Monday, May 29, 2006

The Space Shuttle, Cleaning My Office, and Living with Cancer

It seems like a party game - what do these have in common?

I remember hearing a long time ago that the space shuttle consumes a huge amount of fuel and energy during the lift-off, and then once it has cleared the atmosphere and is able to orbit, it just coasts along easily.

This morning I was organizing my office - one room in my house that is always a disaster. I was doing my quasi-manic/depressive impression halfway through the process, where I looked around and got overwhelmed at the remaining amount of work to be done. I was exhausted (although - hooray - I did sleep pretty well last night), and I thought this just couldn't be done. For some reason, though, I remembered the space shuttle and thought that if I could just persevere for a little while longer, the task would start to get easier. And it did. Soon I was finishing up, and it was much more manageable. And now I'm sitting in a clean office, feeling pretty pleased with myself.

Someone recently asked me what it was like to live with cancer every day. Well, at first there was the initial shock and insult of the news, followed by an intense period of grief and adjusting to this new circumstance. It consumed a lot of energy and effort. But now I think I'm in that orbit mode. Don't get me wrong - it's not a breeze by any means. But it's easier to manage on an every day basis than it used to be. And sometimes I guess I have to leave orbit mode and persevere through some dips and dives -- like this week, with the dreaded MRI coming up soon. I have a choice: I can give in to the worry and crash and burn, or I can keep pushing on through until I am safely in orbit again.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well said, Krista. That is exactly what it's like.

I think we'll be in orbit for a long, long time.

Maybe I'll go organize my garage now . . .