I am writing this under “Half Baked”, but truth be told, it’s more like “Quarter Baked”. Maybe even “Mostly Raw”. Usually when I sit to write, I have a sense of clarity and purpose. I feel solid and collected. This isn’t the case for me this week. The last few weeks have been hard. I feel a little beat up, if I’m being honest with you. And so it is hard to get it together, to piece together my thoughts in a way that feels meaningful.Continue Reading
What About Fun?
This post is dedicated today to a wise, funny, and much beloved patient with whom I worked for a long time. She is the one who introduced this idea of fun within the cancer context, and I am endlessly grateful to have had the privilege of learning from and knowing her.
This morning I sat to write this post, and shortly thereafter, my seven year-old daughter woke up. She stopped by for a cuddle and within minutes was buzzing about the house, asking questions and talking to the pets and puttering about. As I sat, staring at my computer screen, I heard her ask me, “Will you play with me?” And I wish I could say that I easily put everything down and went to play with her. But I hemmed and hawed and thought about all the Continue Reading
Hope and Forgiveness
I have thought a lot about hope and forgiveness over the last few years. They are topics that are right up my alley, in that they are seen as important and central in the cancer experience, but they are difficult to quantify, to capture, or to describe in simple direct terms. Hope and forgiveness mean different things to different people, and Continue Reading
Showing Up
You know, I always say I’m not a conference person, which might surprise some people. But maybe this is less true than I think it is. Each year that I have gone to the Association of Oncology Social Work (AOSW) annual conference, I walk away with something that I simply could not have gotten anywhere else.
Two years ago in Seattle, I shared an idea with an audience for the first time and was rewarded with wonderful, fruitful, and validating feedback from a room full of my peers and colleagues. Last year in Tampa, on Continue Reading
Heart Work
When out in the world, meeting people or socializing, we are often asked “what do you do?” Meaning for a living, of course. This is one of my very least favorite questions. Perhaps as a result of many years of not having a sound answer to give, a prolonged period of continuing my own search for a meaningful way to use my life. Perhaps because I find it so reductive. As if that is all we are or what is most important about us.
I would much rather be asked, “What makes Continue Reading