The Days of Wishful Thinking

It has been a very long time since I posted anything on this blog - in fact - just over a year. Sometimes it just didn't feel like a time for writing.  At other times I posted my cancer journey on my Caring Bridge page. As I read through my last post about navigating feelings, I kept thinking this time of year is obviously a time of reflection for me. So much has happened in the past 18 months - it has been both a time of unsettledness and settling. 

I have been thinking recently about how much our lives are shaped by certain dates, events, and milestones. Some of these are happy - births, marriages, graduations, awards, vacations, new jobs, and the list goes on. These moments are the ones we love to celebrate and remember. Then there are others that are devastating and difficult - a diagnosis we never wanted to hear, job loss, broken relationships, deaths, and this year - COVID. This list can also go on to include much more. These are moments that are remembered but definitely not always celebrated. These moments can easily become days of wishful thinking. 

During my cancer treatment the wishful thinking would look like - I wish my treatments were done, I wish I was feeling better, I wish I had more energy and less fatigue, I wish I could go out with my friends and family, and I wish I didn't have to go through this. But there it was staring me in the face - I couldn't go under it or over it or around it - I had to go through it, whatever that looked like. And while I am a lucky one who is now deemed cancer free, my cancer history will always be with me as an event that has shaped my life. As much as I wish this wasn't a part of my life, it always will be. It doesn't dominate my thoughts, but it's now always a part of my history.

My broken marriage and divorce are another part of my life that I wish wasn't there but it is. And there have been many wishful thinking moments along that road as well.

What I have learned from my life experience and from watching & reading others much wiser than me is that crisis changes us and we can never go back to what life was before. The option to go around it doesn't exist - going through it is part of the journey. And at first it can be chaotic, terrifying, unbearable, and extremely uncomfortable. We are confronted with and challenged in rethinking pieces of our lives. That can include pieces of our lives that are pretty near and dear to our hearts - relationships, ways of thinking and behaving, and our belief systems. As we move through whatever crisis we are facing we can begin to see things differently, understand some things differently, and at times forgive ourselves and others a little easier. The wishful thinking and hoping that "this" would all be over becomes less chaotic and our new normal begins to settle. Life can still be good.

This past Remembrance Day I thought about mothers and families who wished for their loved ones to come home from the wars they were fighting. People who wished for that nightmare to be over. Some got their wish but their loved ones were changed by the experiences and horrors of war, others never got that wish granted. Either way, all their lives were changed by the events they walked through.

As I have reflected on this past year's journey through my cancer treatment, I can't help but see parallels with our individual and collective journey through COVID. It feels so chaotic, exhausting, miserable, and uncomfortable. So many lives affected in a multitude of ways. We wish (individually and collectively) to go back to the days before but we can't. Unfortunately, we will never have a time in our lives again where COVID isn't a part of our history. I certainly pray it won't always dominate our lives like it does now - maybe that's still a part of the chaos we are walking through. I know that I have been challenged to see life differently as I have navigated day to day life with COVID precautions, etc. My wishful thinking brings me to the place of wishing I knew where this was going to land - what is the new normal going to be? My wishful thinking also wishes that my Christmas plans could be more open and free and that I could enjoy more time connecting with friends and family before I go back to work in the New Year.  

I am writing this in the season of Advent and challenged again to think about how my faith intersects with my wishful thinking. As Christians the 4 weeks prior to Christmas often focus around the themes of hope, love, joy, and peace. Where do I turn to find these? What am I wishing for with each of these themes? What am I hopeful for? Where is my hope rooted? Where and how am I loving as I have been called to love as Christ loved us? Where is peace when my normal has been uprooted and is chaotic? Can my soul be peaceful when my wishful thinking just wants to take me back to how things were in the past? Can I find peace as I grieve what has been lost? And joy - where do I find joy? What can I still be joyful about?   

I firmly believe that God has been with me in my painful journeys and am appreciating daily what I have learned along the way. I also believe that God isn't threatened by my times of wishful thinking and patiently lets me work through the life lessons in front of me. 

My wishful thinking today takes me to a place where I hope that I can trust that God's enduring love, compassion, and care for me is my landing pad. That is the place where I will find hope, love, joy, and peace in this season and every other season of my life.