New Year’s Eve Motivational Speech 2015

The past four New Year’s Eves, I’ve had the same resolution- work towards being happy.  This is a work in progress and I have cancer to thank for this. 

For as much as I hate cancer and how it can rip lives apart, I have to admit, for me, getting cancer was an awakening.  I can say this because I had one of those cancers that has a 90% 5-year survival rate.  I was lucky—extremely lucky.  This April will be my fifth year in remission and I still thank my lucky stars I got one of the “good” ones.

So where does the sense of awakening come from?  After my diagnosis and the initial shock, sadness, and rage wore off; acceptance sunk in.  Acceptance caused me to pause and evaluate where I was in life.  Was I happy?  No, and I hadn’t been for some time.  I had given up my career in museums and my dream of being a museum director to get married, have a family, piecemeal jobs together (usually working two part-time jobs, if not three), and I was in an unhealthy and unhappy marriage.

We all change as we get older.  Our bodies change, we become more mature (maybe), our values may become more pronounced, and heck, we may even start to like Brussel sprouts (if there is enough bacon fat added to the skillet).  But deep down, the bright light that makes up all that is you should still be present.  My bright light had been extinguished years before I was diagnosed with cancer.  I was a mere shell of a person on autopilot just trying to get through the day.  I was working to make everyone else happy while completely neglecting my own need for love and nurture.  I wasn’t receiving it in return and I had forgotten that it is something we all need to thrive.  I continued to take care of my physical body.  I exercised and ate a mostly organic diet making great attempts to stay away from hormones and preservatives.  But when you are deprived of love and support, it’s hard to be mentally strong.  I lost all sense of who I was or used to be and went on autopilot where it was easier to feel nothing than it was to notice love's lack of presence. 

I continued to smile for pictures and trained myself to laugh without emotion.  My parents noticed it.  My long-time friends noticed it.  They all hinted that I wasn’t the same, that something was wrong.  A small few who knew the details of my situation urged me to wake up and be the bad-ass girl they used to know.  But, the girl that didn’t take shit from anyone and wasn’t afraid of anything was nowhere to be found.  The girl that remained was frightened, worn-down, and timid.  The old me would have noticed my situation from a mile away and told the girl to wake up and look at what was going on around her.  But I was no longer that girl.

I clearly remember the defining moment when I relit that flame inside me.  Spending a lot of time in hospital waiting rooms and chemo infusion rooms, I rediscovered my love for music.  I hadn’t been listening to it much and I certainly wasn’t buying anything new. When I got sick, a dear friend, who was dismayed that I had not heard the last four Indigo Girls albums, burned them for me and mailed them to me.  And, just in case the IGs are reading this, I did end up purchasing them for myself.  The first one I listened to was from Poseidon and the Bitter Bug which had just come out.  I was coming out of a four day chemo haze and had just returned home from dropping my mom off at the airport.  The song Fleet of Hope came on and the world around me paused.  I walked over to my arctic entry, which at the time had the only view of the water from my house. I stared out at Gastineau Channel and swam in the lyrics, and then drowned in my own tears.

"When I was a girl
All of my fancy took flight
And I had this dream
Could outshine anything
Even the darkest night
Now I wait like a widow for someone to come back from sea
I've always known
I was waiting for me”

It was a slap in the face, waking me up from a six year blur of unhappiness.  At that moment, I realized how precious our life is and how lucky we are every day to be here. Damn lucky. If we’re here on this earth, we should be happy.  I decided at that moment I wanted to be happy and I wasn’t going to let anything or anyone get in my way.

I had a long way to go.  It was February and I wouldn’t be done with my treatments until the end of July.  I also knew after that, I had to make some big and difficult decisions.  I listened to Fleet of Hope almost every day, and with each treatment, I realized I was one step closer to healing not only my cancer, but my soul.

The past four years has been a long and hard haul.  I’ve had to let go of resentment, anger, and regret— which has been a huge challenge.  Hardest of all though was learning to feel again.  Finally out of my numbness and autopilot, I was forced to face head on all that I had been through since I had stopped feeling years before.  I spiraled into deep depression, something I had never experienced.  Let me tell you, that stuff is the real deal.  It is dark, it is painful, it feels hopeless and you can’t just snap out of it.  I found my way out with the help of new friends who took me in and showered me with love and kindness.  I also had the help of a wonderful therapist and anti-depressants.  No shame.  If you have diabetes, you need insulin.  If you have a broken arm, you need a cast. If you experience depression or have any other type of mental illness, you need help as it just won’t go away on its own.

I learned you can’t just wake up one day and put on that thrift store sweater and Doc Martins from high school and say, “Today I am going to be the person I used to be, the person I used to love and be proud of.”  Nope, it doesn’t work that way.  It takes time to re-ignite that flame and sometimes you have to work extra hard to make sure it doesn’t go out.  I’ve had old friends tell me they feel like I’m back; I’m the girl I used to be.  But I know I’ll never be that girl again who looked out into the world with unjaded eyes ready to take it head on.  Honestly, I think I can be better than that girl.  Knowing what I know now, I appreciate things so much more and I’m more cautious about diving in without knowledge of what rocks lie below.  I still dive in from time to time, but I try to remember to wear a helmet.

I’ve regained so much confidence in the past two years. This past year, the girl whose idea to cut down the trees in the front yard to expose the view of the water, which was shot down time and time again, took a chainsaw to those trees and now she sits with her coffee in the morning gazing out at the water, letting light into her windows and her life. This girl who was taught to pinch pennies and made to feel guilty spending money on herself, took a frivolous trip to France and Switzerland exposing her daughters to the world of travel and culture while feeding her own desire to travel.  And the best part is, she can enjoy it all, feel it all, and be confident in her decisions without feeling scared or guilty.

I hope I never have to go through cancer again.  Going through nine months of surgeries, chemo and radiation are no cakewalk, and I have lasting side effects that are always there to remind me.  I don’t have much dexterity or feeling in my fingertips due to the nerve damage the chemo caused.  I have two prominent scars from surgeries and a blue dot tattooed in the middle of my chest placed for radiation alignment.  And if those daily reminders aren’t enough, I get reminded a few times a year when I have to wait for the results of my post-cancer blood tests.  I have a love-hate relationship with these reminders.  I see the scars in the mirror and they remind me of what I’ve been through.  I'll admit, the past four years have come with some major hiccups that try to knock me down.  But each time I'm faced with a challenge, I look at my scars and remind myself I've been through worse.

Am I thankful I got cancer?  Nope.  But I am thankful for the second chance I’ve been given to wake up and enjoy my life.  As we go into 2015, I urge you all to look at your life and take a good hard assessment.  Are you healthy?  Please take your health seriously, I can’t stress this enough.  Have a weird mole?  Get it looked at.  Feel a bit run down and not sure why?  Go see your doctor.  Experiencing depression or anxiety?  Get help— it’s nothing to be ashamed of.  Are you happy and feeling like you are living your life the 18 year old version of you would be proud of?  If not, what changes do you need to make to feel again and care enough about yourself to live your life to the fullest and be happy?  Don’t wait for something catastrophic to come along and kick you in the butt like I did.  Instead, bend over and let me do it for you.  Consider this your official kick in the butt live your life and be happy motivational speech of 2015.

Get out there.  Live your life to the fullest.  Never stop loving yourself.  Realize you are worthy of being loved and feeling happy.