We have all had things happen that changed our lives for better or worse.  Birth of a child, death of a loved one, landing that perfect job, moving to a new home, etc.  Maybe you didn’t actually FEEL like your life was shifting, but it was.

I have felt it several times starting with my parents getting divorced in the late 1980’s, then later after moving to Florida, losing a job I thought I would have forever, and most recently after being diagnosed with cancer.  For each of these events, I felt like my life had changed in a significant way.

It took a few weeks after the cancer diagnosis for the shift to be felt.  And I still remember it like it was yesterday.

It was after surgery and after the devastating news that the cancer had spread meaning I would need to undergo chemotherapy and radiation.

I dropped the dog off at daycare on a sunny Saturday morning so I could do some work before starting treatment.  Work.  On a Saturday morning.  When the sun was shining and the sky was so blue it made your eyes hurt.

I was driving home and it was like a lightning bolt hit me – what if THIS was the thing.  What if THIS, cancer, would be the thing that rendered me unable to do all those things I had been planning to do? What if THIS would be the end of life as I knew it?  And there will be that thing for all of us.  An illness or accident or just plain old age.

And what was I doing?  Working on a Saturday morning at a job I don’t even like all that much.  A job I have never liked, one I had always planned on be “temporary”.  It’s been almost 30 years,so much for temporary.

It made me sad (and a bit angry) to realize I spent my entire life doing something I hated in the hopes that I would eventually find something else that I enjoyed.  All those yesterdays and all those dreams and plans meant nothing.  My life had already been defined, every single day.

“A life has to move, or it stagnates.  It is no good telling yourself that one day you will wish you had never made that change; it is no good anticipating regrets.  Every tomorrow ought not to resemble every yesterday.” Beryl Markham in West with the Night

So perhaps this life shift I felt BEFORE treatment is why AFTER treatment I pushed myself so hard and why I am struggling to keep doing the job I hate.  Because I know that one thing is out there.  It is real and it could come back at any moment.

After you finish cancer treatment, no one helps you get back to your life.  You finish, ring the bell, and you are off.  You’re told to not think about cancer and go about your life.  Other people tell you how grateful you should feel to have survived intact.  And I do feel incredibly fortunate and grateful.  But also unsettled.

No one tells you that life will feel the same but different.  There is no going back to exactly how it was before.  My perspective shifted that day, too.  It’s just hard to explain.

But there is a sort of upside.  After I felt that shift, I thought back to all the things I have accomplished over the years.  I was so very glad I wrote down a bucket list all those years ago and the shorter bucket list the year I turned 50.  I was also glad I had tried – and failed – some things.  Failure is not an easy thing to accept but it sure beats never trying.  Living life in a “safe zone” is boring.

So when you feel a life shift, pay attention.  What is it trying to tell you?

“I don’t regret anything I’ve ever done in my life, any choice that I’ve made.  But I’m consumed with regret for the things I didn’t do, the choices I didn’t make, the things I didn’t say.  We spend so much time being afraid of failure, afraid of rejection.  But regret is the thing we should fear the most.  Failure is an answer.  Rejection is an answer.  Regret is an eternal question you will never have the answer to. “What if”…”If only”…”I wonder what would have”…   You will never, never know, and it will haunt you for the rest of your days.”  Trevor Noah in Born a Crime