Chapter 20: Life is a Vacation
Sunday, February 23rd, 2020: Lifetime Fitness, Saint Paul, MN
Two days ago, I had a post-op doctor’s appointment. Fortunately, my incision (well-hidden by my hair, great job neurosurgery team!) is healing well. It will likely be completely healed right in time for the neurosurgery team to cut a new hole in my head in about 2-3 weeks. Lovely.
My brain cancer is a type of glioma which is usually treated by surgical resection. At this point, I have only had a biopsy. We still don’t know exactly what grade of tumor I have. The grade of brain tumor determines the treatment course. To determine this, there is a about a 99% chance I will need another brain surgery in a few weeks to scoop out more tumor, run more tests, and figure out if I need chemotherapy and radiation.
The strangest part about all of this is that I feel completely normal. I am incredibly fortunate to have no physical limitations (apart from an annoying 10-pound weight limit. I’m antsy to get back to weight lifting but I guess that’ll have to wait) and my brain is thinking normally. I feel no different today than I did playing with the elephants in Thailand a few weeks ago. I know; however, I will soon need another surgery and will have to go through this process of recovery once again. I am mentally preparing to go back to snail-paced days in the not-too-distant future. But, for now, I’m living each day as the best day of my life and it is fabulous.
Today, I went to Lifetime Fitness. This is a fantastic gym and I recommend it to everyone. Since I can’t lift weights and yoga is still off limits, I was back on the dreaded but wonderful StairMaster. I climbed for 60 minutes. I climbed 250 flights of stairs. This isn’t the fastest I’ve ever gone (I once challenged myself to climb >300 flights in 60 minutes which was miserably awesome) but I was damn proud of myself. So, I bought myself 4 post-workout smoothies. Only kidding :)
Monday, February 24th, 2020: Reading a new book in Saint Paul, MN
Today, I wake up and see a beautiful sunrise. It’s supposedly going to hit 40F degrees today. This is like a tropical vacation in February in Minnesota. Hooray! I have nothing to complain about. I have the day off of work, a fridge full of delicious food, a furry dog ready to snuggle, and a new book to keep me company.
I recently bought “Advice on Dying and Living a Better Life” by the one and only, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. A friend saw this book on my bookshelf and rolled her eyes at me; “Why would you buy such a depressing book?!” she asked. I just smiled and laughed a little. To me, nothing about this book looked depressing. It looked absolutely fascinating. The summary on the back of the book says the following:
“The Dalai Lama offers new inspiration on a subject that we, in the West, have long ignored to our detriment. It is only by taming our minds and fully facing the end of our lives, that we can fully live in the present moment.”
Hell yes. Nailed it again. How true is that?! Let’s stop ignoring the inevitable and start loving every little bit of our boring, stressful, wonderful, incredible lives.
I started reading this book today and already finished half of it. I can’t stop. It’s wonderful and eye-opening. In it, the Dalai Lama compares our lives to a “brief span as a tourist on this planet.” The full quote is below:
“The maximum duration of a human life is [around] one hundred years, which, compared to the life of the planet, is very short. This brief existence should be used in such a way that it does not create pain for others. It should be committed not to destructive work but to more constructive activities…In this way, our brief span as a tourist on this planet will be meaningful. If a tourist visits a certain place for a short period and creates more trouble, that is silly. But if as a tourist you make others happy during this short period, that is wise.”
Ahhh. He is so smart it’s scary. This idea speaks to me. Imagine your last trip. Wherever you went, did you go to create trouble? Probably not. Did you go to make others happy? I interpret “others” in this quote as also including yourself because, in Buddhist philosophy, self-happiness is very important and ultimately, one of the goals of living. Did you travel to make yourself happy? I imagine so.
Why then, shouldn’t we think of our life on Earth as one exciting, somewhat long trip? We are tourists on this Earth. Whatever your religious or non-religious beliefs are doesn’t really matter or change the fact that we can all likely agree our time on Earth is not infinite. We are visitors. We are tourists taking a hundred-year, or in my case, perhaps a forty-year (if I’m lucky) trip on this fantastic planet. We should respect the Earth. We should be here to make ourselves and others happy, not to create trouble.
Random reflection of the day: You, me, all of us are tourists on this planet. Live your life like you’re on the greatest vacation of all time. There’s no reason to be sad on vacation. Use your time to make yourself, and others, happy.
Fondly,
Courtney
© CB2020