Lately, I’ve been feeling stuck.  In a kind of limbo, a do-nothing, go-nowhere kind of place.  Though I’m continuing to heal more and more from my breast cancer journey, though I have more energy, a clearer mind, and less pain, I don’t know where I’m going.

What’s next for me???

I have all kinds of ideas and inclinations, but I have no clear direction.  I feel I should have a plan, a course of action.  I should be following a map.

A map to somewhere by sometime.

But I seem to have lost my map and compass and watch.

I wonder if I’m feeling stuck because the year anniversary of my lumpectomy and node-removal is this week.  Along with my 54th birthday.  Two markers of the passage of time, that my moments here on earth are diminishing.  Now that I’m feeling better, maybe I should be doing something spectacular, something worthy of overcoming cancer and returning to health.  Something significant since I’ve already been here 54 years.

But I don’t have a plan, no bucket list or big goals.  What should I do??

I decided just to get moving.

I took a walk in Chattanooga after my acupuncture session on Thursday.  I started at the Bluff View Art District and headed past the Hunter Museum of American Art, over the Holmberg Glass Bridge, then on across the Walnut Street Bridge to Coolidge Park.   Crossing bridges seemed an appropriate metaphor for where I am in life now.  Even if I don’t know where they’re leading.

Since I was involved in starting a walking tour business a couple of years ago (one that I turned over to my business partner while I was undergoing cancer treatments), I have a good idea of the history of this area and can see that there is a flow, that currents change landscapes and lives.

That’s what I’m going through now.  A change to my life.  And in a way, to my landscape.  I know that the possibilities of illness and death are real.  That awareness makes me more appreciative of what I once took for granted.  Having enough energy to go for a walk, literally to cross bridges.  Being able to taste and enjoy food.  Having a clear mind.  Not having to go to see a doctor or have some treatment or be stuck with a needle every week.  So even though I feel kind of stuck, at least it’s not a needle-type of stuck, right?  Well, except for the acupuncture needle sticks by tiny needles – which often don’t hurt at all.  And which make me feel better.

My decision for movement continued into yesterday, when I went into Chattanooga for Mainx24, a 24-hour event on Main Street.  I didn’t stay for 24 hours, not nearly, but I was walking most of the time I was there.  Following the flow of the crowd, stopping here and there for a musician or shop or to get something to eat or drink or to watch a particular event.

But mostly I was moving, watching, listening . . . . being.

It was a lesson in being where I was when I was.  And as I left the event yesterday afternoon, I saw a message at the bottom of a lamp post.  A message that was just for me.

Pretty obvious, don’t you think?   The answer to my feeling stuck, to my concern about my path, my future, is summed up in this one word.

BE.

Message received.

So in this week of anniversaries, I’ll focus on the present and all that I need to do.

All that I need to do is BE.