Stopped In My Tracks

So there I was, loving life, loving being alive, loving that my birthday is coming up (that would be Saturday, for those of you not in the know yet). You see, I love being a Leo and so I celebrate, not just one day, not just the week of, or even a week to either side. No, I celebrate all Leo season long (and my friends might say it is a very loooooonnnnnnggggg season). And I love birthdays in general, and I especially love my birthday. I have made people celebrate me in all sorts of ways, from writing me poetry, to taking the day off work, to making video taped recordings of themselves telling me what they love about me, to giving me a group massage. I know how to self indulge. And apparently I know how to make it so compelling that people play along (maybe that is really because it is just one day in the year, and for all I give the rest of the year they are willing to take requests for this occasion). I also know how to celebrate. Celebrate me, celebrate success, celebrate live. I have heard this is unusual, and it boggles my mind. I mean why do stuff if at the end of the stuff you aren’t going to pat yourself on the back and say “Golly well done!!! You really do ROCK the house.” I mean honestly?

Here is the other thing I love, and was loving especially much today. I love being alive. Love it. And so I should, I fought hard for it. And here is how loving it manifested. I was skipping through my new local organic natural food store – Capers, buying whatever the hell my heart desired because, you guessed it, my birthday is coming up, so I need the fridge stocked with whatever I could possibly want. And I was smiling away at everyone, and engaging them in conversation, whether they knew they wanted to be or not, and telling people to go for it when they seemed to be waffling about a purchase choice, and a whole myriad of other things. And it was just so darn FUN. Being alive was fun. Choosing what I wanted to eat was FUN. Shopping was FUN. Letting myself have whatever I wanted was FUN. Connecting with my community and surroundings was FUN. It was all fun. And it was fun because I saw it that way. Nothing was a bother or a hassle, because I wasn’t looking from that angle. I WAS CHOOSING JOY. And god did it feel good!

And as I took my exciting groceries to my happy, red car, smiling at small babies and their mothers along the way, dancing through my street, minding my own business, well what should happen to me, but BANG. It struck me. Five years ago today I was doing my second round of chemo (and what a hard round that was). I was bald and I was scared and I didn’t know for sure if I would live or die, or even which one I wanted, no scratch that, I was always clear on that piece. I stopped and I cried. Really heart rending tears. What juxtaposition. This very scared and this very alive, happy and vibrant. And the knowledge that it was the one place and feeling that gave me the option to have the other was very humbling. And suddenly the trees looked even greener, and the sky even bluer and the lazy heat of the day felt like an embrace instead of an oppression. And I thought to myself “Thank you Goddess, thank you Goddess, thank you Goddess, for giving me back my life. May I do your bidding today and always.”