Prepped for surgery.  A dark tunnel of time travel looming in front of me.  I imagine losing myself there,  emerging on the other side changed.  Permanently.  Not the me before.  A place where I am not in charge of the fixing.  Where something about me got so sideways and broken that I must put it in a stranger’s hands to mend.  All I can really do is pray and hope that I found the right stranger.  If I am completely honest, my deepest fear, that I am somehow at fault for this mess of myself that someone else has to fix.

Then a reprieve.  Surgery postponed.  I am handed the gift of a week.  A week of normal, free and clear.  The only catch is that it is the last.  The last week of it’s kind.  The last week before the ‘new normal’.  The new me.

A week cleared of all responsibilities and obligations.  A week handed back to me to spend however I choose.  How do you spend such a week?

Wisely.

At first, the possibilities were overwhelming.  All the things I should do, I wanted to do, I could do.  They were noisy in my head.  Clamoring to make the list of this week.   I started by reaching out to those around me, and then…

I found myself letting go.  Letting go of what I should do.  Listening instead to what I could do.  Hearing that soft whisper of what I wanted to get done become louder (for the first time in who knows how long) than the shrill whine of what I was supposed to get done.

It became one of the most beautiful, moving, relaxing, healing, eye opening weeks I can remember.

I learned how much I miss my female friendships.  How much I love to write.  How glorious it is to open up your heart and not be judged.  I learned that all those times this winter I felt so alone, I was wrong.  I learned what ‘your friends holding you up’ looks like.  How it is actually a gift to others to let them close to you.

I learned that your kids can handle the truth and pitching in.  That no matter how old I am, I want my mom when I am sick.  I learned it is a ‘turn on’ to watch your husband take out the trash and clean the garage.   I learned that I can’t actually bury my uterus in the back yard and plant a tree on top of it.   That it will be used for science instead.  I learned how much time I actually waste when I rush around keeping up with should and supposed to.  I learned how much I am loved.  I learned that when you can’t make sense of something, you can still make peace with it.

Those who have gone through tragic loss of a loved one report what they miss most are the everyday, ordinary moments.  I was given a week of them.  The gift of a week.

This gift made me wonder if I looked at more things as my ‘last’,  I might live them more fully?  My last run for awhile.  My last period ever.  My last meal before surgery.  My last shower until after surgery.

Maybe, if I can hold on to this gift of a week through the tunnel of surgery to the other side, the new me might be able to live in the moment a little more.  I might be able to put down that cloak of insecurity I wrap myself in, and connect more with the wonderful people all around me.  Hug them a little longer.  Look them in the eye more directly.  Listen more patiently.  Risk asking for help more often.  Offer kind words more freely.  Show my heart more openly.  Say I love you instead of holding back.  In spite of the risk.

I am prepped for surgery once again.  My 3rd time in a month.  I will face that tunnel tomorrow.  But this time, I am a week wiser and a week stronger.  A week more loved and a week more humbled.   If I can hold on to that…

Who knows what is possible.