If ever there was a day I really wanted a drink, yesterday was it! I lost my wallet from Sat afternoon until 1:30 yesterday and had flashbacks of recycling my brand new passport (that is a whole other story. The wallet I lost was the one I had prepped for hospital with my Ab health care card, driver’s id, nd id for the Cancer Centre. It was on my bed under the one blanket I hadn’t yet shaken out. Then dropped my phone in the tub (currently replaced with a loaner flip phone so it is like my whole new version of Candy Crush Saga to entertain me as I try to text with it)  and my mind was full of squirrels as I tried to pack. 

 All turned out ok though, as is always the case in some way ot another and you know, it is a whole new world when I chose not to focus on the little things but the fact that my sisters were there to bring me to Calgary and provide an inviting place to lay my head, I have a way to communicate, am safe and ultimately have everything I need.

 This is why the lotus flower has become a visual for me. A girlfriend gave me a necklace of the lotus this year because of it’s symbolism, and she couldn’t have been more insightful as to what it would become to me. The lotus grows beneath the mud and the muck and then emerges as something beautiful and vibrant in a way so unexpected….that is how I have come to see the tougher times, as my opportunity to grow and reach for the light, breaking free of the darkness and mud below to enjoy the life and love that surrounds me.

This surgery today is definitely a tough one for me. Not sure if it is because I haven’t had a year or 5 to psych myself up, the fact that I am not looking forward to pain, lost mobility and independence again, that I have scared myself focusing on them keeping me in hospital 3-5 days (when do they do that anymore), or the reason behind it, but I am honestly working hard on resetting my emotional state this morning. I knew there would be days like this and this is definitely one! The remembrance of the lotus has helped me and I hope my sharing may help you on a tough day too.
Looking forward to emerging out of the muck after surgery to feel the light heal me!
G.