731 Days

731 days ago, I got the scary phone call. Completely caught off-guard, we had just walked in the door from a stressful dentist appointment for Arthur, who had managed to bust out his two front teeth - the first two he ever lost - in an accident at camp. And before I could put my bag down, a methodical voice was asking, “is now an okay time to talk?” Immediately followed by worse: “do you have a quiet place to go?”

I walked upstairs. I would not walk back down the stairs until the next morning. The rest of that day was a stay upstairs, watch cars go by and tree leaves rustle out the window, try to explain to your five year old that you were just tired, wonder how one minute can feel like six days, kind of day.

Matt checked on me once it had been about an hour since I’d went upstairs. I had managed to take about four sparse lines of notes - mostly phone numbers of the small enlisted army of people I was supposed to call immediately. After I quietly nudged the paper toward him, my eyes fixed on a squirrel in the maple tree outside, he asked, “do you remember more about this number here…you wrote the number 25 with nothing next to it.”

“Oh…um, something like 25% of breast cancers are this type, I think is what she said.” Is that what she said? Was it 25% survival rate? 25% chance of recurrence after surgery? Did she actually say ‘surgery’? I guess I could ask one of the people at one of the phone numbers I have to call to repeat that part? Is right now still the same today when I came up here? Has that squirrel moved?

365 days later, my entire body was in a stress spiral, in some anticipation of the calendar saying “July 26” again. Most of that year I didn’t feel that way. Only about ten days before did I feel the need to be on edge. My body seemed to be bracing for some new crisis, surely right around the corner, and certainly centering me in its direct aim. But the day passed unscathed, though earlier that week I did have an emergency root canal for an infected tooth that was wicked painful. So maybe the bracing was necessary and maybe I did get my self-fulfilled prophecy du jour - that your day (week/month/life) can turn to absolute shit out of nowhere.

But now it’s 731 days later (leap year!). And I’m calmer than I have been, maybe ever. I don’t feel the need to constantly worry about something. It has seemed strangely simple to flip from worrying about something horrible happening to looking forward to something delightful happening instead. I really don’t remember the last time I had a truly bad day. I mean, frustrating days? Yes. Exhausting days? Of course. Disappointment? Yes again. Slight temptation to overthink something into a potential problem? You betcha bottom dollar. But the difference is, my approach includes two things: some perspective and a little mental gamble.

The perspective part is easy - very few things feel as hard or scary or unsolvable as 731 afternoons ago. And as difficult as that afternoon felt, there are plenty of people who had to endure much, much worse. And people for who it didn’t go quite their way or not their way at all. When you’re met with a season of re-calculus for what your long-term life might look like, and jumping into the world of medical statistics, studies, trends, and reconciling what your gut is telling you - other calculations you face just don’t feel as overwhelming. My capacity for figuring something out or needing to think on it, while sometimes annoying and tiring, is just not a big deal. And honestly, I’m grateful for getting to figure it out. And figuring something out now feels even more empowering. And the empowerment is contagious. I’m in a “what else can I figure out?” mode and my life feels bigger for it.

The other flavor of perspective is how precious it is that we have these bodies that breathe in and out and pump blood and filter and organize our physical human experience. How precious it is to have thoughts and feelings and choices and connections with others. How precious it is to choose what we do with our minutes and hours, who we spend them around, what we tell ourselves all the while. My family is extraordinary. My husband was and is an absolute rock of stability and love and worry-not during my worst days and a charm machine on my best. My son is an absolute (now even more toothless ) delight - full of perspective wisdom on just about everything.

I have friends who did, and still would do, anything I needed. One of them - the best of them - is moving to Germany in about 48 hours. Round and round I’ve went through the grief cycle. But ultimately, I’ll be okay, we’ll be okay, this is but a page turn. A really slow heavy one, across an ocean and some mountains and hills and bratwursts. (I like all those things, even bratwursts.)

Then there’s the mental gamble. I challenge my typical worry with a chance to envision stuff working out. It’s almost a dare to prove myself right and wrong at the same time. Wrong about the worry, right about the good outcome - or if not good, an outcome that isn’t tragic or permanently scarring. The word “or” pops into my head alot. When I’m thinking something might go wrong, I hear the phrase, “or…maybe it won’t.” Worry’s deceit is a real thing.

This is not to say I’ve got all life’s worry and challenges figured out. I’m still grumpy without the proper amount of sweet tea. Slower drivers annoy me. I can have tears of frustration over the mundane. If I don’t feel well, I almost immediately assume I’m dying until I calm down for a minute. My standards are often too high. I waste a little time every day. Sometimes I still over-prepare, a leftover of intense worry. I’m terrible at telling jokes. Some days I don’t drink enough water. My knee-jerk reaction is to assume something is too hard for me to do.

OR…not.