If I could turn back time..

Again, I realize it has been a while since my last blog-post, but I have been super busy. This is my first official blog-post as a 26 year old. Wow. I am 26. Almost 30. Hm.. ok enough thinking about the age thing. Actually yes, lets continue this. Instead of wondering what my future looks like, I am going to take a step back.

All my life I could remember how the only thing I wanted to do was to become an adult. I couldn't wait to get married, have kids, a dog or "be a grown-up." Now that I can consider myself a "grown-up", it's tough. I love that when you're a kid, your parents do SUCH a good job sheltering you from the world (well, mine did). I had no idea what it was truly like to be a "grown-up." To know what it was like to pay bills, worry about "grown-up" things, etc. Ah, life was SO much more simple back then.

When my mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, I was in 5th grade. I had just finished reading a series of books (fiction) where a girl who was a little older than me was diagnosed with leukemia and she talked about how it was hard living with cancer. I had never experienced what it was like having someone close to me with cancer before that. I will NEVER forget my mom telling me I shouldn't read the books, because they contained things that might be scary for someone my age. I chose to ignore her, and continued to read the series. I was on I believe the third book when my mom found out she had cancer. I thought for the longest time that I had put a 'curse' on her because I did something she told me not to do. I quickly went from being a "kid" in 5th grade, to the "grown-up." My parents did a GREAT job concealing how serious my mom's illness was from my sister and I. I knew she was very sick and that they doctors were working on trying to make her better, and that we couldn't see her a lot because she was in ICU, but that was about it. It wasn't until recently that my mom sat me down and told me everything she went through. I had NO idea all the pain, suffering she endured and the fact that she concealed it each time my sister and I went to go visit her, still amazes me. I wish that I could turn back time, and look at how I handled her illness then. Honestly, I don't remember how I did handle it. That takes me to the present day..

Dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer right before I left for college. I do remember how I felt when I heard the news. Yeah I remember how I felt when I first heard the words "cancer" in relation to my mom, but with my dad it was different. I was getting ready to be a "grown-up" and learn how to become an adult and here I am again in a "grown-up" situation not knowing how I was going to handle it. I handled it poorly. I ran away in my mind to a place without cancer, a place where I could be a kid again and not have to worry about what was staring me straight in the face. Where I could skip the tough stuff, and just have the white-picket fence and the perfect family where "cancer" didn't exist. But life doesn't work like that. I wonder if my dad hadn't of been diagnosed with cancer if I would have graduated with my friends, had a job or even be the same person I am today. Who knows. But if I could only turn back time..