This week, I celebrated the four year anniversary of my excision. I’ve reached a pretty big milestone in terms of being able to be cautiously optimistic that perhaps my pink melanoma won’t return. At least it isn’t lurking in another patch of skin, although it could be sitting dormant in my cells.
I think about where I was in my life when my Loki made its appearance. And then I think about where I am now. For the few years prior to the word melanoma becoming a part of my personal lexicon, I wasn’t happy. I had stopped traveling. I had stopped going to concerts. I had stopped taking delight in the silly, random, everyday experiences. I stopped laughing so much. I stopped being…well…fun. I became too serious. I was too focused on what wasn’t going well. I stopped being grateful for all of the opportunities I had. I wasn’t in servitude. I wasn’t desperately poor. I wasn’t given only one option on how to live my life. But I was acting like I was locked into this mundane and boring and unsatisfying life I had somehow constructed.
Although I made the decision to move to Austin for a new job opportunity, got a new apartment, then a new condo… all of those steps were just baby steps in the right direction. The smack in the face that was my diagnosis was really what I apparently needed to take a hard look at what I was doing and more importantly, what I wasn’t doing. At the risk of sounding like a self-help book, I came to the realization that I really was responsible for my own happiness. No one else on the planet is as fundamentally invested in my happiness as me, right? So why was I expecting everyone and everything but me to be responsible for making me happy?
So I started deliberately adding things like travel, and live music, and all of the other things that I know make me a happier person. It also helps remind me that I am responsible for how my life goes and if I’m not happy about it, I can make changes. I get that not everyone in the world has that capability, but I do and I was squandering that opportunity.
So the excision anniversary is a reminder for me to see how far I’ve come in this experiment. I think despite the challenges and setbacks (particularly in this not-so-great year for me), I’m doing a much better job of things than I was doing four years ago.