Leaving 2024
My cancer is stable, so after years of planning small, it's time to focus my energy and dream big!
As 2024 closes, I’m reflecting on the year and feeling great about 2025. I sense empowering shifts, and as I look forward, I want to honor 2024 and its many stepping stones but leave a few limiting tendencies behind.
Balance my optimism with realism. Being an optimist and wearing rose-colored glasses doesn’t always serve me. I recognize the good and potential in everything and want to help improve whatever the situation. This is where I get into trouble. Often, I overcommit and wear myself out. I want to be more discerning with my optimism—use it as a superpower, but not try to fix every shortcoming or mismatched circumstance around me.
Say no. After my cancer diagnosis in 2018, I became good at saying no, but in the six-and-a-half years since then, I’ve become less disciplined about protecting my time and, therefore, my energy. It’s time to get comfortable with this powerful two-letter word again so I can create stronger boundaries and be intentional with my days.
Dream big. It’s time to dream big. I haven’t allowed myself to dream big since being diagnosed with cancer in 2018. Initially, I thought I would tempt fate, and I surely didn’t want to do that. But over time, planning small became a routine—one that was cemented by a cancer recurrence in 2022 and ongoing treatments. When your life exists on a 4-month MRI schedule, it’s hard to see beyond the following season. The cancer in my body has been stable for eighteen months thanks to monthly injections. And I can take the injections for decades upon decades. It’s time to dream big again.
Landis- I appreciate you sharing such a stirring personal experience with so much levity and ease. To your very deserved point: I can only imagine how tough it must be to be on hold without much ability to plan. And it can sometimes feel like tempting fate to do much of planning. But I hope your absence in writing here means your full presence in the sun and under the moonlight somehow. To put it plainly, I hope the cancer stays stable forever (and I mean: forever). Your walk means a lot. So, keep walking!