Have you recently just sat quietly and thought about your life up to this point, right now, the present, and tried to pick what experiences, places and people have got you to this point and then try to guess what ones will be in your future? I have, I do it every now and again just to reminisce the past in my mind and to try and guess where my future will go. I have to guess because who knows what decisions I will have to make, what people will come and what people will go and where on this world I may find myself. I also have to consider the fact that one day my cancer may return and at that point all bets are off and I will no longer control my life anymore anyway. It is only a consideration though, it may not, but my experiences are telling me those things, telling me that I should always be a little worried because this point, this period of my life now dominates every other one. The people who were with me in that phase of my life are also the biggest part of my life now too, the ones who stood by me, they are the ones who will be in my future. I started scrolling down my facebook profile page the other day, way down, beyond the places I was last month, the photos I took 6 months ago, the inane ramblings I wrote down under the influence of red wine or beer a couple of years ago. I lingered a while on Feb 2013 through to Sept 2013, the start of my sarcoma journey but then I went further back, right back, as far as I could. I found photos and conversations with people, friends, because we were way back then, that I went school with. That chats were awkward, like we hadn't seen each other for a long time but that's understandable. I left Plymouth at 18 to find my way in the world and the Army was my first path, a path I didn't really look back down for a long time. Now I've started to see the odd old school friend from time to time, a chat, a catch up, a talk of old times but there is never much talk of the future, I guess because there was such a gap of me leaving to me talking with them again. I still call them friends because they are and I will continue to keep seeing them and trying to build that relationship again because I still have some great memories of that time, of us growing up, well as much as 16 year old lads grow up. First cars, first girlfriends, first hangovers, lots of firsts, lots. Then came my army years, this was the time I really grew up. These friends are close friends, real close friends, we lived together, we drank together, we fought together, we cried together and we laughed together, god we laughed together. From this time of my life, laughter is the thing I remember the most, we lived as if we would either live forever or die the next day. There were no plans, no future past Saturday night and where we would spend it and your past didn't matter, we were all the same no matter where we had come from. This photo sums up a part of that time, myself and Joe ready for a night out. We had been out to get our clothes early that afternoon, spent the rest of it drinking cheap lager and then heading out looking like, well like this..... I ended that night in the Krankenhaus Willhemstrasse having surgery to my hand because I had fallen over on a wet floor wearing high heels and still holding onto my bottle of beer. We laughed about it then, we laugh about it now, it was just another Saturday night and another story for my list! This point in my life I felt invincible, there was nothing that could ever hurt me, I was a soldier, fit, healthy, ish, and absolutely nothing scared me. How I long for that attitude now? How I long to have that same outlook on life, I know I can't, I know it was a false outlook back then, because it could of never last forever, we all had to grow up. After I left the army I started to work for a living, really work. I struggled at first to make any friends outside of my army circle. I didn't understand them and they thought that no one could of lived the life I had as a soldier. No one could have that many stories and them all to be true! I couldn't understand how they had never felt that urge to see as much of the world as possible and to have a beer in those places. I hated it at first, I couldn't settle in a job and I kept searching for another variation on army life but it wasn't there and then I realised it was actually me and I needed to grow up a bit. I had to when I became a Dad, those 3 dominate my Facebook timeline as most kids do for anyone who is a parent. They come first in my life, their smiles still light me from the inside when I see them. When I was going through treatment I would often just thumb through pictures of them, looking at them growing, enjoying the experiences they are having on days out and holidays. It was those photos that gave me strength when I felt I had none, the thought of leaving them made me fight when I thought I was done, it was them that made we want to live, to hear the words "You are in remission Darren", because then I knew I could look at them again without tears in my eyes and guilt in my mind. There is a definite change in my timeline pre and post cancer, you can see that change in my attitude, my outlook and how I look at life. See that's the point of this chapter I guess, it's that one big experience that completely blocks out all my past and experiences up to that point in my life. I'm not the laid back carefree man I used to be, I'm only just starting to enjoy that part of life again, to have fun and not worry. For nearly 3 years I thought I had lost that part of me, I had lost me in a way, the very core of me. That was one of the problems, I had lost myself along the way, I had lost the way I looked at the world. I eventually started to settle in the world outside of the army, I started to understand how it all worked and I started to plan a future. I didn't make a lot of new friends though, I know lots of people but I wouldn't call many of them friends. I only have a couple of people who I would say are close, a couple of people I can go to when I'm down, when I don't know what to, when I need someone to talk to. I'm a loyal friend and I would do anything for the people I love, I guess that was instilled during my army days, I still live that way now and I know those closest to me are loyal to me. I didn't realise that you need people to help you get through it, I had always relied on myself, that was my way, and again my experience and the people who came into my life altered that. I became someone who could talk about my problems, to share how I felt, to find the strength to talk about my bad days and of course to write this blog. Without that support this blog would still be sat in my mind and fear would stop me. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think it's people who change our future and how we dream about it. Yes experiences and places will guide us but it's who we want in our lives and them staying there that will create the future we want. This picture is so true, I've met many "lessons" in my life. I intend to hold onto the blessings for the rest of my life, I hope they want to stay in it. To see where my life and my future goes, to see this journey through to the end. I guess this is back to the start of this chapter and me wondering who, what and where will be in my future. I'm scared, I'll admit it, my experience is making me scared, it's making me wonder what this future holds. I said the other day in another chapter that I can't live my life waiting for cancer to come back and I won't, as long as people love me and want me in their lives I will try to live a good life and to share it with them. I owe them that much, the problem is that at the moment I'm struggling and I know what I'm like when I'm struggling, I'm a pain in the arse, I'm hard work. I hope though that when people look through their facebook timelines and they see me or a comment by me that they consider me a blessing in their life and definitely not a lesson.
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Darren EvansOn Feb 11th 2013 my life changed forever when I was diagnosed with a myxoid liposarcoma of the right thigh. This is my version of my life since then. Archives
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