Cody Updates by Mom

Today is an odd day for me.  I have had a 48 hour rollercoaster ride of emotions that included tears, yelling, laughing and a myriad of other feelings as well.  So…  After I have just flipped out on my “rock” due to a fork issue I have had some pretty interesting thoughts about this thing we call life.

Life:

My parents gave it to me. Even though they did it on a little bit of a “mutant” side they still were responsible for me being here.  Sorry all!  They raised me in a land of frost, frizzle and water.  A land where you could complain about the weather all year round but still see beauty in the reality of nature. A place that I call home and I would never replace with anything else.

Strength:

People say that I have been strong. I do not feel that I am.  I have had amazing doctors that gave me a path of healing that I could follow. It ended up being about the percentages of survival that helped me determine my path. I was never stronger than anyone else. I have a friend that does not have a favorable prognosis but she still fights the fight and strives to live. She is strong. My brother is strong as he navigates a life without perfect sight. He is strong.  My mom is strong as she strives to find a way to “catch” cancer so she doesn’t die of Alzheimer’s.  She, yep, she is strong.

Brave:

Some think that I am brave because I chose to remove my stomach instead of getting an incurable cancer.  I am not brave. I was given a reality that I thought I could navigate that would allow me to still be here for my family. Bravery, to me, is my friend that is having the “millionth” surgery to try to have a life without pain.  Brave is that person that continues to go on every single day when they feel that they cannot. I see bravery every day in those that transcend their internal dialogue of hatred of themselves and get up every morning and greet the day. That is brave.

Success:

I used to think that success was about money or a title. I have had a significant amount of situations recently that have reminded me about what true success means. True success is that, even though I “lost it” tonight about something completely unimportant, I still saw my error and said that I was sorry.  Success is that each one of my kids are good people.  They care and they are amazing.  They are imperfectly perfect and the love that I have for them is beyond what I thought could be in my heart. I thought that I wanted a “career” that I could have a legacy and “BE SOMETHING”. Nope. I now desire a job that will give me the means to have a life that IS SOMETHING. In the end the priority list starts with family, family, family, friends, me, life, enjoyment and then at the end a good job that allows me to be me.  Well, in the end, I am me and they do not have a choice but to allow it. 🙂  Really, just ask them.  The me in me is busting at the seams and there is no stopping the reality of me.

Life, again:

In the end, my thinking is that this thing we call life, is just that, life.  We experience it every day.  We sometimes forget to live it while we are figuring it out. We seem to think that others have a better life than us because of fame, money, job, friends, and what ever else you can put in. We tend to compare our lives instead of living them.  We tend to look to the future instead of living for today. Life is life and it is the only life we have. How do I remind myself on a daily basis that my life is worth living.

This week has been an emotional week and it all exploded about a fork but was solved with a hug and an apology. Life is a crazy rollercoaster of the things that we love and make us crazy.

It is odd to sit and write as my other half is in the music studio playing Primus as loud as possible. Thank you to those crazy artists that allow us to see that life doesn’t need to be logical. Life can be just what it is, it is life.