That’s a crazy statement, right?  I know more than I know.

But it’s true.

I woke up a week ago feeling anxious.

“What is this about?” I wondered.  “Nothing bad has happened.  Things have been going well.”

Then the realization hit me.

I’m at the second anniversary of my finding a lump in my breast.  I found it the Wednesday evening before Labor Day, got the biopsy that Friday, and had to wait through the three-day weekend to get the results.   I remember getting the news that I had breast cancer.  It was that Tuesday after Labor Day.   I remember sitting in my truck afterward thinking, “This is terrible and wonderful.”  And it was.  It was a difficult journey.  But I made it through and came out the other side.

Of course, the two-year mark means a mammogram coming up (in two weeks).  So I have the anxiety of  wondering what that will find.  My feeling is that I’m cancer-free, but I don’t completely trust that until the test results come in.  I still have a seroma, though now it’s hard and probably not drainable, and I wonder if I’ll need an MRI this time.  That’s a source of a little low-level anxiety, too.

But mainly I felt anxiety last week because I know more than I know.  I wasn’t consciously thinking of the anniversary, but my body and my psyche knew.  I think we’re all like that.  On some deep level we recall anniversaries – both good and bad – even if our conscious minds don’t.  The angle of the sun, the temperatures, the seasonal activities – these all are markers, and our bodies and psyches respond to them to say, “Hey, remember when . . . ”

To honor my anniversary and this significant marker in my life’s journey, I decided to look back through old journals.  To acknowledge who I was and who I am now.  I’ve kept a journal for at least a couple of decades.  I looked back through the last nine years of my journaling.  After reading some of the entries from 2004 and 2005 (a particularly hard time), I felt I was reading about a different person.  I was somewhat the same, but I was very different in many ways.  I can see that I’ve grown a great deal since then.

The cancer journey, another particularly hard time, pushed me through the most growth of all.  I still can’t quite grasp al that I’ve learned in the past two years, but I feel different, like a new person in many ways.  I’ve been writing lately about realignment and reframing, but I also need to add a new “re-” term.

Resurrection.

I do feel that a part of me has died in the past couple of years and a new aspect of me is being born.  Or was reborn that day in the labyrinth, and I’m now in the early part of a new life.  I’m learning to crawl and then toddle around – as a new person.

So even though this weekend was one of memories of the beginning two years ago of a difficult time, it’s also a time of gratitude and rejoicing.  I’m a healthy person surrounded by loving friends and family, blessed in more ways than I can name.

I’m on a life’s journey of growth and pruning and regrowth – just as everyone else is, too.

And we’re all wise, much wiser than we know.  We all know more than we know.

And that’s a blessing.  For each of us.