Do not let Toonces drive the car!

Have you ever stopped to watch your thoughts? What I mean by this is, have you ever consciously tried to think about your thinking? It's scary and enlightening. Lately, I have been doing about an hour of meditation per day, and one of the hardest aspects of this is how difficult it is to get my brain to stop thinking random thoughts and to become "blank" for just awhile. It's tough! In doing this activity, I am able to become more peaceful and am also able to catch my mind when it starts going off the rails or into dark territory. All kinds of random thoughts still happen though, and this brings me to Toonces, the driving cat.

If you don't remember Toonces, you probably had good taste and also probably didn't watch SNL in the early 90s. Per the vintage SNL skit, Toonces always began as a car-driving cat prodigy until he shocked his passengers by skidding over a cliff in dramatic fashion. If it sounds dumb, that's because it was. You can see the first installment here!

So, why is Toonces in my thoughts? Well, I'll offer a few theories:

1. I have been waiting on my oncotype test to tell me what kind of chemo I'll be assigned. The results were supposed to come in last Thursday, but that didn't happen, so my appointment got cancelled. In the meantime, I read over the pathology report from my surgery, looked up words I didn't know, and worried myself silly. When I do things like this, I feel like I've given my worries free reign to take the wheel and go over the cliff.  Everyone has told me NOT to read or look things up on the internet, but I am a teacher. I enjoy knowledge. Sometimes, my brain just has to know. The problem with this is that I can't know anything for sure until my oncologist sees the results and goes over them with me. Hence, I've been trying to train my mind to avoid turning into a Toonces who is just going to drive me off the cliff.

2. Meditation helps. I can see when my mind starts handing over the keys to the cliff-loving cat, and I can change it! Why give all that power to the worries in my mind that shouldn't be driving!?

3. I scheduled Sam's driving test. Enough said. Let's hope he fares better than Toonces did in the video!

Overall, folks, I hope I hear good news from the oncologist tomorrow and that the next part of this crazy ride isn't too crazy. Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers!

Love and light,
Jennifer