Silver Linings

Happy Chinese New Year to you all! I just got back from spending another week in Florida doing tai chi. It was a small workshop with no evening sessions. I loved it! After the program ended everyday, I would take a walk along the water, watched the sunsets, and had dinner with friends in the evenings. My kind of life! 😍

Speaking of Chinese New Year and sunsets, I woke up this morning and a thought hit me. I didn’t expect to see Christmas, New Year’s Day, or Chinese New Year a little over a year ago. Now I have lived to see 2 Christmas, 2 New Years, a new decade, and 2 CNY! How magical is life?! Did I feel this magic 45 years prior to that? Sometimes, but if I was completely honest, I took it for granted most of the time. All I have to do is to get deathly ill for it all to be magical! lol!! Funny how my perspectives have changed! 🙃

I want to share this particular sunset. When I was in Dunedin last month, I loved biking out to Honeymoon Island, watch the sea birds and enjoy the ocean breeze. This trip, however, I didn’t have time for that, so I decided to drive out there with a friend to watch the sunset. It was a beautiful day all day, no clouds, I was expecting to see a beautiful sunset. When we got there though, it was obvious that wasn’t going to happen because there were just enough clouds where the sun would go down that it wouldn’t be the sunset we had hoped for. There was no point in turning back, so we sat and watched the sunset anyway. In time, the setting sun behind the clouds shined a golden light ring around every cloud above it. The sky lit up and everything around it turned to a beautiful rosy golden color. It was not the same old everyday perfect sunset, but one of the most spectacular and unique sunsets I have ever seen!

I have been reading a lot about cancer. 30% of people that get my particular type of cancer (EGFR mutation) are Asian, women, and never-smokers. 30% is not statistically insignificant! It has been in my DNA all my life to get to this point, but life didn’t just throw it at me, it prepared me all my life for this. I have my tai chi practice. I have an incredible large circle of friends that support me. I have the financial resources to get through what I need to get through. There is nothing fair about me getting sick, but my being sick has invoked such deep compassion, generosity, and love in the world… so much so that it changed my perspectives on life! Life is not fair because it’s too perfect to be fair. What I want is not about getting what I want. It’s meant to get me to where I can receive what’s being given… like the sunset. If I had not wanted to see the sunset, I wouldn’t bother to show up. I could have been disappointed I didn’t see the sunset I wanted to see and turn away. Or, I could fully appreciate what was actually there and it was better than anything I could have hoped for. There is such a thing as silver linings. Cancer might eventually go away, it might not, that’s not the point anymore. The point is to live everyday that is given as it is. I am alive today because I am not the one that’s breathing me, life is. I wake up everyday excited that I get to be me again today❣️I will live this day well.