Our Plot is Twisted

Dear John,

 

I'm starting to feel better today. It feels good to feel better! I got off work a little early, and came home to do not much. Tomorrow will be a long, busy day so I'm saving up energy for that. I'm meeting Cindy at Tiffany's at 9:30, which will be fun. (See, I do have some social life after all.) Kathy and Kirby will set up for the award event early tomorrow - I think she's giving my fibro flare a break. I'm beginning to believe I might live into next week. I'm still ignoring the cat-&-dog hair on the floor.

 

I found this on Pinterest this afternoon, and had to laugh. It was a sick, dark kind of laugh, but that's nothing unusual. If I followed that advice, I'd be hoarse by now. And I'd have been diagnosed with Tourette's Syndrome for going around yelling "plot twist" all the time. For the last three years, I'd have needed a town crier following me around all the time, intoning, "Plot twist! Plot twist!" Or maybe it would be more like a leper having to say "unclean" wherever he went. It would have been more efficient to have it taped like background music. Maybe that's what we should have done.

 

We never expected life to be a straight line. If we didn't know what to expect by the time we were 19, your first cancer diagnosis taught us. We knew that few things in life were under our control. We rode the waves the best we could and had a good ride - and a much longer one than anybody expected. We planned as responsibly as we could, but tried to hold things loosely. And we knew how to be content in the moment, to be grateful for today.

 

My todays aren't like they used to be. But I'm grateful for 34 years of marriage and for the hope of eternity. And I'm grateful for everything in my today except that you're not here, but I'm grateful for your sake that you're not. And I'm content. Plot twists are necessary - at the end of the book, you can look back and see that they the story couldn't have happened without them. Our plot could be called twisted, but so could we. It fits us.

 

And no matter how many twists and turns the plot took, the way we felt about each other never changed. It still hasn't, and it never will. Love is forever.

 

Love you eternally,

Joan.