margins...........

As a little girl, I was never really good at colouring a picture inside the margins.  I'd start off with those intentions, keeping an eye on the black outline, studiously shading with the same even strokes. Before I knew it, a line of colour would cross over beyond the margins.  I'd usually lose interest in finishing the task.  Too repetitive.  Too mindless.  Or maybe it wasn't mindless.  Maybe it was exactly the opposite and  it was just that my mind that always had a tendancy to drift. It never felt creative.  It always felt too closed in! 

The same can be said for my penmanship.  As my writing style evolved, it became more and more scripty looking.  Given that I am left handed as well and can't see the page as I write, remaining within the left margin and the right side of the paper as well as staying on the line were never my forte.   Can't cut a straight line with scissors either.  And I suck at craft projects that require teeny tiny fine motor skills.  Beading, hand stitching, needlepoint?  Forget about it!  Knitting too.  I've tried.  Not my cup of tea.   

I'm a big canvas, large crafty project kind of person! Expressive!  Open ended!  No boundaries........ Creative infinity.  That's my preference.   There's a freedom of motion and emotion during the process that satisfies and suits me.   I could say the same thing about the type of work I enjoy the most.  Nothing frustrates me more than being shackled by a bunch of bureaucratic rules, especially the ones that impact people negatively or make no sense to me.  I like to push the envelope..... beyond the margins!   To a place where thinking outside of the designated box produces results.   Hold my hands down.  Or, keep me cornered while I feel a sense of unfairness and I just about burst.  

Looks like my body reacts the same way to margins.  It colours outside of the lines!   What does this mean??  Well, it means that I have another appointment with the surgeon on Wednesday.  She needs to make the "margins" around the microscopic cancer area another 1 milimetre wider before I can heal fully and then start radiation treatment..... before everyone is comfortable that all of the cancer has been removed.   

 1 milimetre.......... Crazy eh? The width of a hair!  It seems so outrageously small!   Yet, it is monumentally important this time that my "margins" are respected!!  It's not in my hands to accomplish this.  Thank God, I'm in the hands of a master whom I completely trust......who knows her margins.  I bet even as a little girl she was able to colour without her mind drifting............ Let's frigging hope so!  

A friend or two who have also experienced this told me that its more of a head game than anything.  They weren't kidding!  Every day, I try my best to stay emotionally afloat, to keep things in perspective, to rid myself of "energy vampires," to take in fresh air, to smile, to have bubble baths........ and to catch a falling star to put into my pocket so I can pull it out on the days when the reality of this knocks the sense right out of my head!    It truly is a head game.  An spinny head twirl!

Today, the first Sunday of Advent, I lit a candle.  It is the candle of hope and expectation.........  Just one more silly old milimetre.........  before I light next Sunday's candle.  The Peace one.......