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Grade 10 Week 4 - B

Published on Sep 13, 2020

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When You Want to Get Back to Normal but Life Will Never Be the Same

Photo by National Cancer Institute
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When I was thirty-eight, I was diagnosed with an aggressive breast cancer. During my treatment, one thought persisted: “I can’t wait until this is over and life goes back to normal.”
I clung to the belief that things would go back to how they once were, and all that needed to happen was for treatment to end. It gave me something to focus on that felt real during a time of disruption and uncertainty.
Unfortunately, when treatment ended normal didn’t come.

“Don’t waste your time looking back on what you’ve lost. Move on, for life is not meant to be traveled backwards.” ~Unknown

When I was thirty-eight, I was diagnosed with an aggressive breast cancer. During my treatment, one thought persisted: “I can’t wait until this is over and life goes back to normal.”

I clung to the belief that things would go back to how they once were, and all that needed to happen was for treatment to end. It gave me something to focus on that felt real during a time of disruption and uncertainty.

Unfortunately, when treatment ended normal didn’t come.
3.

Worst of all was the near-constant worry that my cancer would come back and that I’d never regain my stamina. I was a corporate finance attorney who needed to get back to work full-time yet couldn’t.

My life didn’t just feel different, it had been turned upside down.
There was a voice in the back of my head that kept telling me that cancer had somehow changed me and that I needed to figure out how. But that sounded like more work than I had the mental energy for. And I was afraid that figuring it out would disrupt my life even further.

4.

I knew that I needed to grieve these losses but was worried that I would get stuck in grief. Because daily gratitude had helped keep me positive through cancer treatment, and because I had gotten lax in my practice, I recommitted to it. Every night I was grateful for at least three things that I had experienced that day.

And then I realized that there were things to be grateful for because of my cancer. Cancer forced me to slow down. I was spending more time with my boys. And I was learning to be more resilient.
So, I started adding these to my gratitude practice as well.

5.

That’s why I had felt so off. My values had changed, but I hadn’t been listening.

I didn’t know exactly what that meant for my future. But it didn’t matter because I finally had clarity around what was different and how to start moving forward to create my new normal. My redefined value was my compass for doing that (and eventually led me away from practicing law and toward starting a new business).
Although this story is specific to my life, my experience isn’t unique. A natural part of living includes life-altering experiences and events. Things that bring uncertainty and disruption (and remind you of how fragile life really is).

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