14/11/2021
This is us…. This is us post cancer.
This is us as a family who have learnt so much, been through so much and who now get to make choices from the lessons that have been thrown our way.
Because the funny thing is that life carries on (oh how grateful I am to be able to say that, and although it doesn’t consume my thoughts as perhaps it used to when I was in the dark days of my fight against cancer, I do get to live life a little differently now, with new perspectives, new realities and more reflections.)
Is life perfect? Of course not. Are we getting it right? No, not yet. Do I eat enough vegetables 🤭? I’ve come a long way but I still have many days where I don’t touch anything green.
Am I at peace? Well…. I think that’s a lifelong journey, but at least it’s a journey that I am on, where as before I was just going from day to day, surviving, not coping, pretending that I was…. Perhaps not even aware of how badly I wasn’t coping.
So what have I learnt? Well, I think these last (almost 2) years have taught me that it’s ok not to have all the answers. It’s taught me that I am enough. It’s taught me how very loved I am. Its taught me that it’s ok if I don’t eat my quota of broccoli every day, cause tomorrow is a new day and we get to try again. It’s taught me that it’s ok to have some days when I’m not ok. It’s taught me to trust more, to let go more and to ‘be’ more.
And most of all, it’s taught me that we get to choose, and that it’s ok, to be the person who we truly are. The person that does things because it makes us happy, does things because it speaks to our soul, not because we think it’s expected of us.
Not the person our parents expected us to be, not the person society thinks we should be, not even the person we ‘think’ we should be based on a million different things.
My cancer journey is certainly not done but thankfully much of it is behind me.
I still go for quarterly checks, I’m in full menopause so the hot flushes are spectacular, my bones have taken a knock from the drugs so some days I creak more than I should. My brain is fuzzy, so very fuzzy but I’m slowly putting systems in place and Gav is amazing at closing the fridge door behind me when I’ve left it open, and my colleagues bear with me when I can’t think of simple words to complete a sentence. I had a headache the other day and wondered if the cancer had spread to my brain.
But I’m healthy. I’m strong. And I’m happy. I’m alive.
And so this brings me to what I’ll be sharing on this account going forward. And that’s our journey of trying to raise our kids in a way that they know that they are enough.
Kids who know how beautifully and wonderfully they’ve been made. Kids who embrace their uniqueness. Kids who know how to say no, who learn about putting up boundaries without having to wait until they’re 42 and need a life threatening illness to put things into perspective for them…. Kids who know what makes them happy.
I want to help change the status quo of how kids are educated. I want parents to know that there are options for how our kids learn, how they grow and how they experience childhood. THIS is my passion. This is what I believe in. This is what I want to spend my time on. These are the conversations I want to have.
Don’t get me wrong, we have not, by any means, found all the answers, we haven’t even found all the right questions, but we are taking brave steps. We’re embracing new things. It’s not easy and I doubt our journey weekly. But…. I believe in it and I believe in our children. I believe in the journey that has gotten us here and as crazy as it sounds I’m grateful for what cancer has done to our lives.
We currently unschool our kids. We believe in self directed education. We believe in embracing our kids uniqueness and not putting them through a system that was designed for a time that is so very different to our current reality. We understand that this is easier said than done. Trust me! We know!
So…. you’re welcome to hang around if you’re interested in following our journey…. A journey that started with me getting cancer and now continues because of so many of the lessons learned along the way.
A journey that shares our kids learning journey, a journey that will include reflections from me as this adventure unfolds. A journey that has my heart, that pushes me, sometimes breaks me, and most importantly a journey that makes my heart want to explode with excitement and promise for a better way.
📸: Desiree Dales Photography
