Aah the scent of Evergreen in the air….or just a candle. Time to once again embrace the holiday spirit. You are most likely engaging more this season with the specter of covid just background noise. Even if you test positive now, you find it more a nuisance than terrifying. But there is an undercurrent today that belies a return to normalcy. Everything has changed. The disruption in so many aspects of our lives is undeniable. We took so much for granted in the past- who you visit over the holiday, how you gift, engage and even decorate. What I am finding is that we are re-purposing ourselves. Patients and friends alike are imagining the upcoming holidays, not with nostalgia for old traditions, but looking for ways to renew.

There is great similarity in patients diagnosed this year. As a friend said this week, “When I got the diagnosis and was told years ago that I was not curable” (although 20 years later she proved them wrong, thank goodness) “I found my world upside down and it was amazing how so much I worried about or worked toward that no longer mattered”. It is as if there is a clean slate upon which to grow a renewed spirit, even for the holidays.

I check in with Elaine, “Are you coming the the Christmas party? “No I don’t want to dress up”. To Carol, “Want to join us for yoga?” She replies, “No I don’t want to dress down”. To Sandra, “Are you visiting family in Michigan?” Shaking her head, ” I don’t want to go out”. To Terry, who always had a house filled with relatives for Christmas. “Not this year, I don’t want to stay in”.

What is going on? There is a theme here. Have you noticed as well?We can speculate all sorts of reasoning: people don’t want to engage if covid is a risk, or the economy now makes money scarce, but when you step back and observe, there is no doubting that everything, including the holidays, has shifted. Some will “get back to normal” and revive their traditions, but in three years, so much has changed and no one should feel guilty about exploring this new found freedom. What covid did and cancer does is redirect focus. We can talk about meditation, walking in nature, clearing our minds to become more aware, but like it or not (not?) you are different today.

Where do we go from here? It is almost intimidating to have this degree of freedom. What if we decide that this is opportunity for reinvention? Even cancer treatments have evolved- look at all the ‘ibs and abs” of treatments, immunotherapies, blood tests for cancer, radiofrequency ablations, nuclear medicines. Why shouldn’t we be new and improved as well?

So, as you enter this holiday month, perhaps instead of pining for the past, embrace a new path for your own merriment that respects your personal perspective. Every week I am taught by the brave ones whose hands I am blessed to hold. While the world may have tilted for them, their gift to themselves is to let everything go and focus only on what really matters. That message today is their gift to us. Brilliant.