Birthday of the Butterfly Blog

Another Blog?! They seem to be a dime a dozen these days to the point it seems silly to even bother posting content. I don’t have time to read all I want, so why would anyone read these ramblings from yet another wanna-be writer/blogger?! Meet my critical self, the one that I am tenderly trying to nurture.

Simply put, magical shit happens when I write. The magic is also abundant when I practice yoga. Lov Yoga is my personal metamorphosis, the unfolding of events in life that has physically, spiritually, and energetically guided me to the pages of tales to tell. This is all actually for me and if anyone else cares to read, it will be beautiful to connect virtually through this medium. 

This first blog post happened to magically write itself after 2 years of dreaming. I faced resistance from different angles but wasn’t quite sure why. Turns out that I was writing for myself when I originally concocted the harebrained idea of sharing my writing. My writing was therapy and gave me clarity during a tumultuous storm of caregiving for a loved one through cancer. When I wrote, it poured out of my heart and people seemed to appreciate the vulnerability.

Then the thought of sharing more made me cower because what would people think? So I only wrote when I felt like it which wasn’t nearly often enough and I was missing the magic. As a result I spontaneously made a morning a date with myself to write because Liz Gilbert from “Big Magic” said I must to do this if I want to be a writer:) I decided to write anything and everything in a stream of consciousness journal and sure enough as the words flew off my fingertips, tears began to well up and cloud my original intent. Before I knew what was happening, I opened a new document, entitled it Lov Notes and the rest is history that will be brought to life through the vulnerability and strife of loving, losing and letting go but taking lessons learned along the way to play on the playground known as the future.  

Bibbity Boppity Boo! Magic, I tell you :) 

Looking back I seemingly spent quite a few years prancing around like a unicorn with Hello Kitty flare, sprinkling sparkles, seeing butterflies and rainbows even in the midst of storms. When I look back at pictures of this girl I see radiant youth, endless energy, naivety, genuine joy, dedicated drive, athleticism and cute quirkiness. But all this positivity didn’t come easy and this same girl spent much time navigating the darkness of depression during her teenage years.  

This spunky, moody teenager met her match as a freshman in college when she started a job at Smoothie King and a tall and lanky yet athletic, curly haired stud was her trainer. He pulled her out of the funk she was sitting in and they ran, biked and played together.  Eventually they even formed a life together creating one community coffee shop and then another.  

Then there was biking…coffee and bikes, building of bikes, painting of bikes, selling of bikes, racing of bikes, friends of bikes…bikes all ways all the time!  Life was most definitely fun and bursting at the seams kind of full. Something almost felt like it had to give but what eventually did, wasn’t the reprieve the lively couple had hoped for….Relapse of metastatic melanoma, this time stage 4. The prognosis was not good but still hopeful.  

Oh yeah, did I fail to mention that Nate was first diagnosed during the building of all that I previously mentioned?! Nate handled his original diagnosis with a resilient commitment to overcome the cancer. He went through 3 surgeries plus rigorous BioChemo Therapy treatments that combined chemo and immunotherapies and put him into a coma-like state for a week. Then he went back to healing and building back strength so he could do it all over again in a few weeks. Once the treatments were over we quickly brushed the whole mess under a rug and pushed on in life to create all that is listed above because you know, #priorities. 

This tactic of some acceptance but mostly avoidance lasted a solid 6 years until one day Nate felt a little bump. I realize now, he knew the cancer was back at that very moment as we sat on the touristy train in Georgetown within the great expanse of mountains and evergreens with Nate’s family. He didn’t say anything to us that day but sure enough we found ourselves at the doctor later that week. It was decided to remove the internal bump surgically so they could biopsy it. “Surely it wasn’t melanoma,” they said. Well, it surely turned out to be melanoma and it was back with a vengeance, eventually taking Nate’s life 11/22/16.

The rainbow unicorn veil has been fluttering over me for the past 3 years since losing Nate, sometimes the vibrancy fading in and out but overall image remained in tact. But truth be told, no matter how it appeared externally, I was rotting on the inside. A deep hole in my heart formed when Nate was re-diagnosed with cancer and it still resides today.  

Thankfully the hole is shrinking and it is filled with love and joy once again but there will always be the memories and lessons learned from loving and losing someone so young that I knew for so long. The 16 years Nate Picklo loved me on this earth will always be a part of me. I am moving forward while keeping a piece of him locked inside as I slowly but surely continue make my way anew along a path that feels unfamiliar, uncertain and seriously scary. But then again, even when life feels familiar it is always uncertain and the scariness comes from wanting to control things I can’t.  

So my current MO is to embrace the flow of life. Be like water, ebbing and flowing my way through ups and downs. The highs aren’t as high and the lows aren’t as low. I am starting to witness my emotions and sometimes able to pause and intentionally shift. Sometimes I worry that I am apathetic but truthfully I believe in attributing the shift to mindfulness and conscious healing through traumatic grief using my yoga toolbox. The practices work just as the teachers, ancient texts and even cliche statements preach. All I have to do is heed the call and embrace the magic, have faith, believe, receive and breathe. To the hope in magic still to come…