As Long As...

There is a saying that goes like this: it takes as long as it takes.

Yup, I say to myself.

It takes as long as it takes to learn to walk without a limp. To not be self-conscious, to want to get back in the therapy pool. To get up after a bad fall...as my sons beg to know how to help me, when all I have are tears to answer my children. My kids, whose knees I've bandaged, whose owies I've kissed away.

It takes as long as it takes, my friends.

To dance again, with an above the knee amputation. To wipe that last ounce of sadness or bitterness or anger away. To empty oneself of all that muck. To not feel icy cold fear during preventive medical checks, sitting in waiting rooms next to very sick people who just want to see next month...or even tomorrow. Who know the true value of 24 hours, not taking a shred of anything for granted anymore. In those visits, I reach for my hair, curly and longer every day, twirling it in my fingers...

...and memories taunt me, tough stuff. Alot of it unspeakable, still.

It takes as long as it takes to figure out how to say thank you to a medical community that stitched me up, with dedication to something so much bigger than themselves. Cupcakes or flowers seem an option, but I really want to just hug them forever. It takes as long as it takes to figure out how I will contribute to sarcoma research and awareness, so that little children and adults too have more options for treatment...because this sort of cancer is rare but oh so bad and wrong.

It takes as long as it takes to forgive a doctor who told me my pain was all in my head and sent me off to physical therapy for 10 weeks, until a smarter, kinder doctor in another clinic ordered a fast scan. But forgiveness is important, right? And listen to your bodies, my friends.

Sometimes I look around for inspiration...and find a whole legion of heroes.

But they aren't people who have a strategic plan to perfectly march to some magical destiny by a certain date. Better and better, in a straight line of self-improvement and goal achievement, even those worthy planks. They are people who just dare to get out of bed most mornings. Who try their best to say yes and then try again, a thousand times, with a determined heart. Who do not let defeat overstay its welcome and who all out refuse to give up, at least not forever or for long. Who see dreams as a holy business, and who say...

I will try again tomorrow.

And so we will try again tomorrow. Lots of love and encouragement from me to you, on our sometimes messy paths.

Because it takes us as long as it takes us, we say with a wink and a nod. We say with a wink and a nod. xxoo