The Beauty of a Fresh Start
Psssst-it Sometimes Looks Like Death
“This is a fresh start,” the cancer surgeon said as I sat weeping. On what universe does amputating both my boobs translate to “a fresh start”? She tapped her pen on the sketch she had just done to illustrate the type of scars I would receive in place of my breasts.
She regarded my tears.
“This is a fresh start,” she repeated with conviction-and gentleness.
She shifted from being a surgeon to a truth-speaking mystic. Just like that.
Somewhere, deep under the terror and grief, her words pinged in my soul.
A fresh start. A FRESH START.
The irony of her words in the midst of the staggering loss I was facing was did not escape me.
As I reflect on this past year (and grow giddy at the thought of kicking it in the ass as it surrenders to 2023) I did not know then at just how much loss a cancer diagnosis brings. It’s probably a good thing, as they would have needed to heavily medicate me and throw me into a rubber room.
The losses are in the BIGLY category. Your sense of safety takes a throat punch. Go ahead-pause a moment and pretend you have just been told by the doctor that you have cancer. (If you want to make the exercise a little more vivid, include whatever ache you may be experiencing today as being a sign of malignancy.)
In reality, I bet you already have done this. A tear-jerking Hallmark movie might spur it or watching a loved one go through a cancer diagnosis.
What if it were me? Thankfully, you realize you were just needlessly worrying. And the headache you thought might be a brain tumor fades away.
Well, guess what? When you really get a cancer diagnosis,
it IS me.
Buh-bye sense of safety. And that’s just the beginning of the losses.
But I will not expound on those here because I want to talk about that fresh start I mention in the title of this piece.
My sweetie, Tom, and I spent the day at the tip of Upper Michigan, where the autumnal colors are at their peak. It was a beauty treatment for the soul. Words fail to describe the splendor.
The road on many parts of the drive was under a golden canopy of leaves. It was magical.
A fresh start. My heart whispers the words.
Do these leaves know that their death makes spring possible? Do they grieve that when they can FINALLY show off the magnificence of their colors, they are going to die and become mulch to nourish new growth? Do they seek treatment to extend their life even though they KNOW that they-or ANY of their leaf buddies-aren’t going to making it out alive?
Birth-death. Loss-renewal. Yin-Yang.
It’s life’s balancing act that continues the cycle. And within the cycle lies a lesson: There is beauty in surrender.
That great sage, Kenny Rogers, once said, “You gotta know when to hold ’em and when to fold ‘em.” (Yeah, I sang that in my head to recall the lyrics.)
Or, in other words, learning when to persevere and when to surrender.
The egoic mind only understands perseverance. (And we got the prevalence of depression and anxiety to prove it!) Just do more! Not working? Do more, FASTER!
As we age, we begin to understand (hopefully!) that keeping up that sort of pressure in the second half of life is a fool’s errand. We must embrace a different approach when trying to control the uncontrollable.
Heartache, meet Surrender.
I’ll just leave you two alone to get acquainted with one another. Free coffee in the back of the room.
In my mind’s eye, I can visualize this. I imagine the interaction creating a swirl of beautiful colors. A kaleidoscope of rich autumnal colors. A golden magic tunnel invites me into the mystery. Peace and beauty intermingle.
Great love brings great suffering. Life brings death. And death brings life.
The mind can’t grasp this truth. But the heart knows it very well.
And it is from the heart that this brilliant surgeon spoke,
This is a fresh start.
Indeed. It is.
Thanks so much for reading. You can find me around the internet at www.theresawinn.com, on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. If you’d like to support my writing in a small way, feel free to buy me a coffee.
