Waves (Part One)

In a previous post (linked HERE), I wrote about a special part of my childhood summers -- playing in the waves on the beach near my grandparents' house on Long Island. I loved the energy and excitement of those waves despite that they sometimes got so big that they scared me. Often, I stood on the edge of the water before or after I dove in. I would plant my feet in the sand and watch as the waves crashed onto shore and then receded back into the ocean.

When a wave swept up onto the sand, it wrapped around my ankles. Usually I could stand steady as the water climbed past me. Yet when the wave receded and wrapped around my ankles in the other direction, my feet couldn't help but sink deeper into the sand. It often seemed like the wave was more powerful on its way back out to the sea than on its way in. 

For months I have seen most of the waves of this cancer journey before they hit me, although perhaps not long before contact. Surgery, pathology reports, chemo, allergy tests, desensitization. I prepared for each, took one day at a time, and tried to stay strong on my feet. Now that all of that is behind me, I feel like the wave of this journey is receding. And it's way stronger than I anticipated it would be. In fact, maybe I never realized that it would recede at all; maybe I made the mistake of thinking it would just disappear. But waves don't disappear. Which is lucky. Because if they did, then there'd be no ocean.

To be continued...