Is Existentialistic a Word?

This is not how I imagined the summer of 2012.  We were supposed to have a fabulous summer - kids will be away either at camp or working, and we had planned a two week vacation - a week in Rio de Janeiro and a week in Machu Picchu to walk the Inca trail.  Yeah.

Instead I sit here drafting an existentialistic blog post about the most dramatic (traumatic?) six weeks of my life so far, and how it has changed me. I reflect on the great contributions that some people make to society (my neurosurgeon, the front line medical professionals), and the totally self absorbed lives of others (mine).  I consider what I was doing with my life before this diagnosis (working) and whether or not and to what degree it will change me. 

This experience has shown me that I have surrounded myself with fabulous friends and family who have empathy and awareness for others. It has taught me to slow down and look around, enjoy some of the moment - that it really doesn't matter whether you do that next task now or in half an hour. I've discovered that the small accomplishments keep you going towards the bigger things.

I wonder how many of the things in my life leading up to now, prepared me for now.  Did I run so many marathons because it took that many to teach me to push, hard, through the last 10k; to learn that tired is a mental game, not a physical condition. To teach me that you don't always recognize progress during the training ... it isn't until you retrospectively look back and realize that that 20 miler felt easier than the one four weeks ago.

I don't believe that our lives are predetermined, but that the big and small decisions we make every day have a profound influence on where we go and how our lives are lived.  We get to blame our parents for our first 18 years :) but after that, we own our decisions.  We have to start each sentence with "I chose to ... "   Even when we say we had no choice, there were always options, just some more tolerable to us than others.

“There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point… The truly adult view, by contrast, is that our life is as meaningful, as full and as wonderful as we choose to make it.”  - Richard Dawkins

I didn't choose to grow a tumour - I do get to blame my body for that -  but I have chosen every step since that diagnosis. I chose surgery because the other options were intolerable to me. I choose to spend most days working towards recovery (and some days I choose to wallow) because the options are intolerable to me. I believe I will walk because of the choices I made (and continue to make). But I think there are times when there is something, someone, an instinct or whatever you choose to label it, trying to help us. That voice that said to me "get this pain properly diagnosed".

I choose to believe that our path is not laid out for us but that sometimes in our lives there are angels who tap us on the shoulder and whisper "listen carefully". 

Pay attention when they do, and choose wisely.