Life Update 2024 Feb 25: Big Time Hopes for Big Time Hope.

I have cancer. 

Over the last year, I have wrestled with some funky health issues and a brilliant team of medical professionals have concluded that my stinking, lousy, good for nothing, defective reproductive organs have betrayed me once again. I have cancer. I have had lots of appointments and meetings, a handful of potential causes, a biopsy or two, an MRI, a CT and finally a PET scan has confirmed a cancer diagnosis. 

I have cancer… AND… rest assured, I have the generous gift of health insurance, paid time-off and a flexible and adaptable work environment. I have a brilliant, compassionate and unrelenting medical dream team at Huntsman Cancer Institute, a world class leader in cutting edge medicine, a mere 15 minute drive and 6.5 miles from my front door, that is dedicated to healing my body and reassuring my very overwhelmed heart and mind. I have a very aggressive treatment plan in place and have just completed my first week of dosing. Go Me! I have a growing appreciation for the scientific method. I have a deep respect and belief in science, innovative thinking and technological advancements and in modern medical miracles. 

I have cancer….AND…I have an almost embarrassing amount of art supplies. I have jars of paint brushes and pens and markers of every shape color and size. I have hundreds of journals and sketchbooks and notebooks, many bursting with words and images and just as many blank notebooks standing ready for use. I have boxes of fabric and bins of ribbons and threads collected and gathered over years and years. I have scraps and snips and remnants of a lifetime worth of past creative endeavors. I have my grandmother's piano and the world's most patient piano teacher. I have a lifelong desire to create music on these black and white keys. I have endless avenues of creative expressions.

I have cancer…AND…I have shelves of books, some known and numbered like lifetime friends and trusted teachers. I have books full of brilliant ideas and dynamic characters and insights all filled with my notes and questions and scribbles and reactions all colorfully annotated in the margins. I have a stack of books that have sat patiently on the shelf awaiting their turn to bounce around both my brain and my tote bag. I have a significant audiobook addiction rivaled only by an exhaustive podcast playlist, both of which fill my ears and my brain with endless information providing welcomed distractions for life's changing newness. I have easy access to two well funded public libraries and multiple neighborhood bookstores each with comfy chairs, yummy beverages and non-judgemental grins when you unpack a tote bag and make an afternoon basecamp. I have a lifelong addiction to TV and movies which provide the perfect source of mind numbing mental Doritos. 

I have cancer…AND… I have the gift of steady employment in my field of study which feeds my brain and fills my soul. I have THE BEST team of educators and community builders and difference makers that I've ever worked with in my twenty-two years of team building. I have a brilliant, adaptive, compassionate, creative and resilient work family that is primed and ready to step-up and show-up so I can curtsey and take my leave for what is a most unexpected and unwanted sabbatical.

I have cancer…AND…I have a safe, warm, functioning and comfortable home that provides security and sanctuary for my little family and dear loved ones and neighbors and friends. I have been protected inside these loving walls for nine years and through a global pandemic and I can only assume I will be generously cared for and healed in this home again. I have an inspiring mountain view to the east, a well loved front porch couch and for both better and worse I have a free ticket to a crappy garage band rock concert (thanks neighbors)… every… single…night. I have patio twinkle lights and comfy backyard furniture. I have the life sustaining hope that spring will eventually come and my grandmother's garden will once again speak peace to my rebellious soul and remind me of the deep, sacred, gritty resilience that flows freely in my family narrative and in my bones.

I have cancer…AND…I have a little family of my very own that is the manifestation of a lifetime of heartfelt sacred reparative prayers. I have proof positive that a loving God is and was listening all along because I have Burke and I have Sarah Kate and the three of us create US. I have the chance to wife and the chance to mom and I am fundamentally changed for the better because of both. I have been loved so very well and I have been healed by the ability to love them and be loved by them. I have more to do. I have not finished loving and learning. I have two families that have shaped me, inspired me, taught me, stretched me, challenged and formed me. I have the Riches. I have the  Robinson's. I have in these families people that love me…despite me…being me. I have neighbors that are real and good and kind and loving. I have THE most incredible collection of friends who have become family and answer the phone or text no matter the need or circumstance or condition. I have a handful of kindred spirits who show up like the soul sisters every woman hopes to have. I have people….I have the most incredible circle of people, who share space and hold space and mostly create a very safe space for my weary heart and soul.

I have cancer…AND…a personal faith practice and spiritual connection to the Divine. I have a constant, real and honest, ongoing conversation with my Heavenly Parents and I feel a sacred and personal connection to Jesus. I have wrestled. I have raged. I have questioned. I have wondered and wandered. I have individualized from what does not work for me and remain fiercely tethered to what does. I have found holiness inside the unspeakable. I have fought through the unthinkable. I have discovered the sacred purpose of pain. I have been broken open and carefully sewn back together before, and I have a firm belief that this sacred transformation and consecration is happening again. I have been stretched and strengthened before. I have not been forgotten, I am known. I have found that the hard can become holy and eventually there is both design AND Divinity in all of life’s details.

I have cancer…AND…I have really big hard questions and endless curiosity as to what this new life curriculum will teach me. I have worries. I have big time anxiety. I have legitimate and practical and reasonable concerns. I have a football stadium level of anger and I could power a large city with my burning rage. I have hard won tools and trusted resources and proven practices collected over 47 years of life-ing. I have a soul-healing perspective and a time tested gratitude practice that has worked wonders during some very dark seasons. I have learned that I see in pictures and process best through color, words, and writing. I have so so so much more to learn and do and experience and give. I have room and space and need. I have a willingness for new thinking and new understanding and new experiences. I have just never wanted to learn in this way. I have equal parts raw fear and unrelenting fire in my soul. I have so much to fight for. I have no choice but to battle and I am ready for a scrappy street fight. I have new reasons to both grieve and grow.

I have cancer…AND… I am absolutely NOT grateful this is happening nor may I ever land on gratitude for this particular stretch. I have cancer…AND…for now I have big time hopes for big time hope.