My 51st amongst friends

The big breaks

This has been a year of blessing and strangeness, of sadness and reflection, where the existential became a consuming concern about purpose and direction.

At the beginning of the year, I was finally able to convince my third medical team in as many years that owing to my appreciation and understanding of my own mortality, the time for vacillating and procrastinating the need for a therapeutic intervention on a condition my doctors were getting complacent about.

This was at a time when the job I had held for over two years was coming to an end and the decisions about a new project had not been finalised. Within a month of leaving that role, I was invited back and the treatment started to, the course was successful.

Finding peace

However, in October I first made peace with one sister and then bid another to rest in peace, a numbing experience that brought thoughts and fears to the fore.

Yet, in all like I always come to reflect every year today, I am blessed abundantly, 7 years beyond cancer that almost took my life, humbled by the opportunities to share my story and usually upset by the memories that have brought estrangement into the midst of other familial relationships.

I am sustained by friends and lovers, wishes and prayers, good thoughts and great advice, renewed friendships and rewards of the pursuit of happiness. I am happy, I am lucky, I am fortunate, I am me.

On my 51^st birthday which I would spend with close friends, I know amongst them, there is no one to deride me.