SEPTEMBER 20, 2022 – Soon after I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma last January, I started regular online sessions with an excellent therapist. In today’s session I described recent anxieties: e.g. What if Wednesday brings such severe conditions that piloting the boat to the landing two miles away turns unduly treacherous? What if the new medicine I’ve been prescribed—protection against bacterial pneumonia—produces side effects mentioned by the pharmacist and in the accompanying literature? (Example: “Can cause diarrhea, nausea, and throwing up (emphasis added—not “vomiting,” but more crudely, “throwing up”!)). How will I combat late fall, winter blues when I’m still isolated from the outside world?
By bedtime—after reading a half hour’s worth of Genghis Kahn and the Making of the Modern World—I was in a state of mild mental turmoil. (I’ll acknowledge that having invited the Mongol leader to gallop through the cabin at such a late hour wasn’t much of a sedative.)
When I described all of this to my therapist, he cut me some slack. He reminded me that I’d just completed—successfully—an endurance test requiring extreme focus. Now that I’d crossed a finish line of sorts, I have new space to “worry about other stuff.” It’s only natural, he observed, and I shouldn’t be anxious about . . . being anxious. He suggested deep breathing and meditation but that I should have confidence in things working out—as completion of my metaphorical marathon demonstrated so well.
Sure enough. The medicine, which looked and tasted like phosphorescent yellow, latex paint, went down just fine. And at 5:00 p.m. I received a call from Jeff Ramos, owner of the Hayward Marine, who was scheduled to pick up our boat from the public landing tomorrow morning at 11:00. He had an opening at 6:00 this evening and wondered if I’d prefer that time. I couldn’t believe my ears. I looked out at the lake and saw only lazy, innocent ripples. The sun shone happily, and I realized that instead of re-enacting Erik the Red’s prow-busting exploits across the open waters of an angry sea between Norway and Iceland, I’d be cruising like an inland, belle-weather yachtsman out for a joy ride dodging loons, not whitecaps.
At precisely 6:00, I arrived at the landing and followed Jeff’s directions: “A little this way, now that way. Stay in gear and trim your motor some. Good! Now give it a touch of power—perfect! Trim some more; power up just a bit more, and trim all the way. You’re good!” Jeff clipped on the cable and cranked. Soon, truck, trailer, and boat were high and dry. And so was I.
If I’d missed out on a “high seas, Viking experience,” I wasn’t the least bit sad or sorry. What I learned today is this: Power down on anxiety over the “what-ifs,” and power up on the “what can be” enjoyed in a life well lived with lucky breaks. And be grateful for a good therapist.
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© 2022 by Eric Nilsson
1 Comment
Way to go !!!!
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