Living with Molly: Here We Go Again!

🎵Nothing is Forever – Ultracynic (https://youtu.be/K1IUiFirMkg?si=OoMROOXghqgWm3yr)

So before we start – the music choice is yet another misheard lyric from my past, as I always sang ‘Nothing lasts forever’ – I mean both are true statements! It was a song I loved when i was into my dance music and attended many an all-nighter – good times that I thought would last forever and I couldn’t imagine a weekend where I wouldn’t be dancing!

Anyway, now to the blog. Can you believe I’ve had four whole days of feeling like a healthy human being! I nearly said ‘feeling normal human’ but as my stepsister pointed out earlier, I’ve never been normal and normal is overrated anyway:)

I’ve been a bit cautious about doing too much though as I’m frightened of going back to feeling rotten again. It’s great though, I don’t just feel a little bit better, I feel properly better. I’m not exhausted, I’m not spending half my life in bed, and even my chemo brain has lifted. I can think straight and string a sentence together without forgetting what I was talking about halfway through. I’m not suggesting my full intelligence has returned just yet, but there’s definitely something going on in my head again!

I know now that with this latest chemo, I’m going to feel awful for two weeks out of every three. But that third week if it’s anything like this one, I will get a little piece of myself back. I need to remember that the next time I’m lying in bed feeling like death warmed up, wondering whether I’ll ever feel ok again, I actually will.

That’s why I picked today’s song Nothing Is Forever, because nothing is – not the good times or the bad times and definitely not this shitty treatment!

When you’re going through difficult times, whether that’s illness, grief, unhappiness or just one of those periods when life seems determined to break you, it’s worth remembering that how you feel today isn’t always how you’ll feel tomorrow and definitely isn’t forever.

Things do change. the clouds lift and you will smile again. You’ll wake up one morning and realise, bit by bit, you feel a little more like yourself.

And if you’re in a good place right now? Please, please, please enjoy it. If you’ve got your health, your happiness, people you love and things to look forward to, don’t take any of it for granted, make the most of it and stop waiting for everything to be perfect.

If there’s a decision you’ve been putting off, make it. If there’s somewhere you want to go, go there. If there’s something you’ve always wanted to do, find a way to do it. There’s never a perfect time.

Life is always going to have its ups and downs. That bloody rollercoaster I’ve talked about so many times isn’t going anywhere, and sadly none of us get to choose when the next dip is coming. Gawd, this is a deep one from me today, sorry lol!

We do get to choose what we do with the good bits. I heard a quote recently that hit home:

“We have two lives, and the second one begins when we realise we only have one.”

Maybe it takes something big to make you realise it, but it doesn’t have to. Having faced cancer 18 years ago and now finding myself back here again, I know more than ever that life is far too precious to spend it being miserable about things you can actually change, or worrying endlessly about things you can’t.

So, for now, I’m enjoying feeling healthy. I’m enjoying being at home, doing ordinary things, having ordinary conversations, laughing and smiling and not having the cancer and the treatment occupying my every waking thought.

Because nothing is forever – and that’s both a warning and a reassurance ❤️

One last thing, and it’s linked. I watched the Oasis documentary, Don’t Look Back in Anger, this weekend. It was fab and made me laugh, cry and be nostalgic!

Liam Gallagher said at the end, how “it takes a lot of caring to not give a fuck”. It was actually quite profound (honestly!) l and was another thing that really resonated with me.

We waste so much time worrying about things we have little or no control over. Other people’s opinions, petty arguments, fake friendships and all the other stuff that takes up too much space in our heads. Some people might think it’s wrong that I switch off when conversations turn into heated debates about politics or religion, but I do. Not because I don’t have opinions, but because I’ve reached a point in my life where I choose not to waste my energy arguing about things I can’t change, or don’t care enough about to try. To me, it’s just noise I don’t need.

That doesn’t make me heartless or shallow. It’s the opposite, as I care deeply about the things that truly matter, I just choose where to put that energy now, and that’s into the people I love, my family and my genuine friends, and the things I love to do.

I’ve not stopped caring. I’ve just worked out what’s truly worth giving a fuck about, and perhaps that’s one of the most valuable life lessons of all.

Sam x

PS Pic of my drenched doggo who, being greedy, chased after the bread we threw for the geese and ducks and fell straight into the canal – a life lesson for him that one – don’t be greedy and don’t try and steal food that’s not for you 🤣🤣🤣

PPS this should probably have been 2 separate blog posts – sorry for wittering on for so long 🫣🤣