February 23, 2026
Fourteen days post-op

—

boots on broadway

If you had told me
one week ago
that I would feel like this—
energized,
up early,
making my own coffee,
feeding my own dog,
putting towels in the dryer—
I would have told you
you were insane.

If you had told me
last fall
that one day I
would look at my living room
and cry
because I would finally see
how beautiful it is,
I would have shrugged and said,
okay… whatever.

If you had told me,
when I was in Nashville
four months ago,
that I’d be diagnosed with cancer in sixty days—
and that I should wear
my new blue suede boots
down Broadway
and to the hockey game—
I would have stared at you and said
C’mon. That’s some crazy bullshit.

Don’t guilt me into living.

If you had told me
seven months ago
when I sat on that rock
at Avalanche Lake and thought
“I wonder what’s going to happen.”
I never would have thought
This is what was going to happen. 

If I had known
this is what was going to happen
I might have told her to
sit a little bit longer and
listen for the whisper:
go get someone to touch you
like you’re not a medical project.
And by the way—
when you go to Nashville this fall,
wear your boots on Broadway.

“Death doesn’t scare me,”
I wrote in my medical notebook
one month ago—
moments after my last breast biopsy—
sitting in the lobby of one hospital,
while on the phone with another,
while they rushed to get me in
for two CT scans
and an MRI.

That day.
At 5:45 p.m.
It’s probably another cancer.
Can you be here?

“What scares me is,” I wrote,
“not having lived a full life.”

What is a full life? I wrote.
Curiosity.
Love.
Adventure.
Making a difference.
Helping people.
Connection.

If you had told me
that I would get scared,
very scared,
I might have put my pen down,
and said okay,
what do I need to do
to live more?

And if you had told me
one week ago
that I would sit
in my beautiful living room today and
write and cry
because I am so deeply grateful
for just this energy,
for just my living room,
for just my dog,
my coffee,
my towels in the dryer—
I might have quietly said,
okay.
Let’s start living from here.

And someday,
I’ll go back
and wear those
boots on Broadway.