The 12 Grapes for Me!

What does a New Year mean when you are battling your own body? A new year may not be as exciting for you as it is for everyone else. A new year for most symbolizes new beginnings, change, the start of something exciting but for someone battling their own body? Someone battling cancer a new year can be the just the beginning of dread, the beginning of despair, the beginning of something scary because as the old goes away sometimes so does the hope. So tonight as I watched the ball drop and we did a new tradition of the 12 grapes I began to cry.We were supposed to with each grape we ate make a wish for the new year. I don't know what others wished for but I will say I can imagine it went something like this: For 2022 I wish to find love, start a family, finally have the baby I have always wanted, get a promotion for work, buy a home or get a new car. All valid and all wonderful wishes for this new year and new start for some but they were not my wishes. I don't need to find love as I have already or family as I have an amazing one. I don't care about a home or a car (even though I could use new ones of both). I don't wish for raise or promotion at work. Here is what I wished for, 1 wish for each grape (12 of them) that I ate seconds before the clock striked Midnight:

1. I did wish for love but not in finding it. In maintaining it. Maintaining it within my family with my children as they continue their lives as adults now. Maintaining it in my relationship with the partner I have chosen to spend what is left of this life with. In maintaining it with my parents, sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews, best friends. Love that overflows from the cup I drink from to sustain it. 

2. Healing. Not just from the cancer that has taken hold in my body but healing from the resentment I have felt that I have to walk this path not many have taken. Healing from the sadness, the resentment, the pain and the loss I feel of my independence, my faith and hope.

3. Adventure. I don't know how many turns around the sun I am granted. Will this be the one of 20, one of 5 or even my last turn around the sun? I don't know. No one ever knows, but I want adventures that will make however many turns I have around this sun to be remembered and cherished by those people I chose to spend the adventures with. 

4. Passion. Yes this can mean passion in my love life but that is not the only passion I dream of and desire. I want the life I have left to be filled with passion for what I do, who I am, what purpose there is left in every day, every breath I breathe. Passion that makes life worth living and a purpose to rise each day and face the world ahead of me. 

5. Hope. I know I've lost it. I want to find it again. Find hope when my body feels weak and tired. That I can be hopeful that that too shall pass. Hope that I can get past this when my body makes me feel like I can no longer stand and fight. Hope that keeps me going and going and going. 

6. I want to be able to see 2023, 2024, 2025... and so on and so forth with those that I love. I've lost people because they couldn't handle what it's like to see the deterioration my body goes through. People who couldn't step outside their comfort zone while I was not able to hold myself up. I don't want to lose those that matter most to me in this difficult time.

7. Minimal worries. I know I can't make all of my worries disappear. I am no magician after all but I would love to live my life with the minimal amount of worry that I possibly can. Make each obstacle I face more bearable instead of feeling the burden of the world on my shoulders. Help to relieve the stress of the world so that I can concentrate on #2 more. 

8. Joy. I feel like there are days, hours, minutes, seconds where my joy is gone. Where the despair feels so dark I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. On those days, moments, I want to know what joy feels like. I want to feel my smile again. I want to feel like while my body feels despair my soul can still find joy, find a smile through the sadness, find a light in the darkness.  

9. I want to see my children succeed in the life they choose. For 22 years my world revolved around them. I want to see how the chapters in their book of life progressed to get them the success and happiness they need. I want them to know success isn't measured by what you have or what you can attain physically but by the passion and joy they find in their lives and the way they make a difference in at least one person's life as that is how change is made. One random act of kindness at a time! (Yes I got that from the movie Evan Almighty!)

10. This one goes with #9 but I want to also see my children reach who they are meant to be. See them make their lives and grow and be productive and amazing people in society. 

11.Strength. Strength to keep fighting and strength to know when the fight is over. I believe the latter takes more strength. It's not easy to let go and I am not there yet. Not ready to do so but when my time comes I wish for the strength to be able to do it. I wish for strength to carry me through. I wish and hope when the time comes (please let it be later and let me live life to the fullest first) that I can say and recognize my time has come. Let me be able to be strong enough to one day hopefully in the very distant future know how to say goodbye. 

12. Peace. Peace that allows me to be ok with all that life brings me. The good and the bad. The hardships and the prosperity. The health and the sickness. Allow my heart, my mind and my body rest from the stress and allow me peace. And when I am no longer on this earth that my loved ones find peace as well in my departure.

I know it sounds morbid. It sounds harsh but this is what New Years bring to someone like me! Why I always strive to be with those I love because my mortality has been presented to me. Everytime I sit in that chair and get put on chemo I am reminded of it. Every pain, every breath, every morning I wake (especially in pain) I am reminded of my mortality. I want many more New Years but I am always fearful... is this my last one? 

Here's to 2022 and I hope more to come.

Happy New Years!