Live like you were living

"Live like you were dying," is one of those things.  It's supposed to be a freeing, YOLO inspiring, "go get um!" kind of rallying cry.

I get that.  It's not good to waste your time procrastinating.  It's not good to spend all your time doing only what you hate thinking "someday" you'll stop. 

The problem is, with all due respect to Tim McGraw, it's also kind of hard to plan all that skydiving, Rocky Mountain climbing, and 2.7 seconds on that bull named Fu Manchu when things are uncertain.

There's the obvious cancer uncertainty where you don't really know what the cancer's doing or when it's going to work around the current drugs.  But there's also the less obvious uncertainty, the one where you think life just might stay relatively normal for a long, long time.

It would be wonderful if that happened, if I was part of the small percentage who got years out of Xeloda.  Or at least enough time for something else to be discovered that worked well and made life more normal than unending IV chemo.

Actually, it would also be wonderful if I felt relatively good on IV chemo and stayed on it for a long, long time.

And it probably would still make me happy if I felt bad sometimes on IV chemo but still was able to stay on it for a long, long time.

But any of that would make it a terribly stupid idea to cash in everything and spend the next few months going crazy doing all those Tim McGraw sung things.  Because with nothing to live on but memories of being tossed off a bull, life would be kind of rough.

Pencil pushing gets a bad rap in our society, but let's face it, when pencil pushing puts food on the table and a roof over our heads, it has its uses. 
 
In my head I know the key is trying to walk that line between doing things in the moment and planning for the future.  If only that line was easier to see.

But I'm trying.

I'm planning a vacation this summer.  Flying with my daughter to a country we've dreamed of visiting, where she can practice the language and we can stroll around and see wonderous things.

I'm researching sites, looking at the budget (thanks, Mom and Dad), deciding how to pace the trip and what to see.  I'm also planning around my energy levels, my drug shipment schedule, my poor feet and hands which are fragile these days and, even with good care, hurt a few days every couple of weeks.  But it feels doable.  Doable and a heck of a lot of fun.

...

Next month we'll be at a road race and arts fair in memory of my stepdaughter's boyfriend's sister who was tragically killed in a car crash in her early 20's. 

Earlier this year, Holley Kitchen, the woman whose awesome metastatic breast cancer video became a viral sensation passed away as a result of her cancer at the age of 42.

Last week my mother-in-law's cousin died after a short illness.  She and my mother-in-law used to waitress together in the Catskills when they were teenagers, an age where just about everyone believes their lives stretch in front of them in an unending line of health, fun, and freedom. She's survived by her children, her 14 grandchildren and 1 great-grandchild--probably not at all what her teenaged self was thinking about back then, but part of what it really means to have had 70 additional years of living. 
...

What's the lesson in all this?  I have no idea.

Tomorrow's a gift? Life is fragile?  Life is for living?  Live like you were dying?  Live like you were living?

I don't know.  I'm really just trying to figure it out myself.
 
And, I'm looking forward to being there for a memorable vacation this summer. 

I hope that's the right balance.  Or at least the right balance for me, now.