Driving in my minivan stock filled with groceries the other day, Elton John’s Candle In The Wind came on the radio. As I drove home, I digested the lyrics. It wasn’t long before I had tears welling in my eyes.
Now, I have heard this song many a time before, and yes I am hormonal and un-medicated. And yes, Marilyn’s story is tragic and harrowing. But it was more than that.
These lyrics struck a chord with me:
And it seems to me you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind
Because in that moment, I realized that over the last eight months I had unbeknownst to myself accepted a grain of truth.
My grain of truth? I am strong.
Strong willed, strong hearted, strong minded, strong.
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More of my life has been lived as a candle in the wind, than not.
In my teen years I dealt with suicide attempts, debilitating depression, a near fatal car crash, drug addiction and overdoses, dropping out of school, and struggling to find my fit.
As a young adult I moved myself over 1,500 miles from the only home I ever knew. I moved by myself, not knowing a soul in the town I moved to.
I got married, carried and birthed two sons, and accepted my sons leukemia. All the while dancing with my beasty friend bipolar disorder.
I have always been a self doubter. A person that feared success and failure. I doubted my capabilities as a person, a wife, a mother. I viewed my mental illness as a weakness, not a badge of strength.
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But something shifted in these last eight months. I am persevering through something I never in a lifetime thought I could handle, my sick son.
My old way of thinking is gone, I no longer think: I couldn’t handle that, if that happened to me. Instead I think: If that happens to me, I will handle it.
I no longer fill my thoughts with anxious self doubting notions. There is no longer a negative Nancy in the back of my head, holding me back from personal success.
I don’t doubt who I am anymore. I don’t doubt my morals, and my beliefs. I don’t doubt what I am capable of doing and being. I am no longer hiding in a cloud of self doubt.
Because it seems to me, I have lived too many years of my life guessing, faltering, grasping, and doubting. And it seems to me, it is high time I acknowledge the inner strength and fortitude I have, and have always had.
While I hate Ezra’s cancer for many reasons, I will forever be grateful for this gem of truth it helped me to reveal.
So today only, I thank you cancer……
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