Spanish Peaks Living
Now for a discussion of mortality…
When you suddenly stare the possibility of cancer squarely in the face, it changes you. No big surprise, everybody dies, but it may be you this time.
Everything looks different. Those commercials for losing weight or cures for what seem like silly, non-threatening illnesses are just plain ridiculous. The worries of just about anybody else in the world seem so trivial. The subjects others write about seem trite and silly.
I pride myself in being realistic about my own death. I know none of us get out of this alive, and I have tried to get more comfortable with that fact. But when it becomes more real. When you look down at your body and seriously think about from dust to dust. When you stare over the abyss of nothingness, that’s enough to make just about anyone uncomfortable.
“What things would I give away? Would I want an obituary in the newspaper? How would my husband and dog handle it? (I’m pretty sure my cat would barely notice…) Should I tell friends and family now or wait? Who should I tell? People from my past? Who even cares?
Yes, I have had a couple close calls with death in my 61 years, but at the time I was either unconscious (bike accident, traumatic brain injury) or had absolutely no control over the situation (plane malfunction). In the plane over Tokyo Bay, my life did flash before me, but I was only 20. I didn’t have a lot to flash. I remember looking around myself and thinking, “Gee, I’m going to die with all these people I don’t even know.”
In the week or so after my cat scan and before I heard my lung nodules are not too scary, my life also flashed before me, but in slow motion. My conclusion is that I have led a difficult life, partially because of the choices I have made. I chose not to marry and have kids. I’ve spent most of my life on my own terms. It took a midlife crisis (at 49) for me to decide to try something different, trusting others.
All of the best experiences in my life have flown from that change, marriage to a loyal, loving partner, more security than I’ve ever known, a great puppy and a new rural lifestyle in an amazing solar home. I want more of these experiences before I die..
My hat is off to all cancer survivors more so than ever before. To my Mom and Jan and all of you who have stared a bad diagnosis, surgery, and death in the face and survived the trauma of it all. This is something you never forget. This is life.
Boomers & the Reality of Mortality
OK, for all of you young oldsters out there who have decided you will be living forever, this is fair warning.
I was recently diagnosed with COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), and no, I never smoked cigarettes! This is probably the result of living in dirty city air for 60+ years, and having what seemed like constant bronchitis since age 25. I also just moved to a home at 7,000 feet elevation. All of these factors caused shortness of breath and a request for a chest x-ray. Possible lung nodules were found leading to a cat scan this past Monday. As a non-smoking 61 year-old, I did not expect any problem. Instead my cat scan found a number of “nodules” in my lungs.
Overall, the likelihood that a lung nodule is cancer is 40 percent, but the risk of a lung nodule being cancerous varies considerably depending on several things like the size of them, whether you smoke, your occupation, shape of nodules and their rate of growth. Lung nodules — small masses of tissue in the lung — are quite common. They appear as round, white shadows on a chest X-ray or computerized tomography (CT) scan, and are often caused by previous infections.
Think it can’t happen to you?
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, with 1.8 million new cases diagnosed yearly. In the United States, lung cancer is the most fatal cancer in women, surpassing breast cancer in 1987 as the leading cause of cancer-related deaths. It is also the most fatal cancer in men, killing more men than prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer, and colon cancer combined. Lung cancer in never-smokers is the sixth leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States.
Overall, 27 percent of cancer deaths in the U.S. are due to lung cancer.
Who Gets Lung Cancer?
The average age for lung cancer is 70, and 80 percent of people who develop lung cancer have smoked, but lung cancer occurs in women and lung cancer occurs in non-smokers. While lung cancer in men who have smoked is decreasing, lung cancer in non-smokers is increasing.
It’s estimated that 20 percent of women who develop lung cancer in the U.S. have never smoked, and that number increases to 50 percent worldwide. Lung cancer also occurs in young adults – It’s estimated that 13.4 percent of lung cancers occur in adults under the age of 40. While this number may seem small, when compared to the incidence of lung cancer overall, it is not.
In summary, if you haven’t had a lung x-ray in years, get one. My nodules are small and so we have decided to go with a wait and see plan, with cat scans every few months. It’s only a problem if they start to grow.
Now I live in a rural Colorado county with nice clean air, but all those years of living in cities must be catching up with me… How about you?
Life in the Colorado outback…
As the sun rises each day over the Spanish Peaks…
the birds gather out on our feeder to have a quick bird seed meal and a drink, if the water isn’t frozen.
Did you ever notice?
“The world is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” -YEATS
“There’s something beautiful about quiet and peace. There’s something beautiful about not trying to do anything, but simply, in some way, your heart joining the whole world. There’s a time in life when we should be running around doing things. We should go out dancing; there’s a time in life for that. There’s a time in life for building something up in this world, a family, an institution, a business, a creative life; there’s a time for that.
There’s also a time for becoming quiet, a time for slow conversations with people that we love, and a time for reflecting on all the things that we’ve seen in many years of living. When the time for those things comes, it’s beautiful. It’s not a terrible thing, it’s sweet. There’s also a time for letting go of our life, not “Damn, somebody’s snatching this away from me,” but “Yes, it’s beautiful to exhale after you inhale.” At the right time, when the chest is full, breathe out and let go.” – Norman Fischer, “Suffering Opens the Real Path”
Falling In Love at 49
To celebrate the 12th anniversary of the day Mike and I met, I decided to run this popular post from my now defuncted “Midlife Crisis Queen” blog. This is one of the first posts I wrote after starting a blog in 2007:
“Love is lovelier, the second time around. Just as wonderful, with both feet on the ground…” — Sammy Cahn
And so it is. Falling in love later can be quite the challenge, but when it does happen, it feels just like a miracle. To me it felt like winning the lottery, and in a way it was! When I think back to all the reasons why Mike and I should not have met, it boggles my mind that we did. Although we only lived ten miles apart, without the Internet we most certainly wouldn’t have met.
Our backgrounds were very different, and we shared no social networks. I was also getting plenty gun shy from meeting new men online. The men kept vaporizing after our first date.Yes, I was beginning to feel mighty hopeless.
Then there was the fact that we didn’t really match up on paper. I came from a background with an emphasis on academics, and Mike went to the Navy instead of college. His specialty is mechanics and electronics, mine is counseling, research and writing, but what we had in common turned out to be much more important!
Mike and I felt an immediate camaraderie of spirit, which I have never found in another human being, a feeling we had both been seeking forever, but had somehow missed until that day.
From the very beginning our souls spoke to each other in a unique and unusual way, a spontaneous familiarity, a synchronicity of body, mind and heart. And even more amazing, we both realized and appreciated that fact immediately. No backing away from it, no denying it. We both decided to trust our inner wisdom and simply go with it.
We spoke for ten hours on our first date, and then took a short trip together less than two weeks later. Reminds me of that great line at the end of one of my favorite romantic comedies:
“When you finally meet the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, you want the rest of your life to begin as soon as possible!” – ‘When Harry Met Sally.’
We both had been through so much, and so we recognized immediately when something unique and wonderful fell into our laps. I also learned about a key component of compatibility that I had never thought about before. Besides the usual requirements, the deal breakers, etc., I learned how important it is that your partner process information at the same rate. Mike and I think at the same rate, and often come to the same conclusions simultaneously. This is quite a gift in a long term relationship!
My own theory of love and attraction came through loud and clear when I first met Mike, that is you get what you are in love. As much as you have worked on developing into your best self, that is the kind of person you will attract to yourself.
So keep working on self-love and self-respect, feel daily gratitude for the life you now have, and read good blogs and books. Why not try mine? How to believe in love again.
Never give up on love if that’s what you want!
My favorite poet Marge Piercy said it best:
“Love is plunging into darkness toward a place that may exist.”
Want to know more about finding love later in life? Check out my book: How to Believe In Love Again: Opening to Forgiveness, Trust, and Your Own Inner Wisdom.
Please feel free to contact me directly to discuss any of these challenges, and to order your own signed copies of any of my books! Cheers, Laura Lee (email: MidlifeCrisisQueen@gmail.com)
The human race always moves towards FREEDOM
I saw an interesting exchange of ideas on Meet the Press this past Sunday. One speaker I found most outstanding was Isabel Wilkerson, the author of “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration.”
What a wise, informative, and well-spoken woman! I found this discussion interesting on a lot of different levels, but I could personally relate to it in terms of our own recent ‘migration’ out of the city…
Another part of the conversation I enjoyed was with the author of 
Adventures of the NEW??? Old Farts 