Breathe...

One of my best and dearest friends came up for the weekend. I've known Jenni since we were both in the 5th grade. She's seen me at my best and worst and all the awkward phases in between. When we're together, it's as though the clock rolls back and we're those dirty kids playing in the mud again.

We laughed. We talked. We stayed up late into the night watching movies and playing games. We went for walks in the woods and explored the leaf-littered landscape. It was a balm that I didn't know I needed. The cancer diagnosis aged me a hundred years. This weekend gave me back those years that were taken in an instant.

Of all the many hundreds of pictures taken throughout the long weekend, this is one of the few that I'm going to share. It's not for lack of quality material. Some really stunning images were captured. But I do not want to diminish the importance of this moment.

I stood on top of Wolf Rock, surrounded by mountain laurels, rhododendrons, and painterly red sumac. The valley, lit up by autumn, stretched out before me. The hike had winded me and exhausted me far more than I let on to my accompanying party. I stood on the rock, looking out before me and the breath was taken from me in a different way...

For what seems like the first time in a long time, I exhaled. When I heard the cancer diagnosis, a breath hitched in my lungs. It wasn't a conscious thing. It was an involuntary instinct. I held it there and it held me up. I inflated myself with this battered breath. I walked around with it trapped in my chest, a silent source of terrible strength. I laid out on the table, as they cut me and cinched my flesh with staples, and still I held on to it hard. And in the days afterwards, worrying and fretting over bills and missed deadlines and unanswered emails and backlogged chores... I held it in until my chest seemed like it'd almost burst.

And then I stood on what seemed like the top of the world and I let go. In the face of boundless beauty, I released the breath I had been holding tightly.

We laughed and joked on our way back to the car, but I fell silent at times, marveling on what it was like to breathe again.