Embracing REAL

When I turned 40 a few years ago, a switch flipped inside of me and I suddenly stopped caring so much what people thought of me.  Oh, I'm still concerned with making a good impression and I enjoy being liked as much as the next gal, don't be fooled.  But I am blessedly free from the anxieties and pressures that motivated my actions and shaped my opinions of myself for much of my youth.  God knows I wasted a helluva lot of time giving a shit what other people thought of me, doing what all women do, "comparing my insides to other people's outsides".  Maybe I was just slow on the uptake but it took me what seems like an inordinate amount of time to realize that the only approvals I needed were mine and God's.  Since He spoke the earth into motion and made me, in His image, with my mind, my emotions AND my Teutonic psyche there must be something that He made that way on purpose.

With that in the back of my mind I've been thinking about how transparent my life has become.  One of the sequelae of living a life alongside someone with cancer is that I find it hard to make small talk.  I used to be really good at it.  "Establishing rapport" is what we call it in medicine and having spent 8 years working in family practice I got quite good at it, this art of medicine.  It came to me fairly naturally by personality and for me the way in to a person's REAL stuff was always through their small talk.   During a medical visit small talk makes transition easier for people - it is small after all and let's one build up to the BIG of what's real and serious or delicate or vulnerable or you fill in the blank.  What's difficult. Or painful.  Or taboo.  Or just plain hard.  But now, small talk just seems like what it is, small.  It no longer feels appropriate when I speak about my life.  Questions have REAL answers after all.

What this looks like then is the following: I find myself at the check-out counter and the cashier asks me what my plans are for "this beautiful day", without missing a beat I'll tell her I'm taking lunch to my husband in the hospital because the food sucks there.  Or when my uber-chippy Starbucks barista asks me how my day's going, I usually pause too long before saying something REAL like, "I'm wiped out actually".  What almost always ensues is a dynamic and intimate conversation about cancer, lymphoma, chemotherapy, the tragedy that is having a young husband dealing with all the above.  And almost always, a brief testimonial to God's grace and mercy throughout it all comes about, inevitably because they bring it up.  Nope, no small talk for me, just the unvarnished truth of what's going on in my moment.  

 I was truly glad when I turned 40.  Not, mind you, because I got to start feeling achy and aware of my diminishing returns year after year but because I was finally at home with the REAL on so many levels.  Now this cancer journey has given me new opportunities to embrace the REAL in my life and I am blessed and encouraged by each encounter, whether serious, delicate, vulnerable, difficult, painful, taboo, or just plain hard.  I'd say sorry world, it sucks to be you when you cross my path on an especially tough day and ask how I'm doing, but really, I think the world is fortunate.  Not because of me and what I'm putting out there particularly, but because the world needs authenticity, more REAL and less small.  I find it refreshing and judging from the number and depth of my encounters I'd say the world is clamoring for it.