making friends with not normal

Sometimes, the risk chooses you. I went through a January of Risk Taking, courtesy of my friend, Amy. I hope you were encouraged to risk, as well. But February. Oh February. As if the continuing threat of frostbite if we so much as retrieve the mail was not enough, February brought the risk no woman wants. I did not choose it; it chose me.

Callbacks are great in the theater world. In the medical realm? Not so much. The little postcards in the mail I've been getting for ten years that reassured me, “Your mammogram was normal,” have been taken for granted, as reassuring friends often are. Unexpected calls that tell us, “Not so normal” are not friends. Unless we choose to make them so.

There was overwashing fear after test one, cautious optimism after 2 and 3, and there will be verdict, so they say, after 4 and/or 5. That's a lot of tests for one small boob. Seriously, there isn't that much there to be sticking needles in.

It's funny what that overwashing fear can do to a person. Perhaps being a writer comes with a vivid imagination. OK, obviously being a writer comes with a vivid imagination. Duh. But being an introvert who lives in her mind 24/7 can allow that imagination some terrifying free reign it ought not have, probably.

Within the first day I had considered items for a bucket list and taken some things off it which no longer seemed terribly important. I had practically booked my flights for Idaho and Arizona to see my brother and sister. I had decided the last great trip would definitely be New Zealand and no others would be needed. I had figured I would write more and market less because, frankly, the latter seemed kind of superfluous. Bit of a relief, that one, not going to lie.

I had even decided the wig/no wig question. Yes, I would wear a wig. A pink one. And a blue one another day. And . . . the possibilities were endless. All this within the first day? First couple hours, people. I am a fast imaginer. Plus, an innate strategizer. If I'm going to die, I'm going to be ON IT with the planning. (But, I am not going to. So stop worrying. Or divvying up the jewelry.)

In the space of fifteen minutes I could cycle from “It's just a shadow, not to worry” to “I'm going to fight this and win because I'm a survivor!” to “What will my last words be to my daughter when I die right before her high school graduation in four months, just like my mother did to me?” And back again. I'm not exactly the emotional roller coaster sort, so I was getting kind of motion sick.

At least, between a child's life-threatening issues and my own kidney transplant, I have ridden this ride before. I'm not blindfolded, and I know the sudden drops and stops and dark, dark places that can be ahead.

I know, too, that the light places are better because of the dark ones. That's why, after the initial kaleidoscopic imagination frenzy, peace reigns. And, strangely enough, a complete willingness to go through whatever if it's where He wants to take me. That part of the ride is new. It's real because of the previous rollicking rides. Rides where I know he held on to me and brought me safely to the end of the coaster even when I wasn't at all sure it had an end. Even when I felt certain that seat was going to rocket off into the abyss and fall, sickeningly, forever.

He was unfailing.

Unfailing. I marvel that I believe this now with my whole heart and soul. Marvel because that faith is his work, not mine. My whole life is his work, not mine. Some days I want to give it back to him and ask for a redo, and some days I stand back and stare in open-mouthed amazement at what He's done.

I want to be able to preserve this moment of knowing, knowing in the deepest core of my being, that whatever he does, it is good.

Tomorrow, the craziness might start again. Imaginations are tricky beasts, not prone to listening to the voice of reason. But tomorrow the bedrock will still be there, under the craziness, beneath the temporary fears. I will fall on it. And it will be there. This I know.