Somehow, suddenly and quite surprisingly, it seems to be the middle of summer. This year is behaving quite strangely, sort of like a young and not very well trained horse. Not that I have any experience of those, obviously. But the period between November and March progressed with all the speed and enthusiasm of a fat, lazy pony grazing happily in a field full of equally fat, lazy ponies, knee deep in lush green grass, when faced with the prospect of a hefty middle-aged woman dragging him away to plonk herself on his back and force him to run in circles for an hour. Nope, no experience of that at all, either. Honest.

Anyway, suffice to say those months felt like really, really long ones. They didn’t drag, exactly, and they were full of quite a lot of really good things. It just seemed to be a really long time till summer, for a really long time. But then the pony got fit. All that being forced to run in circles must have paid off. And I obviously wasn’t paying attention. So I’m quite surprised to find that April and May have happened, and actually so has a bit of June. Which has prompted me to reflect on, and conclude, the following:

This time last year, I was approaching the end of the radiotherapy phase of my treatment. That all feels like a really long time ago. And that is a good thing. I’ve done a huge amount since then (thanks to those extra-long months, no doubt). And it feels really good not to be constantly having to undergo, think about, or even remember all that clearly the daily process of prodding, stabbing, zapping and scanning, and everything it signified. 

It feels like a really long time ago, but actually it isn’t. It’s still just less than a year. And a year isn’t long at all. I should know: I’ve experienced quite a lot of them. And I know how nowhere near long enough they are when you think you might not get many more. So I need to concentrate a bit more on all the great things that have happened so far this year, and beat myself up a bit less about all the things I still haven’t quite managed to get back to how they were ‘before’. At some point I probably need to make a bit more effort to accept that some of the things might never be quite how they were before. That promises to be a lengthy exercise, so I might save that for when those long winter months come round again. I also need to pay a lot more attention to what’s going on around me, and enjoying that. Summer, currently, for example. And I need to be much more aware of the speed of my horse. Although to be fair, the concept of applying the brakes to a badly trained pony is a pretty ambitious one. I imagine…

Also, since my last post, I’ve had a hair cut. By a scissor magician it appears. Still probably not safe to leave the house without a stash of hair clips, but definitely bordering on a short version of a longer style. Rather than a recent army defector with no access to grooming products. So all in all, trotting along nicely.