INSIGHT INTO WHY LIVE IN THE MOMENT

 How are you feeling?  That’s what everyone asks.

‘How are you ‘feeling’ differs from ‘how are you’ in this subtle way:  Whereas—how are you feeling—implies something has been wrong—how are you—on it’s own—is commonly considered a polite way to convey a friendly interest in the current state of another person’s life.

No one has asked me ‘What’s up?’ (conveying interest in what a person has been doing) in years.

Why not?  Because everyone who cares about me knows full well that, over these last three years, I’ve been thoroughly engaged in a fight for survival, and though I have given this supreme challenge my best shot, repeatedly, ‘stage four’ indicates that my winning streak has turned a corner where malignant tumors, awaiting silently to attack my body’s healthy cells, will eventually overcome my best efforts to withstand poisonous infusions of chemo, which, in addition to killing unwelcome tumor cells, attack my body’s healthy cells until so much of me succumbs to this powerful medication that my circulatory system breaks down, indicative of the fact that chemo will prove to be every bit as dangerous to my blood cells as the tumors, themselves.  And once chemo ends, the tumors will win.

So whenever I’m combatting both cancer and chemo, simultaneously, how do I answer when asked—how are you feeling?  I say—I’m feeling happy to see you, and as my heartfelt response is 100% true, smiles appear, based in the natural emergence of positive attitudes, which are often contagious, all around.

This post spotlights insight into how best to live in the moment—most especially when the moment is peopled with loved ones and pretty much pain-free.

As I’m not combatting the weakening effects of chemo while we’re enjoying these balmy resort weeks with our family, I feel very tired but have very little physical discomfort.  And as the contagious nature of my smile is always ready to emerge whenever a loved one’s eyes meet mine, we are all enjoying as many positive moments as we can stuff into these five weeks so as to carry home as many positive memories of family togetherness as can be stored and then retrieved whenever buoying our spirits with inner joy seems in short supply, down the road.

                Enjoying Ray’s 11th birthday party

Annie