home” (Matt would be a little irriated here because he would remind me that there is no “home” because they AREN’T REAL) they would face the same struggles that brought them to this situation in the first place. Had they really learned any new skills? Had things really changed? At the time I decided that the Love Boat was just a fantasy and that the hope and love these characters had found probably would not last.
I feel differently now. Yes, these characters would go back to the same situations and struggles. The outside world would not have changed. But they would have. Hope is a powerful thing. It opens the heart and mind to new ways of seeing. It feeds the Spirit and the Soul, holding spiritual starvation at bay.
The Love Boat is a fantasy…and it isn’t. It’s also very real. There are times and places in our lives when we have the opportunity to take a second chance. Taking that chance changes us and makes us more than we were. Better able to face the same old struggles in a new way.
I’m am forever grateful for my second chance and pray that I can squeeze the most joy and love out of it possible.
