Dear Me:

Cotton candy & Koolaid sunrise

I have been waking before dawn a lot lately. Usually I get up and get busy making breakfast, unloading the dishwasher, letting Maggie out for her morning business. (Dave makes coffee now, so I can't take credit for that any more.)

But it's been cold the last few mornings and with the heater out, leaving the flannel sheets is less appealing, so I just lay there quietly. And think. I'd be better off to get up, freeze my ass off and get on with it. Thinking in the pre-dawn hours when I'm still and quiet is when they come.

Fears.

Worries.

What ifs.

It's the only time I let myself cry a little. Till Dave wakes up and smothers my face with his big old chest and squeezes me so tight it seems absurd to cry over thing at all.

I try to dissect this vague sense of fear so I can clip those wires that make it trip here in the early morning cold. It's not dying. I don't think I will, just yet, and even if I did, God has granted me my mother's wish of raising my babies to happy, healthy adulthood. I can't really ask for more than that. No, it's not dying that I worry about.

It's not being able to live like I want to, like I'm used to, like I know how. I never thought of myself as a vain person but the thought of being bald, puffy from steroids, pale and sickly scares me. It's the complete opposite of how I see myself. And though I know it isn't so, in the dark and cold of my bedroom, I wonder if God is punishing me because I took it all for granted.

I've never once thought, "why me?" Too many times in my life I have seen those with far less than I had and I wondered then, "why me?" Why was I born an American, a Texan (God help you other people .. I don't know what I would do if I wasn't a Texan!), to a loving family who never did without any necessities and had many extras in life. I've never gone to bed hungry (unless it was because I wouldn't eat my green peas), I've never been abused or mistreated (though there was that one time when Jim shot me with his BB gun). I've had a Bible since the day I was born and given every opportunity to know and worship God.

The evening news presents countless stories of torture, abuse, illness. Children left in war torn countries without anyone to love or look after them. To them, hunger is infinitely more familiar than a warm, full belly. Fear and loss so well known I wonder if they can grasp the idea of love and security.

So I shame myself back into dry eyes, and a grateful heart. So what if I look like Telly Savalas? So what if I'm green around the gills for a while. This too shall pass.

When faced with a rough patch in the road I've always had trouble seeing that it was only temporary. But it always was, and I usually came out on the other side wiser with a little more room in my heart and stronger for the experience.

So, if that's true .. then when I get done with this .. I'm gonna be freakin' awesome!

This little pep talk has been brought to you by the demons and angels that change the weather patterns in my head hourly. Life is a dream, shaboom, and cancer ain't no big thang.