A Write Return

Someone once told me, that to be a writer, you must write. But what happens when there is just so much going on in your mind that you can't seem to get the words out on the page? That the stories you want to share become this tsunami of incoherent babble so you just say f*ck it and nothing happens. For almost two years.

The last time I sat down to put preverbal pen to paper was in March of 2018. In the thick of the reconstruction of my chest following my mastectomy. In the midst of being totally and completely adrift emotionally, physically and spiritually. With the literal weight of my decision to put my life on hold for the sake of my physical health. Since then, my mantra of "just faking it" has been put more into daily practice than ever before.

Shortly after getting cleared at the end of the mastectomy ordeal I retired from the company I helped to grow over the last almost two decades. I walked away from health insurance, stability, a paycheck, and familiarity that had been my safety net through so much. But I knew in my bones that this was the only choice I had. I did not get spared from the reaper to continue living status quo. The lightest I have felt, for as long as I can remember, was leaving the meeting with my business partner/boss after having just given my notice. The first big step toward my future and into the unknown.

The paramount lesson from my ordeal with my breasts was that tomorrow is not a promise. That at any moment in time, everything can, and will change. Change is the only constant in life. As 2019 began I made the commitment to return to myself, my authentic self. Easy right? Sure, we all know who we are, right? HA! Nope... The girl that once was physically strong and emotionally rock solid was not the girl looking back at me in the gym. The girl that was once adventurous, sure of herself and powerful in the face of things that frightened her had left the building. As I began to put forth effort to live again with every cell in my being, I found myself terrified of everything, of every part of my daily life.

Somehow throughout the process of gaining my health and hopefully longevity I had developed a crippling fear of life. The duality of being pulled to live as fully as possible, not only for myself but also living for the many friends that have left this earthly plane via cancer, while I was given the gift of continuing life. I was feeling/experiencing fear in almost every part of my life, it was part of each thing I did, every day. I began working with my partner in his residential construction company not only doing the bookkeeping and office management but also on site painting and helping with other laborer type things. Fear here too... but there was a freedom and empowerment that came along with that choice. To go from running a company to being low man on the food chain was glorious. To listen to music, paint and make things beautiful began to awaken me again, the deep me that had been in hybernation for a long winter.

When I would be on site painting, there was a wave of peace that would wash over me, a zone I would fall into that I had never experienced before. Not only did I love working with my man and not being behind a desk all day, but it began to be almost a moving meditation. A one pointed focus each day that allowed all the other mountains I had been carrying to fall away. So thats what I did, I painted. I taught yoga. I practiced giving myself time to continue to heal. To work through what I had just been through. That I was given a second chance at this life thing. For the record, being in this practice of healing and moving through is scary, scary beyond words. It is messy. It is challenging, that is, from what I have been told, is how a person knows that they are actually healing.

2019 turned into the year of the cocoon. Where I went inside myself to plant the seeds of who I am on the other side of it all. To start to organize everything that has gone down in this decade that is now winding to a close. The loss, the love, the wins, the losses, the adventures & travel, the excitement and let downs. The 10 years packed full of living. I must acknowledge though, that I am, just like you, faking it. I have deduced though, through what some would argue is too much self reflection, that this next chapter requires me to start writing again. To kick my fear straight in the dick and put myself out there. To share my stories of life. So I start now, on the eve of my 40th trip around the sun, to write again. To tell my stories and observations with the intention that I might connect with others out there needing their own connection to help them through their own life adventures.

Ive said it before and I am sure I will again and again, none of us know what we are doing. There is no manual. There really are no rules to how we can design our lives. As long as we continue to strive towards our own authenticity and to create large areas of healing within ourselves.

all photos and writing ©2019 Jen Marcussen