Tuesday, April 2, 2019

Three years ago…I told Tim that I wanted to try a new gym in our hometown.  We had never been there before but we had gone once before to a similar type place and I decided I wanted to try something different.  We signed our waivers and we stepped on the mats with no shoes on.  For the next hour, we were introduced to the basics of jiu jitsu and by the end of the first night we were sore and exhausted…everything ached and I was sure that my face had turned blue at some point from holding my breath from being so nervous and being crushed by other people…

Two years ago…our family got hit with the flu…BAD…all three kids plus the husband were down for the count and I was the last one standing and we couldn’t go to jiu jitsu for almost a week…it was getting harder to breathe and I had started feeling pains in my chest…I figured I had walking pneumonia or bronchitis but with the family sick – I needed to push through…I didn’t have all the other flu symptoms except for not being able to catch my breath…I was probably turning blue because of all the coughing…so I figured I would probably just wait until the next month to get checked out… click here if you don’t know how that turned out…

Last year…my family and I were hiking down the Bright Angel Trail in the Grand Canyon.  It was our first official family vacation and we decided to travel down the canyon for about 3 miles.  I had finished with chemo and radiation at that point and I was huffing and puffing on the way back up the trail.  My lungs were aching and my body was screaming…the kids were starting to get irritated with me dragging behind because I had to keep stopping every time my face turned blue from my lungs giving out…

Last night…I’m standing in front of my coach and jiu jitsu team wondering what was happening…I’m turning blue in front of everyone but for a very different reason…

Confusion. Anxiety. Nervousness…

Heart pounding.  Shortness of breath. Mind racing…

What. Is. Happening?

Exactly three years from us signing up for jiu jitsu, I was presented with a blue belt.

Me and Coach Orlando

Me and Coach Orlando

In jiu jitsu, you start from the bottom with your white belt and then progress to blue..then to purple…then brown and then black.  The journey from white to black is a long one…most people can get a doctorate degree in the time is takes you to start training jiu jitsu to becoming a black belt and even when you get there you never really stop learning and growing.  It’s a sport that requires a certain level of crazy and stubborn to continually and voluntarily get beat up, choked out, and bruised up by your

The blue belt is a symbol that not only do you know the basics of jiu jitsu but you can demonstrate them…you’re no longer a beginner/noob/bottom of the totem pole…you have been around for enough time to see that it’s not for everyone and you have probably seen more people try it out and leave than you see people stay…

For me, turning blue has much, much more of a meaning…the last three years have tested me, pushed me, and almost broke me…some of you higher belts who don’t know me might be rolling your eyes at the level of cheesiness I’m sharing….but unless you were training next to me and the rest of my CG family you didn’t see that I had to fight George to get here…that I was tempted so many times to just give it all up because I should have just focused on beating the cancer….that I was told over and over by my doctors to stay off the mats but I showed up anyway…..that I had to fight the aches and pains of chemo on top of the normal pain and bruising you get from training…that I kept going even when I couldn’t breathe because I needed the release of pushing myself to avoid the depression of being sick…

Last night I thought I was being punked on April Fools’ Day, but it turns out that I have more than one person in my corner who have enough faith in me to want to see me keep going.

This blue strip of cloth is going to be my reminder that not only did I beat cancer but I crushed that voice inside myself that said I couldn’t and shouldn’t do it…it’s my reminder that I am blessed to keep fighting when so many others have lost their own battle…..it’s my reminder that I have a huge supportive “family” that push me to be better every day…that if I can get through the last three years of everything that has been thrown at me…that I have no excuse not to keep going because I’m just getting started…

Find the thing that pushes you…grows you…challenges you….and do it…stop making the excuse that you’ll do it some day…some day when you’re fitter…some day when you’re less busy…some day when [insert your excuses here]…cancer has a way of showing you that sometimes there is no some day…there’s only today…so make the most of what you have and do something…anything…Find your “thing”…it doesn’t have to be jiu jitsu (although if you want to try it let me know because I know a place…).

“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” – 2 Corinthians 4:8-11

This post originally appeared on Breathing Again. It is republished with permission.