“Leap and the net will appear.” I found myself saying to Bumblefoot, a 33-year-old PCT hiker from Canada who sat across from me at breakfast in Costa Rica this morning. The very fact of a conversation that veered towards the existential angst of living in a world of infinite choice, possibilities, and uncertainty was a beautiful thing. That we were both PCT thru-hikers? Mind-blowing.

My sojourn in this Central American country is coming to an end soon, and it’s been a wonderful investment in time, energy, and money…despite needing to pop frequent pain medications and wear my neck brace from time to time.

As most of you know, I’m operating under the “retire as I go” life plan, as I have done most of my life. This trip to Costa Rica fits right into that philosophy – even with incurable cancer. Strike that…especially with incurable cancer. I need to live as hard as I can right now because my next brain MRI is scheduled for shortly after I return. Someone in my position can’t get off the treadmill of living in three-month intervals between scans and labwork and doctors’ appointments. The possibility of being struck down at any point still lingers close to the surface of everything I do, so I’m practically throwing myself at life.

The jarring whiplash of existence with an incurable disease when I’m feeling pretty good right now is agonizing. Is it incurable or terminal? What is the right terminology? People in my writing retreat this week asked why I use the word incurable when chances are that I will die from this disease. That word choice is intentional. It’s easier to live when I say incurable, much as it’s easier to live when I say remission rather than NED (no evidence of disease). Some in my position would never use the “R” world to explain their current state. The reality is an NED status is a snap-shot in time, and the tests used to determine that status can’t see down to cancer cells smaller than 8 mm, so there very well could be some dangerous little buggers still swimming around in my body, waiting for my immune system to drop its surveillance, or stressors to mount to a point where the barrier has worn down and they can take hold again. In a way, I use the word remission as an illusion of control. Illusions mean everything. I choose to believe I’m cancer-free. I choose to believe I can live a full and fulfilling life despite my physical disabilities. I choose to live. 

I came to Costa Rica to take part in a writing retreat with my friend and fellow hiker Anish (aka Heather Anderson) and to explore my book ideas with the other participants. Something that kept surfacing when I noodled on my memoir, was that I refuse to operate from a place of fear – the fear that would keep me from fully engaging in life. I refuse to give in to the fear that could keep me at home, wrapped in bubble wrap, instead of walking the beach in search of sea turtles and dodging crocodiles in the nearby estuary. That’s not how I’m choosing to live.

I’m choosing to live, especially after watching Andrea Gibson’s documentary yesterday, Come See me in the Good Light. That film highlighted the fragility of what we are dealing with here. If Andrea can die three years after the first diagnosis, then so can I. Cognitive dissonance then reared its head when I read an enlightening Substack post by Oncologist Daniel Flora, When the End Doesn’t Come, about how many of us with incurable cancers are living far beyond their initial life expectancy and enter a kind of limbo where we know we might be like Andrea, but we also might live for 20 more years. WTF? Can you imagine living the rest of your life thinking that you might be given a death sentence every three months? Even when you are feeling good? Welcome to my world.

Jenny (or Bumblefoot) and I have talked about life in the way most people only achieve in years-long friendships. That’s the magic of meeting someone on a long trail, in a foreign country, or when living with stage-four cancer, or in this case, all three. She and I both expressed our delight in sitting across from one another and finding out we had a shared experience. The serendipity of it all. I relayed a story about when I had just arrived in London for grad school and was very uncertain that I had made the right decision. I sought out refuge from my oscillating emotions on a visit to the Museum of London. I walked in the door and was greeted by one of those life-sized cardboard cut-outs that you can put your face into. The cutout? He-Man, thrusting his sword into the air, calling upon the power of grayskull, much like I had done the previous year on the top of Blood Mountain on the Appalachian Trail when I received the trail name She-ra. Well, that museum exhibit and silly photo I took with my face shoved in the cardboard cutout became a sign that I was in the right place in the right time. I gave myself permission to follow the breadcrumbs of my curiosity and fully invest in life in London. I feel the same way about Costa Rica, not just because I was getting to learn from Heather and her process in writing three books about thru-hiking (heads up, you can buy her new book Farther now), but also because the main facilitator, Johanna Garton, grew up close to me in Wisconsin. I went to school in Waupaca, and she, 40 miles away in Appleton. I live for those coincidences. I live for those breadcrumbs. Coming to Costa Rica and investing in this retreat means I’m on the right track.

So I’m going to continue trusting the world. Continue to believe that I can do this, that I can live a full life despite the pain and uncertainty. I hope you can too.

P.S. Johanna has a few more writing retreats coming up this year. Soak in the pura vida vibes in Playa Grande and get some excellent feedback and direction on your writing project. Find out more here: Costa Rica Writing/Yoga Retreat