Today, I am celebrating having turned in my revised manuscript for (approximately) the 456,024th time. When you self publish, you can just do what you want. It also takes longer when you decide to do that. ;-). As I only intend to write this particular part of my memoir one time, taking my time to get it the way I want it seems important. It also seems all consuming and quite laborious. HOWEVER, I'm almost to that delicious finish line. And I have, perhaps prematurely, decided these days should be in celebration.
Last year, on November 10th I was preparing to have a bi-lateral mastectomy to defeat my breast cancer diagnosis. Celebrating today seems even more appropriate in comparison to that! Although both the completion of a book and the completion of a year filed with breast cancer treatment and recovery seem, at this point, to both be pretty major wins in my opinion! Current USA political climate, pandemic, economic stress and all the other crazy 2020 has offered be damned, I am celebrating being on the planet and enjoying being "above ground", as my dad used to say.
I've gone through fifty years of photos trying to find just the right ones for the book. It has been such a thorough trip down memory lane. With the exception of that one year I lived pretty much "off the grid", I could see images that brought back floods of memories like nothing else except music can do. It has been both delightful and dreadful. But has been 100% gratifying as I circle back to, I am a survivor! In so many ways, and through what feels like multiple life times, I've survived.
My hope is for you to know beyond a doubt that you can survive, too. We all have it in us. And looking back just one year is a healthy perspective on how strong you can be. Thanks, 2020. We are survivors!