As a young girl I designed my dreams in my bedroom and on the piano bench. They were long, happy-everafter dreams that stretched well into the future. At nine years old I joined the Psychology Book of the Month Club. The shelves on my bedroom walls held the weighty books I would use in my dream-future as a clinical psychologist. I slept under Jung, Freud, even Kinsey — the famous sex researcher whose subject I only whispered and giggled about with my girlfriends at sleepovers.
On the piano bench I dreamt of being a concert pianist. As a mental prelude to Beethoven’s Concerto in C Major, I smoothed the ruffles of my skirt on the bench with full fantasy finesse: It was the final rehearsal before a symphony production at Carnegie Hall. At 10 years old, the closest I had come to Manhattan was Flushing’s World’s Fair grounds, yet the stage was spotlight clear in my mind. The audience was raving, tossing glances at one another, and yelling their best “Bravo!” during the prolonged ovation. I bowed in perfect form and with utter humility, one hand on my chest and the other reaching to the orchestra with a flourish.
Cancer is a kickass dream-catcher; my dreams got snagged in its knots.
My dreams shifted as I got older. At college I learned that I didn’t want to be a clinical psychologist after all. And my talent for piano was best left for my own enjoyment. I explored new cities with my undergraduate and advanced degrees, and my professional success exceeded my expectations. I forged ahead with business travel and a doctoral fellowship, all unpredicted, until a pregnancy slowed me down and I chose the more traditional path of full-time motherhood.
My first cancer diagnosis came when I was 42 years old. I was married with two young sons ages 5 and 10. In the space of a life-changing office visit, the rich canvas of my dreams became a white sheet listing names of doctors and treatment protocols. My to-do list got long with medical tasks and short on dreams. Cancer is a kickass dream-catcher; my dreams got snagged in its knots. I only had one dream at this point, and it was a new one: I wanted to become a survivor.
I offered to give up any and all dreams if I could survive long enough to walk down the aisle at my sons’ weddings.
In the middle of the night when I could muster the courage, I earnestly tried to strike a bargain with God. I offered to give up any and all dreams if I could survive long enough to walk down the aisle at my sons’ weddings. If that was too much to ask, how about living long enough for them to leave for college while their mother was still alive? What would be the right amount of time to ask for, given that this was one of our first serious conversations?
In the years that followed I was glued to the present moment. The future was tomorrow’s show: At sunrise the curtain would go up, and at sunset it would drop again. I lived from day to day, not because I wanted to, but because I couldn’t seem to do otherwise. Every few months was another scan or doctor’s visit, and it was in the hospital that I learned if I would have more future. Discomfited by my inability to plan and my resistance to making the smallest commitments — I found I didn’t even want to plan lunch for the next week. If the future is something that doesn’t belong to you, how can you act like you own it? How can you make a new life-after-cancer?
I took little risks with making plans. Gradually, they got a little bigger.
My oncologist was not surprised that even after one year post-treatment I was still struggling with making new dreams. He encouraged me to have fun, reduce my stress, take weekends away whenever possible, and to be my own best friend. “Take care of yourself, first and foremost,” he said. Could that be sufficient, as a life dream? How could I trust in a future and invoke new dreams while cancer was out in the world ready to pounce?
With each cycle of testing, and the further I got away from the original diagnosis and treatment, I began to find my way. I took little risks with making plans. Gradually, they got a little bigger. I learned that good things could still happen despite my occasional planning paralysis. I realized that I still had a good deal of control over my life, particularly my thoughts and attitude. The doctor was right: If I took care of myself first then I had a better chance of feeling connected to the future. I wanted that, so I kept at it.
Two years after my treatment ended, I became a caregiver for my sister when she was diagnosed with encephalitis. In the years that followed, my father slowly succumbed to the strains of congestive heart failure. My insights learned through my cancer experience were helpful to others — mainly to take one blessed day at a time — and that helped me to continue moving forward into the still-fearful future.
I did have another cancer diagnosis nine years later, just as I was planning the 10-year “I Survived” party. This time I realized that cancer, like many difficult diagnoses, is actually a knockout reason to create and manifest dreams. It can be as much a dream-creator as it can be a dream-catcher.
However long I live, I want to make some dreams come true, so every morning I set my intentions for the day.
Knowing the future is uncertain is a crisp-edged catalyst for making each day count, for not sweating the small stuff, for living as my doctor prescribed. If I measure my life in days, today matters even more. In fact, today could be the best day I ever have.
However long I live, I want to make some dreams come true, so every morning I set my intentions for the day. These are my daily dreams. And for the first time in many years, I have generated a plan for the next five years of living with six bigger life goals. These are my pillar dreams — they support the life I want to have in the years ahead, after the kids marry, when my future self comes to believe that she did more than survive.
