I feel like I’m on the cusp of an idea right now. Like I almost have a handle on about a hundred different ideas floating around in my head. And yet, I’m having a hard time catching one and nailing it down. Back in graduate school, I wanted to work with a breast cancer advocacy group or even a news/media group to help bridge the gap between science and people who aren’t trained scientists. Trained scientists just love us some big words, and while they become second nature to us, we forget most people have no idea what we’re talking about. (Case in point, I thought it was adorable when we were dating that Clay talked about aliquotting out food to put in the freezer. Who talks like that? Scientists.)

Academia is pretty inbred– academics beget more academics. They rarely know anything else, so they’re not much help in the way of career development if you want to bust out of that ivory tower.  I tried on my own to get in touch with some advocacy groups, to volunteer, even, and couldn’t find any interest among them for a scientist in some sort of advisory and education capacity. Discouraged, and also super pregnant, I decided to leave the lab and stay at home with my new baby. But last fall when I prepared to send Turner to kindergarten, I was already thinking about what I might be when I “grew up.” Still feeling that discouragement from all those years ago, I resigned myself to the possibility of an adjunct position teaching basic science. Boring? Yes. But at least it would be something. And then, breast cancer forced itself back into my life.

Strangely, it wasn’t long into the treatment process that I realized that if I made it through all this, I might just be getting exactly what I had wanted all those years ago. Having a PhD in breast cancer research is great, but having the experience, too? You can’t get that in a book or a lab. You have to really earn that.

And so now I have lots of “almost ideas” floating around in my head– ways I can use my education and the experience, both hard earned, to do something I’ve always wanted to do.  I want to be able to help other women facing a breast cancer diagnosis to understand their options, to understand what the next year of their life will be like, and to understand that there will likely be many more after that. Breast cancer is not an automatic death sentence, but it isn’t all pretty and pink, either.  Understanding what is happening takes a lot of the scariness out of it, and having confidence that you have made the best decisions possible about your care makes such a difference.

I’ve got a couple of little projects that I’m working on and will share here when appropriate, but I’m still working on figuring out just what I want to be when I grow up. Somehow talking (or writing!) out loud helps me crystallize my thoughts, so this may be a recurring theme until I can grab a hold of a few ideas and really work them out. A good run with a good friend helped me a clear up a couple of things this morning, so feel free to share any thoughts you have!

Last year, I had a great Christmas. My parents and my brother and his family all came here to celebrate in Virginia. Thanks to a friend’s cousin, they had a lovely place to stay just a mile or two away. We laughed, exchanged gifts, went to church, and ate and ate and ate. Two days after Christmas I headed in to start the second half of my chemo treatments. And it never once occurred to me to worry that it would be my last Christmas.

This Christmas, we resumed our normal travel schedule. Surprisingly, this is the year I was more contemplative, more mindful of every little detail.  I guess after all the recipe writing at Thanksgiving, it shouldn’t surprise me. And since last Christmas, I’ve lost a sweet friend to breast cancer and watched another restart her time in the chemo chair after a recurrence. I was trying to reassure myself– thinking of the differences between my disease and theirs. To be fair, I was diagnosed at an earlier stage and had a complete pathologic response at surgery, which is a big deal. My oncologist told me as much several times over at my last appointment. My outlook is good, just because other people don’t do well doesn’t mean I won’t.

Yet no matter how intellectual I try to be, sometimes the emotional side– even though I know it’s completely irrational– creeps in. And as intellect was warring with emotion inside my mind on Christmas Eve, I remembered this tee  (no longer available, but the artwork is available here) from LilBlueBoo. Of course, I’m sure that it was meant to tell little girls that they don’t need to conform to society’s views of beauty and popularity. But in that moment, I was reminded that my story can be very different from everyone else’s. There is only one of me in all time.

Are you a recipe kind of person? I have friends like that, they love their cook books, and if you mention you really like something they made, they have a pretty recipe card ready for you the next time you meet. Or at the very least, they point you to their pinterest page to find the recipe.  And then there are people like me.  I consider a recipe to be more of a starting point– most recipes that I do use have notes all over them– omit this, add this, add twenty minutes baking time to use the size pan I have instead of the one called for. I dread friends asking me for my recipe for the things I make everyday, I rarely look at one at all.

Thanksgiving is no different.  This year, Emma Clare wanted to be in charge of the cranberry relish. She wanted to do it all herself. It’s a good dish for her to take the lead. One orange, one cup of sugar, one bag of cranberries. As long as you put them in the food processor in the right order, there’s really no way to mess it up. Apparently she’s destined to be a recipe gal, though, and she wanted me to write it all out, step by step. As I was writing it out, I realized that I didn’t have a recipe for anything I was making for our Thanksgiving meal, save the pie. (Which, yes, is marked up so it’s just like I like it!) The dressing, the potatoes, the Brussels sprouts…

And so I set about writing out some recipes. I didn’t do all the things I make, but I got a good start.  I’ll have to remember a few more every day staples like chili, potato soup, and Shepherd’s Pie. Last year, I was so in the moment. I just wanted to make my Thanksgiving meal and enjoy it, and I did. This year, no longer on chemo, I was technically healthier, yet in many ways, life after cancer really is harder. So, with the occasional tear in my eye, I wrote out the steps to make dressing to go with our turkey. Kind of a morbid exercise, really.  I’m hoping that I’m the one in charge of that meal for decades to come. Yet, somehow, it made me feel better to know that my family has the recipes to enjoy that special meal even if I can’t be the one cooking it. And I suppose, now it will be a little easier to share my favorite dishes with recipe-loving friends.

It’s fun to look through our recipe box and see who has contributed their recipes to our regular dinner and dessert rotations. I have no idea who she is, but Mary Bahn really is a rockstar in our house for her chocolate sheet cake. I doubt she knows it, but she has a legacy in my family. Sometimes a recipe is really just a recipe. But sometimes, it’s so much more.