The Valleys

Hope this finds you living well. I know a lot of us are bracing for some weather to roll in. Good luck at the grocery store and with your house prep. 

I went on Tuesday for my fourth infusion of the latest chemo protocol, and everything went according to plan. It seems like we’ve figured out the right dosing that allows for my various blood cell counts to recover from the previous infusion. As I’ve mentioned to some folks, it does seem like this chemo’s side effects kick in quickly, and it just takes me longer now to recover. A part of that is the cumulative effect of all the chemo over the last ~14 months. 

As with the last chemo protocol, there’s a point in the cycle at which I feel like I’m bottoming out on energy. On this one, with the infusions on Tuesdays, it’s the Thursday evening into Friday morning where my energy level goes pretty low. And then, usually, it’s a slow climb out of that valley. 

As I write this, I’m in the valley. And it’s actually been kind of a surprising place for me. 

Feeling like crap is not an easy place to hang out for long. But there’s something to be said for getting knocked down low enough that all the typical worries, concerns, planning, and checking off to-do’s are just inaccessible. There’s just not the bandwidth to hold all those things. Surrender isn’t an option anymore.

And I think the last few years have been trying to teach me this lesson about surrender over and over. And maybe I’m only starting to take the lesson to heart. We can meet each moment with a certain resistance or fight, clinging to some illusion of control and some vision of better we wish was our reality. But, being forced to hang out deep in the valley on a regular basis with all this cancer stuff has usually left me no choice but to allow the present moment to just be what it is.

For my work in education over the years, I have leaned on the collected ideas of Peter Senge and others about organizations and change in the book The Fifth Discipline. Anyway, one of the things he argues is to not see the current reality as some adversary, but, rather, to just see it as it is. That’s very Buddhist of Peter, recognizing that our clinging to something we wish was happening instead is at the root of our suffering. When I cling to something I desire now or out in the future, most of what I see is stuff in opposition to that. Life has to be more than a clear-eyed view of what we don’t like. 

Surrender and this spirit of allowing is not giving up. Rather, it’s an investment in the present moment as it is, not pretending it’s anything else. It’s moving into a space where you can take a breath, find some peace and presence, and get better situated for a step forward when the right time comes. It’s unloading baggage that’s been dragging on you. It’s loving yourself better. It’s an acknowledgment that there’s something much bigger at work, and tapping into that mysterious knowing. That’s good fuel for the journey ahead.

Trying to learn around here, even though I fight it…

Matt