begin anew

the past year feels as though it passed in the blink of an eye. i am aware of the places i went and the people i saw, and i know the miles and miles accumulated under both my feet and rolling wheels of a bike. many days felt uniquely special, even otherwise run-of-the-mill ones, but time just flew, nonetheless.

perhaps it is a function of living with less fear and nervousness than i have in the past few years. last year brought a gift in the fact i never felt truly wary of my health. as each day passed and i greeted the sun once again i felt confident in my body's strength. the year prior had been filled with so much unknown and truly poor health for me, coupled with the sadness of losing a dear friend, one i'd been in the trenches with; i found myself suddenly silent again, missing that person who truly did understand. last year i settled in and treated myself to every single day. sure, there were ones when my heart ached a bit or my body needed a rest, but all in all, i wasn't fixed on emotions that were particularly exhausting.

of course, it turns out, my health was fantastic last year, and it has been a long time since i was able to have a nearly normal existence. there are lingering effects of the treatments and my life with cancer, but all in all, i was able to live life without side effects or debilitating tiredness or, generally, not feeling like myself. many people never take time to appreciate just how amazing it is to walk the earth, to feel the wind in your hair or the sun on your face, nor how it feels to have it taken away, bit by bit. to live life without taking it for granted is a gift.

i just spent a little more than three hours out on my bike. the wind was at my back the first half of the ride but switched around to a head wind for much of my ride home; for those of you who have ridden, or run, in the wind, you know what a difference it can make. this is how marked the difference is between my life in 2010 and my life in 2011. perhaps last year the wind wasn't at my back, but it had at least died down. i wasn't fighting so hard.

i had to go for ride today, to clear my head and feel the strength in my legs. tomorrow is scan day and it feels worse after waiting three months instead of three weeks. i had a feeling this would be the case. i had such a long stretch of time to live my life without even thinking about the hospital; it is so terrifying and difficult to go back, to return to being the patient once again. i'm emotionally tired from losing Grandpa this week. i found myself, at least the one from the past year, today, rolling around, seeing the water running in creeks and rivers, feeling the wind so strongly against my face, and hot water on my back as i warmed up at home. i'm as ready as i'll ever be, i suppose.

a beautiful thing happened while i was out riding; i was slowly churning my way up a hill after riding across the causeway of a reservoir. a heard the wind make a strange noise and looked up, and a red-tailed hawk flew over my head, and lead me down the road between the trees, staying near as i made my way up. it lasted maybe thirty seconds but he was close enough for me to see the individual feathers in his tail and the colors of his talons and back feathers. as i crested the hill and started the descent an old pickup passed me. the unmistakable smell of pipe smoke hung on the air and mingled with the exhaust and all i could think of was Grandpa. the coincidence is great, but i'd like to think he was just stopping in to check on me as i faced another day.