So much has happened in the last week. Chuck and I reflect on working hard the last 12 years to get where we are, what we wanted all along we are happy, proud even. The last 12 years have been hard. We struggled without letting a lot of people see. We put each other through school, got married, bought a house, had a kid, short sold a house, rented a few along the way while we tried to figure out where we wanted to be and in this economy.... well rough. Man I can't wait until that statement is gone "in this economy"!
The plan for me before Chuck was:
1. I was in no hurry to get married.. maybe age 30 (married him at 24).
2. I didn't know what I wanted to be but MOM was not really high on the priority list, scared to death is an understatement. It just was not on my radar.
3. Before I ever was married I would own my own home, dependent on no one but me.. yes that was me.
Then I met Chuck. I take that back I knew him from high school Ag. he was a skinny scrawny guy that one of my friends was in love with. He went to a different high school than I did and he was wayyyy more into Ag than I was. I was in it for the raising of the animal, the "pet" value. He was more of the competitive showman, likely why he did much better in the ring than I did.
Anyway so fast forward to 21, we started dating.. polar opposites for sure. We both thought it would last a week or two max. But the interesting thing is deep down we really liked the same things. Rocking chairs on the front porch. The best way I can describe us our connection and where we see ourselves for the next 50+ years. At least that is the plan.
Somedays you never know what will throw a wrench in the plan. Job loss, accidents, illness, cancer. Yes that ugly word cancer. So much of it in our lives lately you feel like it's knocking at your back door. I can easily name 4 women in my immediate circle or there abouts that have been dealing with cancer this year or more. Young vibrant women. Cancer when we were kids was something old people would get. Does this mean I am old now? I was thinking OLD like 70/80 years you know retired, grandma or great grandma who had lived a full life already. But this is not the case. These women have young kids that need their mom. It's not fair. I know I watched my mom go through breast cancer, I was a sophmore in high school. Or maybe a junior.. I was 15 I know because I had my learners driving permit. Too young to think you are going to lose your mom. And my mom dealt with it quietly. There was not a lot of discussion about it, it was there, she was dealing with it, there was surgery, recovery and then it was gone, over.
Now I work in the medical field and sometimes I wish I could go back to knowing nothing about how the body works, how cancer spreads and what it means when it is in certain areas. I do know and that makes it 100 times scarier and frustrating. I worry about my plan, our plan. Will I be here to hold his had and sit in the rocking chairs on the front porch? I have a family history and yes there are a lot of diagnostic and screening tools out there to tell me my risk and damn me for not using them yet. But I am scared. What if's turn into I don't want to know's, not yet, not today... maybe when this baby is out it will be time to make sure...
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