After a late night epiphany I've really decided that what has been deemed courage, strength or whatever people think I'm awesome for during all of this cancer stuff I really feel comes down to my reactions to situations and my fight or flight response. In Reba terms fight or flight is described as how an animal reacts when faced with threats or how a human reacts when put into a tight situation.
I hear all sorts of comments from people I know and people I don't know that when I say I have cancer I get the response "I just couldn't go through what you are." I smile and say thanks but really in my head I am typically screaming "WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE A CHOICE YOU DO WHATEVER IT IS!" Maybe not always that loud but it has crossed my mind numerous times. Just like when someone complements me on my hair saying "I love your hair but I could never have mine that short it just wouldn't look right" again I smile and say thank you but the whole time in my head I am again screaming "You wear the hair that you are given and it's not an option!" Both I have now realized are just my fight reaction I'm not going to sulk in the fact that I have to deal with this and you can't just go hide from cancer or the chemo response so I get to just deal with it.
I really struck this overall epiphany when talking to my friend online last night. We were discussing phobias and I explained on how much I hate snakes and I'm not fond of spiders but I have dealt with them. I started thinking over the times I had to "fight" spiders in front of my campers or students. I truly realized that I've fought and had to be brave and put on my big girl panties and did what needed to be done. Last year while teaching I was administrating a test and a spider literally out of no where started dropping from the ceiling tile on it's web towards the desk I was at, a few students saw it but I knew exactly what I had to do, so as classy as possible I took of my shoe and smacked it and it was done. I had to protect my kids, keep them calm and get rid of the issue. Just like one day a roach just appeared and instead of freaking out or making my teacher do it, again I manned up killed and got rid of it. I was able to show my students that I was going to protect, but also there wasn't much that could make me run away. It's what those kids needed and as I've realized recently it's what I needed because honestly without learning the lessons I did last spring I feel the last 9ish months would have been a lot harder and to that I thank them. It's sometimes how amazing God is when letting life fall into place and setting things up before hand to give us what we need to get through.I could really go on about it all but trust me, you may think you can't do something but really you will never know what you are capable of until you are put to the test.
Happy Mardi Gras Everybody! Get excited for a fun weekend recap sometime next week!
Rebecca
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