Who am I now?

The truth of the matter is I was not going to write this blog tonight. I’d love to let you all think that life after cancer is a piece of cake, that just because I’m done with cancer, I shouldn’t be struggling anymore, right? Well, wrong. The reality is, while we still live and breathe on earth, we will always have problems. Dealing with cancer is one thing, dealing with Life and all of its wonderful problems (do you hear my sarcasm?) is another. Some problems are easy to solve and get over, other ones really have you testing your faith and strength.
Truth is, I have been upset with myself because of my lack of concentration lately. As you have seen, this blog isn't going to be an easy read because I can't concentrate long enough to coherently put my thoughts together...sorry:( I can’t complete projects, and when I do, I forget to do a step somewhere in it, so I have to go back and fix it. Now I was never perfect before, but this lack of concentration is something that I’m struggling with daily now...and some of you have suffered for it (especially you AJ, sorry!) So that, along with other events in my life that have me distracted, are getting in my way of enjoying this time where I should be nothing but joyful for my cancer-free body. Maybe I'm just doing too much celebrating and not enough concentrating. I'm giving myself some slack after I found out that it may be a few more months before my head is screwed on tight again from the treatments. :)

Now, I’m trying to figure out Life again without cancer in it…and trust me, its not as easy as you think. Something else I’m struggling with is this new cancer-free identity. While using what I've learned throughout my Pursuit, I’m finding out who I am without cancer. It’s hard finding your identity again in this skin after going through such a change mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And for some reason, I have a feeling this may be harder to cure than cancer!! I find myself asking 'Am I still the same Laura that Andrew married? Am I still a contributing coworker? Will there still be apart of Laura that people remember before cancer?' Right now, I don’t feel like my old self. There are new things that bother me, my feelings and lifestyle have changed, and my priorities are different. I think this week I’m struggling because I was forced to look at my future, and for the first time ever...I wasn't sure what was there. When before I was always so sure because I had life by the reigns. But I've learned life can be changed in a second...or in my case, a cell :) Things have changed so much in my life...but the world around me hasn't. So you better believe I’m going to do some serious soul searching these next few days as I round up this Pursuit Monday night.

I honestly thought life would be easier after cancer. I thought life would be light hearted and I would have all the answers for the future. However, I didn’t realize Life and its luggage marked as 'problems' would arrive so soon after hearing 'disease free'. But you can’t schedule when Life's problems come, can you? You have to be prepared for when Life's unexpected guests aren’t so peachy. Throughout the rest of my life, I will always have new problems and new situations. The challenge becomes am I going to take what I've learned about life during cancer and put it to use in the future to guide me, or am I going to live the rest of my life in the wilderness...still looking for answers, when I already have them? I'm liking the prepared approach :)

I think for now I'll just do this...
Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats. ~Voltaire
I like to sing :)