Somewhere

Somewhere

Once I had accepted where I was, another question appeared.

Where do I go from here?

The natural instinct was to look backward.

I wanted the life I had before the diagnosis. The people around me wanted it too. They wanted the person they knew back. I understood that. Familiarity is comforting, particularly when everything has suddenly become uncertain.

But I was beginning to realize that going back was not an option.

I saw specialists of the mind. My personal reaction was to wonder what anyone could tell me about becoming the person I now needed to become. I wasn’t looking for a way back to the old me. I was facing a life I had never lived before.

There was no blueprint for that.

And there was grief in realizing it.

The person who had been running, having fun and making plans without thinking about glioblastoma was part of me. I wasn’t erasing him. But I could not make him my destination.

The life ahead would have to be created, not recovered.

I had to turn around and face uncertainty.

I thought about Alice in Wonderland. Alice asks which way she should go. The answer depends on where she wants to get to. If you don’t know where you are going, the direction hardly matters.

Suddenly, I was Alice.

I had entered a world I didn’t recognize, and nobody could give me a map of my future.

Beyond what I knew could be Anywhere. Nowhere. Or Somewhere.

I couldn’t see Somewhere.

But I could imagine it.

Visualization was not pretending that I didn’t have cancer. It wasn’t imagining away glioblastoma or knowing that everything would turn out as I wanted.

It was choosing a direction when certainty was impossible.

I began imagining Somewhere as an environment for total healing. Who would be around me? How would I live? What would I eat? What would I learn? Where would I put my time and energy?

I didn’t have all the answers.

I didn’t need them yet.

What I needed was direction with purpose.

And I had to accept something else.

My own belief was powerful.

I could go to bed filled with doubt and wake up facing that same doubt. I could absorb the fear I saw around me and allow it to become my own.

Or I could go to bed believing in Somewhere and wake up facing toward it again.

That did not make Somewhere certain.

It made Somewhere mine.

This was the art of belief. Not knowing. Not predicting. Not denying reality.

Choosing what I would face toward.

I had accepted where I was.

Now I had imagined Somewhere I wanted to go.

The life ahead was new and untried. It was time to begin building it.

Continue the journey

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