deeper things - wanting more

Even this far along in my recovery, I fight with a desire for "more." I want to enjoy food as much as I used to, I want the energy that I had a year ago, I want to live oblivious to my health. When I am in this "wanting more" mode, I forget all the progress I have made, and I measure myself by the yardstick of what I don't have. I read a poem today that captured it for me.

But the mind always
wants more than it has -
one more bright day of sun,
one more clear night in bed
with the moon; one more hour
to get the words right; one
more chance for the heart in hiding
to emerge from its thicket
in dried grasses - as if this quiet day
with its tentative light weren't enough,
as if joy weren't strewn all around.
- Holly Hughes
from Mind Wanting More

Well, one doesn't have to be a cancer survivor to live in a state of wanting more.

Here, though, is the amazing thing..."this quiet day with its tentative light" is absolutely and perfectly enough. And the poet is right...there is joy strewn all around. And all I have to do is change my perspective one half a turn and I realize I'm blessed with this ordinary Tuesday.

Isn't it something that joy makes itself available to us, even when we've neglected it for long periods of time!

Hey, here is my plan. I am going to take all the things that I don't have, along with all the things I want more of, and put them up on the top shelf in an old storage cabinet in my garage. There is some room right next to a large heap marked "painful memories I got tired of visiting." Since I already avoid that cabinet at all costs (rather than face the task of cleaning it out), I will almost never encounter the stuff that I don't have. It will simply collect dust. At some point in the future, I will realize I have no use for any of it anyway, and put everything from that shelf out at the curb on Monday morning for the garbage man to haul away. And I wont miss it at all!