This time it is different.
This time, I feel it with expanding intensity.
This time, new tears cloud my vision.
Tears driven by excitement.
Tears populated by hopes and dreams.
Thrill and delight have made my stomach flip.
I feel eagerness radiate through my toes to the tips of newly grown hair.

This time it is different.
I am more invested in my life than I’ve even been.
I am invested in the details.
The stories that my son builds with his imagination.
The sense of adventure in my daughter’s eyes.
My husband’s determination to live in the moment.
To jump head first into the time that we have been given.
To facilitate living a life condensed.

This time it is different.
Maybe it is the fog.
The fog drifts as we walked along the beach.
My husband and I on another adventure.
Under my feet the ocean is eroding small cliffs and edges in the sand.
Maybe the ocean, fog and sand has allowed me to dream.
Maybe it has given me permission to venture into the distant future.
A future beyond the fortress that confines my dreaming.
Beyond the tyranny in the rhythm of my scans.

This time it is different.
I allow myself to indulge in the possibilities.
Maybe this isn’t my last adventure.
Maybe this wont be my last Christmas.
Maybe I will see my children graduate.
Maybe one day my full life will be reflected in my wrinkles and grey hair.
In just this moment I release my discipline.
I let myself dream of my life without metastatic cancer.
I drop my control and allow myself freedom.
I let myself embrace my potential with full abandon.

This time it is different.
The difference resonates without form.
This scan does not change my future.
What breeds this dreaming and excitement?
I have had stable scans in the past.
Scans that have extended my sovereignty.
Sovereignty from the confinement of cancer treatment.
It is a previous stable scans that have given this time.
A time where I have begun to know myself again.

This time it is different.
Is it because I’m in California?
Is it because this morning I gleefully stood in the Pacific Ocean?
The ocean that is essential to who I am as a human being.
The ocean that speaks of a journey I made in my youth.
A summer that propelled my sense of self.
The ocean that bridged my adolescence into adulthood.
The cool water rushes at my ankles.
It connects places.
It connects times.
It moves, turns and flows.
Perhaps there are tiny particles here that I touched in a far off place and time.

This time it is different.
I need to hold on tight.
I need time to slow down.
I need this moment to last.
I need it to build my inner strength.
I need to capture the excitement and freedom I feel
Capture it deep in who I am.
I need this moment to propel me.
I need it to mingle with my darkness.
With my reality.
I need it to be absorbed in what my life has and will become.
I need this moment to bear the weight of my future.