LIFE, IN ROAD SIGNS.

We don’t really understand this, but it’s true that every day is an adventure –sometimes great, sometimes horrible.

One year ago, I was out dancing with my friend Sarah in Washington, D.C. and she felt a lump on her neck and shortly after she was diagnosed with cancer. In one night, her life experience was shaken. We were out dancing and four months later she was receiving chemo treatments in a hospital bed.

And two years ago, I entered a gym in Izmir, Turkey to replenish my body and the manager that I talked to for ten minutes about the price of my membership ended up being my boyfriend for the next year and a half, and I loved him, deeply. I entered the gym to go running on treadmills, but I left believing that there are people who exist in the world who we can trust with every part of our soul and who can believe our flaws are our greatest assets.

And last night I fell asleep in New York, assuming that the sun would rise today and assuming that my heart would continue beating. Now I’m awake and alive, but I don’t know what lies ahead.  

There are ways that the world reminds us of how human we are and the limits of our control: natural disasters, man-made disasters, birth, dreams, the inexplicable force of love, and of course, based on the privilege of what and where and who we are born into many of us feel varying degrees of all of those things. Sometimes I wish we had street signs to show us the magnitude of existence the same way they show us directions, like stop signs that said “STOP & BREATH” or green lights that indicated it was safe to choose another path or one way signs with a disclaimer that we couldn’t really turn back or warning signs that something big and life changing is ahead. Maybe then we could begin to understand that every day really is an adventure.

Now Sarah is in remission. I would like to publicly acknowledge that watching her go through cancer was the single most inspiring journey to witness in my life to date. Instead of letting her illness consume her existence, she decided to let her existence consume her illness and spent the months of treatment living life as it should be lived – knowing that every moment was precious, delicate, and beautiful. She is one of the strongest people I know.

And, my relationship ended, because it had to, because we were far away in so many ways, and because sometimes saying good bye is the only way we can begin to live.

And today my new adventure begins, as it will tomorrow, and until the end of time, and in my head I’m just following the sign that says, “DO NOT PASS”, because I don’t want to a single moment to go by unlived.