"It's time that we began to laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again" Leonard Cohen

But you make me forget so very much.
I forget to pray for the angels and then the angels forget to pray for us.

Leonard Cohen

Even a transplant has its weeks of just waiting.  The only trepidation is felt when pathologists and their fancy automated equipment are peering at my blood to tell me what my future might hold, or not. In between it is too easy for me to be lulled to a spiritual sleep and forget so very much.

As any therapist can tell you, the time you get the most movement is the time of crisis. Who hasn't prayed: "Please G-d, if I get out of this one I promise I will never... ( fill in the blank)". Once the crisis is past, the behavior that created it too often returns.Why not? You got away with it, didn't you?

And while I do not consider that my CLL is a direct consequence of any specific behavior I might be able to reverse (wouldn't it be great if it was that simple), the focus and import it has given to every moment needs more effort to be sustained in times when all is calm. Health crises are often about living life on the tight rope. You need your wits about you at all times. No distractions or you fall, hopefully into a safety net. Now my life is less acrobatic and more pedestrian and it it is easier to lose that laser focus. 

Hence my plans to reflect and write. I spend most of my lives in the world between crises, not in them. My goal is to empower those ordinary moments with purpose.

Of course it is not black and white. What is? The fear of the leukemia sneaks or boldly marches into my words casting its dark shadows, demanding to be recognized for what it brings to the table, and what it might have hidden up its sleeve.

Over the next months, this is where I will be living. Moving on, hopefully more aware. To laugh and cry about it all again.