Vulnerability is Risky

I blinked.

It’s true, I blinked. Now it’s almost September. Summer turning to fall. Flowers to leaves. Breezes to bluster. And in my case, an unwitting season of quiet amidst lots of crazy :)

So many of you have reached out with well wishes, check-ins and some worries. All I can say is thank you. You are truly my soul’s strength for this climb, even when I am suspiciously silent at times.

Let me explain, dear ones.

This summer was full of blinking. Our youngest graduated and moved to Brooklyn, New York. (So excited for him!) Our oldest secured a leadership position in a lab at the University of Michigan and is applying to PhD programs. (So proud of him!) In the midst, we became empty nesters, again. Can I get an AMEN from all the parents with college kids in the age of COVID? 

Last week, while walking in New York City, I saw a bold soul with a bright orange t shirt that said, “People who say ‘Go big or go home’ strongly underestimate my desire to go home.”

I like that.

Wait, did I just say that?

I’m always up for the party. And the after-party! I love a good kitchen swing-dance. Give me a conversation and cocktails. About the weather or your heartache. Space for celebrating. Space for lamenting.

Yet, here I was, realizing I had blinked.

From last summer to this one, I finished round after round of radiation treatment, three more surgeries, and took two valiant runs at endocrine therapy, both of which ended in, “Yeah, so that didn’t work so well…” 

In between surgeries and therapies, we traveled to Lebanon, to Israel, Italy, Wisconsin and New York.

I’ve also been serving as the Education Fellow for Treetops Collective, writing a trauma and resilience curriculum with beautiful women, New Americans, who experienced forced migration. This journey has marked my life in new ways. Precious ways.

And yet I was quiet.

Dana Jennings, who has written in the New York Times about his treatment for prostate cancer, so accurately captures the mix of feelings. “I was buoyed by a kind of illness-induced adrenaline during treatment. And once treatment ended,” he confesses, “I found myself ambushed by depression.”

And so Beloved, it is time to make peace with the paradox that is my current situation. For some survivors, depression kicks in shortly after diagnosis or at some stage during treatment. For others, it ambushes them weeks, months or even years after treatment ends.

For me, post-treatment depression kicked in with the increased pain and complications of endocrine therapy. I just wasn’t ready for the weight of measuring “quality of life” versus “quantity of life.” Neither was my fam. Or friends. I wanted to stay in the “so, you-made-it-through” season.

It seems denial as a coping mechanism can be quite a useful shield. But in the end, it reveals itself to be dangerously flimsy. Especially in the face of formidable love.

Love from family.

Friends.

God.

Do you know this feeling too, dear ones?

Our Creator knows the way our cells, our blood, our hormones, our marrow works. From the beginning to the end, and especially in the midst of. I am learning to forget the shield, the protection, the mask.

Vulnerability is risky, yes. But liberating. And powerful too. A formidable force.

I am learning to like weakness. I’d say bring it on. But that doesn’t sound very vulnerable, does it?

Not easy, is it?

Please know you have been close, all of you, the whole way, even in my silence. Each of your gifts, playlists, notes, cards, calls, flowers, texts, DM’s have burrowed into my heart. Deeply.

You are, yet again, priceless gifts.