Happy New Year, 2024

Each year, I spend some time looking back, not to castigate myself for failures, but to consider what has happened and to look forward. As LM Montgomery wrote in Anne of Green Gables (I’m paraphrasing), each hour, each day, each year starts fresh, with no mistakes in it. This annual exercise helps me focus on the year ahead by reminding me what went well and what didn’t. While much of what I’ve written in the past is included below, you can read more in my posts from New Years Day in past years: 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022. 

One way many people celebrate the New Year is to set intentions or resolutions for the year. Pretty sure one of the only entities that benefits from this practice are the gyms who collect lots and lots of memberships in January and then don’t have to provide services since many don’t follow through. I read somewhere a statistic about how few people actually follow through on New Year’s resolutions and it was abysmal. 

I’ve never really understood the resolution thing at the first of January. Why then? It just didn’t make a lot of sense to me. What I’ve done for the past few years is to pick a word for the year and that has been a rewarding and often unexpectedly illuminating experience.

My word for 2018 was JOY and that reminded me to find the joy in the every day moments, to look for joy in the moments that did not seem joyful.  I meditated on that word for 2018 and found that if I truly looked for joy, I found it.  I found joy even during the most difficult days.  I read once that what is inside will spill out, so if you are an angry person, when tested anger will come out; that if you are joyful and hopeful, when you are stressed, that’s what will spill out.  I’m still very angry about MBC and have spent much of December in a funk, but I’m working on filling up on good things so that’s what comes out.

For 2019, my word was EMBRACE.   Those of you who know me and my midwestern bubble, all of the embracing and touching expected down in Miami was (and is) such a stretch for me! I’ve gotten used to it so much that when I’m out of Miami, I lean in for the kiss or hug as a habit now. Made for some awkward exchanges when I was in San Antonio for the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS) in 2019, especially with some researchers from other countries, but also engendered some laughs. When we travel to Washington DC to advocate for key issues on Capitol Hill, our favorite stop is the Miami Congressperson’s office because they always have Cuban coffee available!

For 2020, my word was SACRED. Boy did I not know what I was getting myself into!! Only a few months into 2020, we learned about COVID-19 and the closures began. March came and we became immersed in virtual learning, which continued far longer than anyone anticipated. I watched as conference after conference I had intended to attend in 2020 was canceled or moved online. I watched friends die from afar, cursing those missed moments with them. Elliot began working from home and initially was literally in the middle of the house and in the middle of the chaos created by two very active little boys. We spent a LOT of time together as a family. Our living room couches and chairs became a parkour playground for the boys and every Zoom call I took had their heads bouncing the in the background. ZOOM!! I had never really heard of zoom before the pandemic and now it’s hard to remember what life was life before zoom. The summer came and went and school started again, online. When October came and the possibility of the kiddos going back to in person school arose, we decided that would be best for them. It was wonderful for them to have that element of normalcy again. But the biggest gain I saw in 2020 was how close my boys have gotten and how much sacred family time we’ve had.

For 2021, my word was GRATITUDE. As the pandemic continued and so much in the world felt chaotic, the time I spent focused on being grateful for what we have helped. We learned to balance risk and focus on what we CAN do rather than what we can’t. The boys adjusted back to school, with a few times of quarantine, and Elliot continued to work from home most of the time. We traveled a little more in 2021 and I got to see more people from other places. Hugs became even more significant and we dealt with progression of the cancer in my body and a medication change. 2021 wasn’t easy and we learned a little more about our resilience and who we can count on.  Learning to be grateful for all of it, the good and the bad was an unexpected lesson and one I carry forward.

For 2022, my word was PERSISTENCE. Thanks to my dear friend, Warrior Megsie for the very appropriate gift of a bracelet with that very word inside! As the new year dawned, we had no idea how much persistence would be required for 2022. Progression in January meant that the cancer escaped my bones and spread to my liver and back into IV chemo I went. Not only did the pandemic continue with even fewer protections for those of us with a compromised immune system, but we moved from Miami to Orlando at the end of that IV chemo treatment schedule and we had to reassemble our lives and my medical teams. And then came sepsis in the middle of a hurricane and a long slow recovery. I wasn’t sad to leave 2022 behind along with all of the necessary persistence it required just to get through it.

At the very end of 2022, we learned of the death of my dear friend, Silke Pfleuger, from Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC). We lose people all the time in the MBC Community and sometimes I think I’m doing better at this grief thing. And then someone else dies and my heart is ripped asunder yet again. My word for 2023, in her honor, was ADVENTURE. I started the year with a heavy heart and the losses piled up throughout the year. In the midst of carrying the grief and loss, I learned to embrace the possibilities around me, to say yes to those things that were challenging, and to forge ahead undaunted. Throughout the year, I felt Silke and others, whispering in my ear and reminding me to remember them as they’d lived, to take the grief and the worry and the angst and put that towards advocacy, to stare undeterred into the abyss. 2023 was a lot and included another progression and big decisions. I’ll find out this month if the clinical trial I chose to enter is working amidst some really busy weeks out of town for treatment.

I ran out of spoons in December. I ran out of energy. I ran out of desire. I just, ran out as the year wound down. After the craziness of being in San Antonio for a week at the beginning of the month, I came home and went right into treatment and so many planned activities (note to self, plan and adjust the load for next December). And so, I took care of myself. I took a break from a lot of things. As I tried to think about 2024 and do my usual taking stock and thinking about my word, I got stuck, over and over. I’ve never been one to give up, I allow myself some time for wallowing and then I get back to work — but this year was different somehow. It is getting harder and harder to will myself into productivity, into usefulness, into activity; the longer I live with MBC, the more friends I watch wither and die, the more lines of treatment, the more decisions and agonizing valleys I weather, the harder it is to believe that anything will be different because of my efforts.

I can’t say that these feelings of heaviness, of futility, of exhaustion are totally gone, but I am starting to see some glimmers, to feel the utility of continuing to strive for change. Perhaps I am traveling out of this valley I found myself in as 2023 wound down, as we learned of even more losses in the MBC community. It is difficult to explain how much each loss takes and losing three local friends to MBC, women who had felt like actual sisters, were blows I’ll not quickly recover from — Amanda Raffenaud, Daniela Martinez, and Elizabeth (Beth) Kulow have taken large pieces of my heart with them and I’ll carry them with me into 2024.

My word for 2024 is BEAUTY. In 2024, I intend to watch for glimmers of beauty in myself, in others, in the world around us, in this terrible awful no-good disease. Unlike last year, I don’t have a specific source for this focus, just that the word kept coming up over and over. And we all need something good, something pure, something to marvel at. I hope to share some of that marveling with all of you.

Picking a word of the year is always a little different as I navigate this living while dying thing. Different words come to me and then I see them everywhere as I begin thinking about choosing one. I firmly believe that God brings to me what I need to be focusing on and He uses whichever word He brings me in ways I don’t anticipate. Whatever it is, I know that it will be an entertaining experience that will stretch me beyond my wildest dreams!!

So long 2023 and hello 2024 — and fuck MBC; can’t say anything good about it.