I think my bicycle was my best friend as a kid. It gave me incredible freedom. I was often gone from home for hours, pedaling all over town, playing and getting into slight tween trouble. There was a small dirt path behind the three large apartments on the main drag in town. The path was not big enough for more than one person across but we would squeeze two kids side by side and deal with the tree branches. Ironically, the new to town step-sons of our next door neighbor pointed out where the trail started and I rarely went on the main road after this discovery. This path spit out almost right in front of my favorite store: Always Open. It was perfect! The path was mostly unknown to adults and where I could escape. There was a little skate park area with kid-made mounds where most of the tweens and teenagers would gather. Some on bikes, some on foot, most just restless with summer boredom. I remember being told we did not buy anything at the store on the Sabbath. Whelp, you don’t know if I bought anything at the convenience store if you can’t see me. But this little known passageway offered me a secrecy I cherished. 

A few weeks ago, I went to my niece’s graduation from Indiana University. First impressions, it was completely different from my own college graduation from Taylor University. The difference in sheer numbers is laughable. After close to some 9,000 students found a seat, the commencement began. And it was the student speaker that got me. The student speaker was diagnosed with stage IV cancer after her freshman year. First, an almost immediate trigger of guilt came. But in her speech, she said something that caught my heart. The detour IS the path. The detour IS the journey. And it clicked for me. I have been fighting so hard to get back to the road I think I’m supposed to be on instead of accepting that my detour is the journey and there is no other road to “get back on.” Figuring out my post-cancer life is my path. Living with side effects from treatment is my path. It sucks and also very freeing to acknowledge that perhaps, I am right where I’m supposed to be. Because while diagnosis and treatment were hard, that path was pretty straightforward. The recovery road? It is a crap shoot, literally. While I wish (read desperately desire) things were easier in my recovery, they aren’t and I can eventually be okay with my new road but the truth is, I still struggle accepting my new reality. Surely, I cannot be the only one on a new road. A road they did not see coming or on their bingo card for 2026. Who knows who else may be on a detour that is now the new, perhaps unwanted, journey. 

Years after moving away from my small town, I took my husband to see where I grew up, where I was born. So many changes: building developments, changes in stores and road paths. And wouldn’t you know, that secret path I loved as a kid was a paved over, brightly labeled, developed bike path. Definitely not a secret anymore. 

A little update: my latest bloodwork came back abnormal. So I did a G.I. test with my doctor friend and am working to fix my gut. Various vitamins and foods to help regulate whatever is going on. And I have a sneaking suspicion this will be an ongoing issue to figure out. Are my G.I. issues from radiation? Chemo? Surgery? All of the above? The answer is yes. Some days are better than others. Still. Some days are no problem and other days are two accidents and a meltdown later and it is hard to stay positive. Yet here we are. On my new road.