Yesterday as I was leaving Carle after yet another 3 month visit with the "parole officer",(thank you Jennifer Griffin for that awesomely accurate descriptor) I burst out the doors of that clinic feeling like some sort of super hero. As I made my way towards the free lot, I started remembering all of the times I walked this very sidewalk, not feeling anything like how I did at this moment. I lowered my head to kind of bring myself back to the here and now (trying hard to push away the there and then) and I was concentrating on just how delicious the warm sun and fresh breeze felt ... when I saw something blue flutter and roll its way next to the path. It was a ripped off and discarded hospital ID bracelet. I thought about picking it up to see whose name was on it, but I stopped short, suddenly wanting to protect this persons anonymity. It skittered away in a gust of wind; just how I imagined the wearer did as soon as they were free of the thing. I could completely associate with this persons feeling of freedom. A grand explosion of "I am finally getting out of that place", a burst of freedom, and feelings, made waiting to find scissors NOT an option. Maybe they were in for some inane outpatient surgery ... or maybe they were just being released from the clinic after some sinister out-of-the-blue diagnosis, and some subsequent life altering (and hopefully life saving) surgery. In my minds eye that person threw open those doors (no matter how sore, sad, or solemn they were) and felt the same warm, magical spring breezes that steep the scenery with a fresh breath of promise, and of renewed life and fresh beginnings. I see him/her lifting her face to the sun, drinking in the wind blown kisses and then suddenly noticing the the hospital bracelet on their arm. Hard and scratching against the skin. Each movement a reminder of why this trip to the free lot was even necessary in the first place. The super-human strength that is needed to tear one of those off can only be brought on by feelings such as this. A primal urge to flee the things that imprison, hurt, and scare... At one time I think I had to wear 4 of those bracelets, not a one of them stating "endless drip on the morphine please" or "GTFO". I remember that delicious feeling of freedom leaving that place after each chemo, and i remember the anxiety attacks i had as soon as i would see the place upon return visits. Almost three years of magical spring breezes have quelled those anxiety attacks and my fear of the place . . . But what has grown in its place is a deep appreciation of health, love, life, and the beauty that is to he had in this world -- things that we can enjoy only IF we take time to stop to see those things.
"the Parole Officer Man" said that he is pleased my body is behaving itself, and i am very close to a important milestone, and that my visits can now be decreased to every six months instead of every three. Each forward step taken on the road to freedom gets you one step closer to your goal, and one step farther from what you are working on leaving behind.
