Friday was Radiation Day 9, and after that I enjoyed another weekend free of hospitals, masks, doctors and technicians. I went with my mother to a Kundalini yoga class at a new place that opened up called HappyTree Yoga. Purple pillows were scattered artfully along benches and walls and the scent of spiced tea permeated the studio, creating a warm, inviting atmosphere. The class itself involved some heavy breathing exercises that apparently do wonders for your lungs. Since radiation puts me at risk for various possible side effects to my lungs, the deep breathing exercises were worth a shot.
On Saturday evening, my husband and I went to his parent's cottage. The weather up north was cool and crisp and on Sunday we bundled up and went for a walk, breathing in the fresh country air as our shoes crunched against the golden autumn leaves. The air smelled like wet bark, sweet moss and Yuletide chimney smoke.
From the yoga class to the walk outdoors, my weekend was quite literally a breath of fresh air. It would have been a perfectly pleasant weekend except that it reflected how askew my life is at the moment. My normal life is in Toronto, yet I was in Montreal going to a yoga class on Friday afternoon and doing all sorts of things that are completely not in keeping with my busy life as a lawyer.
I have spent much of my life trying to be normal, and trying to fit in. I am not sure if this is something that we all do. High-school was a disaster but CEGEP, my undergraduate days and law school yielded increasing success and were filled with friends, extracurricular activities and traveling. My good fortune continued at my law firm, but I have always remained steadfast in my focus on excelling at my work while remaining nice and normal. I have strived to be pleasant to all and avoided complaining or calling attention to myself (except I do perhaps pay extra attention to my clothes, but that is in keeping with the Montrealer in me - we simply must dress well!). Above all, I have made every effort not to ask for anything, to make any requests for any special treatment that would set me apart in a request for lenience or convenience. The thought of having children left me petrified because it would require special arrangements for me, and I just wanted to do my job and do it well.
Clearly, the past few months have thrown my plan through a loop. I am now Different, I am set apart, I am the girl with cancer, the girl who showed up at her firm's Chicago retreat in a wig and the girl who had to make a request for the firm to fly her into Toronto for her colleague's going away dinner. I have to ask the firm to make concessions for me now. I am just not fitting in any more, and I am as far from normal as normal could be.
I have also avoided ever taking any time off and have focussed on navigating efficiently through social and educational landmarks. From a social perspective, I was engaged at 24 and married at 26, which among my cohorts was considered a very desirable age to tie the knot. From an educational perspective, CEGEP led into university which led right into articling and an associate position, without any breaks in between. That is why I am among the youngest in my cohort - I plodded straight through in order to reach every landmark ahead of the others or in keeping with the front runners. Now, however, I have winded up taking nearly six months off, and there is uncertainty as to whether I have even gotten rid of my cancer. It seems to be as determined as I am.
My life has gone from a linear fast lane to a winding, twisting, circuitous route. In some ways, the road ahead has never been more exhilarating because it is now vast and open. I have ventured off the path that I paved and it has created possibilities for me, it has allowed me to venture onto other paths that I would have never taken. Just conceptually, the idea of stepping off the paved road has shown me that there are other places and ways to live. There are the writers and the artsy types who work on their own time, when they want to, and take long walks for inspiration. There are the yummy mummies in the park where I jog, who have taken time off to raise children. There are all sorts of people shopping and sipping lattes at cafes at 2:00p.m. in the afternoon on a weekday. There have certainly been some enjoyable aspects to joining their ranks. It is quite pleasant to jog at my whim, to have the time to cook my own healthy, flavourful meals, to exercise and to write. I do not deny that there have been pleasures in my painful time off.
Yet the difference is that these artists and moms and others who I see on afternoon strolls have made the conscience choice to wander down their own paths. In my case it is because I am in treatment for cancer that I have been thrust among them completely without any volition. I do not feel normal going to yoga in the early afternoon without having to quickly change and return back to the office. I feel unsettled when my jog isn't crammed into my hectic work schedule. My life right now is not normal, and all the normal things I am doing in the meantime, the cooking, the exercising, the long country walks, have a malignant shadow cast over them. The only reason I am here in Montreal as a lady of leisure, is that I am being treated for cancer. This is simply not normal, and it has completely put my life - my normal, crazy, hectic, wonderful life - on hold. Until I return to it, there is no normal life for me. There is just the "new normal", a term ubiquitous in cancer self-help books. The "new normal" takes some getting used to, because it is the result of an abrupt interruption of life and involves accepting the unacceptable and learning to live with uncertainty. The best that I can do right now is pretend to be normal, and to keep breathing.
