A Pickup at the Halfway House

Round 3 started yesterday, which means we're approaching the mid-point of treatment after tomorrow. I figured an update would be better now rather than on the tail end of CHOP that certainly did a namesake number to my energy last time through. But I had a fantastic week - frankly the best since well before surgery. I'm not talking just feeling normal but even better. Think Bradley Cooper in Limitless where his mind was clicking at an entirely different level of clarity and drive. I'll take more of that please. While this is great news and I was able to jam a full week of work in at the office, I didn't quite realize the impact this 180 would leave on my family as I scurried out of the house pretending to be an unstoppable Jeff Bezos (helps now that I'm bald to look the part). Going from extreme low to extreme high carries a bit more weight than I expected, and I made the mistake of hustling off to work for my own benefit. A close friend suggested that I consider balancing my good days at home rather than leave my family to only see the bad ones. Helpful words of wisdom to remember not just for the rest of treatment but beyond. As we approach the halfway house after the first 9 holes, I am drawn to the parallel of life since I'll be turning 40 on the other side of treatment. I wouldn't say I'm gearing up for a mid-life crisis just yet, but I'm certainly reflecting on so much more these days since I have all the time in the world to think (and remember popping Limitless pills). My favorite mid-life crisis character is Billy Crystal in City Slickers, who asks his best friend if he's ever had that feeling that "this is the best I'm ever gonna do, this is the best I'm ever gonna feel...and it ain't that great?" He makes his gloomy (yet humorous) outlook on life even more apparent when giving advice to students at his kids' school:

Value this time in your life kids, because this is the time in your life when you still have your choices, and it goes by so quickly. When you're a teenager you think you can do anything, and you do. Your twenties are a blur. Your thirties, you raise your family, you make a little money and you think to yourself, "What happened to my twenties?" Your forties, you grow a little pot belly you grow another chin. The music starts to get too loud and one of your old girlfriends from high school becomes a grandmother. Your fifties you have a minor surgery. You'll call it a procedure, but it's a surgery. Your sixties you have a major surgery, the music is still loud but it doesn't matter because you can't hear it anyway. Seventies, you and the wife retire to Fort Lauderdale, you start eating dinner at two, lunch around ten, breakfast the night before. And you spend most of your time wandering around malls looking for the ultimate in soft yogurt and muttering "how come the kids don't call?" By your eighties, you've had a major stroke, and you end up babbling to some Jamaican nurse who your wife can't stand but who you call mama. Any questions?

So Billy's character Mitch goes on a cattle run with his pals to go find himself, and it's on this trip that he meets Curly - the toughest cowboy you could ever script ("Hi Curly, kill anyone today?" - "Day ain't over yet..."). Along their journey, Curly asks Mitch if he wants to know what the secret of life is - and simply says "This." Mitch curiously looks at him and jokingly responds "Your finger??" With authority, Curly replies "One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and rest don't mean (beep)." Of course the follow up question is, "But, what is the one thing?" "That's what you have to find out." An interesting and mysterious guide for sure. And while Curly makes us personally ask what our one thing is, he leaves us to come up with our own relative answer that we might think is best. No matter our good intentions to answer this question with authenticity, I usually see the absence of meaningful fulfillment when we're left to figure this out on our own. I'm convinced that there is only One who can answer our questions if we really desire truth. "Call to Me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known." (Jeremiah 33:3) Whether we're at the mid-point of life or blaring loud music or telling the kids to turn down the volume, I think we're all really asking this one question: "Do I have what it takes?" We want validation, affirmation, and to be known. We're looking for substance and purpose that matters and leaves a lasting mark. As I approach the back 9, God has graciously given me limitless clarity on these lingering questions and motivations of my heart. And rather than trust in myself that would likely only lead me into the wilderness like a parched shrub, I choose to turn to the Source of Living Water. "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is in the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit." (Jeremiah 17:7-8) What a plush pickup and picture of fulfillment, which Jesus calls the abundant life. I'll take more of that please.