Who knew how wonderful it could feel to have more energy, to be able to do household chores and not be exhausted, to run errands and take walks and do daily activities and not have to rest??!  I’m up earlier than usual today because I’m bursting with energy.   Not manic energy, but the energy that was usual everyday energy before breast cancer treatments.  I did some house cleaning yesterday, and I realized then that I have the same amount of energy that I did before cancer.  My muscles and lungs still aren’t back in shape yet, but wow, I feel great!

I have a massage today with my very gifted massage therapist, the one who can read me so well.  I want her to dig in there and get the rest of that chemo out of my system and recharge me for continued healing and health and wholeness.  The chemo poison and the radiation did their jobs of getting rid of cancer, and now it’s time for my body to repair and replenish.

The Tetons in June 2006

I’m looking forward to my trip next week, to being on the road and seeing new places and having new experiences.  But you know what?  Every single day can be a new place and new experience if I look with new eyes,  the eyes of a child.  That’s what I am now, a reborn person, someone who has been through a death and resurrection.  I have a “new” body (along with some new, downy, quite white hair).  I feel as I did when I took this photo back in 2006.  The Tetons felt so new, so fresh, so clear – they invigorated me.  That’s how I feel now.

To use a cliched metaphor, I feel as if I’m a butterfly that has just emerged from the chrysalis.  My wings are still a tiny bit sticky, and I’m about to take flight, to open my wings and lift with the breeze.  Who knows what flowers will attract me first?  I don’t.  But whichever ones do, I’ll certainly enjoy them.