Looking Forward

I had another CT scan this week. As usual, my results are great…No cancer found! Yay! Double Yay!! But as usual, there’s just enough worrisome bits that I never quite feel like I can let down my guard. The little spots on my lungs? They aren’t growing and aren’t thought to be cancer. All those liver cysts, some of which are quite large? Just harmless cysts. Not cancer. No cancer anywhere. And yet, why is my white blood cell count abnormally low and continuing to drop? Why are my neutrophils low? Why is my calcium high? And why is my CEA cancer marker slowly climbing? It’s still low, below the reference range, but why has it been creeping up?

I am superstitious. I have a superstition that goes something like; if I’m too optimistic, the universe is going to laugh and prove me wrong. People like me touch wood a lot. “The weather is perfect…knock on wood.” “Everything is going great…knock on wood!!” I’m the sort of person who imagines that we will die the day after our life insurance lapses. But if our lives are heavily insured (ie. expecting the worst), then we won’t die. It’s sort of a complicated version of Murphy’s law.

My superstition is all a bunch of bullshit, obviously. But the cancer could come back. I’ve been tenaciously and determinedly keeping myself as ready as possible for the very real possibility of a cancer reoccurrence (or more accurately, a discovery of “cancer-never-went-away-and-we-just-didn’t-realize-it”).

But something happened to me over the weekend that has made me wonder if maybe I am ready to start walking down the road labeled “no cancer” even though I don’t have the ability to distinguish between “not yet cancer” and “no cancer”.

Laura visited this weekend. And in addition to having a lovely time, as I always do when I get to see my kids, I also had a bit of an eye opening discussion with her. Laura works for an amazing consultancy, a large national (or international?) firm that truly walks the talk. This is the sort of progressive, employee-oriented firm we all wish we could work for. And she’s very well qualified to work for such a firm. She has two master’s degrees; an MBA and one in data analytics. She’s doing very well in her career.

I was congratulating her, and I must have said something about how I would have loved to have been able to work for a company like hers. And she said, why not? I could. I could work, in fact, for her company.

No way? No freaking way. I don’t have an MBA, I’m not a data scientist or a programmer, what would they do with me? This consultancy has clients like Google and Facebook and all those big names. What would I have to offer them?

My career seems disjointed and fragmented to most people. Life coaching, environmental science, planning, management, a little of this, a little of that. My resume has periodic 3-year gaps. Except I have always been coaching. I have been steadily coaching since 2001, without any breaks whatsoever. But my past employers have always completely discounted my life coaching, like it’s some weird hobby. They’ve eyed it with suspicion – at best.

But Laura says, oh not at all. Apparently her colleagues don’t all have MBA’s and they’re not all programmers and data scientists. She said I could be in the business advisory services group. She said many of her coworkers are actively working on getting coaching certifications. Really? They are? I was certified 22 years ago.

Which brings me to another issue. I’m old! Right? Isn’t it the culture of the youth? Does anybody even hire anyone past age 40 nowadays, much less past 50? But no, she says her company prides themselves on being “multi-generational” and she has plenty of coworkers older than me, even though her company is dynamic and not some old dinosaur.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m not old and washed up, foggy-brained and out-of-touch, with a fragmented resume, unable to make even half of what I made in my prime. Could I still be in my prime? Most of my friends – many of whom are fellow cancer survivors – are in their early 70’s. They’re happily retired baby boomers. Part of me feels right in there with them. And yet – I’m not in my 70’s and I never retired. I was just in the midst of a job change when cancer and a pandemic threw me off track. Presumably, I could work another decade. Maybe I’m only 2/3 of the way through my career? Is it time to start back up again?

How would it feel to interview with a bunch of young faces looking at the dates on my resume that start out with the number 19? Degrees in 1993 and 1999, and coaching certification in 2001. I’m not used to being the old one in the room. I’ve never actually worked for someone younger than me. I’m at the age where that’s going to start happening now. But you know what? I think I’m fine with that. If they are.

Laura made some suggestions about some refresher training, and she’s been helping me with the newer business terminology. The tables are turned and my daughter is now my mentor. Maybe that’s what makes me old!

My kids have always kept me young. They’ve introduced me to newer music, kept me up to date with the changing social norms (non-binary!) and now Laura’s helping me with career strategy. I’m lucky to have kids I can learn from as I claw my way back from the brink of being old.

To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com.

Kristina’s Website: Life Coaching for Adults with Autism