It’s a strange place to be, this becoming someone new, especially when I’m not sure of my ability to become at all.

Words have started flowing in what may or may not become a book project, and rather than the paragraphs adding up to a cancer memoir or adventure book, I’m discovering the resonance seems to be in the sticky, dark, murky life found between adventures – in how I’ve made decisions.

I thought the throb and pace of the thing would be found in stories about managing the brown recluse bite on my thigh and surviving a military coup in Ivory Coast, but instead the depths I haven’t plumbed yet are in the cloudy moments when I don’t know what’s coming after the next hike, when I don’t know which direction to turn, or which of the thousands of possibilities is the next best one.

Probably because I’m in that murky middle now.

The difference is I didn’t choose this time. Is that why I’m finding it so difficult to find my footing? I LOVED change before, I used to get so excited for the unknown.

I recently finished reading Maggie O’Ferrell’s Land, and a particular choice in one of the character’s lives hit me: a boy chose to join the priesthood BECAUSE it would require very little decision making for the rest of his life. He would be told where to go, what to do, how to do it, and I realized there is probably a lot of comfort in that for people. In the absence of making decisions, there is a simple doing, and perhaps not much questioning. I am not built like that; I find the idea stifling, accompanied by a dense panic feeling. But isn’t that what cancer has done to me? Taken my choices away? Over the past year and a half I have dutifully followed directions, shown up for my infusions, scans, blood draws; booked the appointments; and tried to untangle the newest pain in my body.

I don’t want to give all my power away to cancer, but it changed me, and I still have that stifling feeling. Do I have choices now?

I recently attended Pacific Crest Trail Days. I’ve been going to PCT days since it started. First to screen print my hikertrash designs onto filthy hikers, then to promote the Oregon Desert Trail, and now, simply to be around community. I realized before I left home for the festival that I would be known there as She-ra, not as Renee. Am I She-ra anymore? Could I embody She-ra for the weekend? The She-ra I used to be was exuberant, silly, fearless, and also carried a plastic sword to Canada, twice. I tried real hard to be that person again. I showed up for the Thursday night dance party ready to lay one down, but a crappy DJ didn’t play anything danceable, or maybe I’m old. I visited, laughed, caught up with friends, but the next day I needed to take a long nap in the morning, then another in the afternoon. I don’t have the stamina to be She-ra for very long anymore. I just don’t think I’m that person right now. So if I’m not her, who am I?

And that is at the heart of it. She-ra choose her future. Renee’s future is happening to her.

I’m a ghost of She-ra now.

Blink and you might miss me.

I know it’s not that cut and dried. I do have some choice, right? I decided to travel much of this year and seek out new destinations, but it’s so tiring. It turns out I’m still me when I get somewhere new. I used to become someone new, but now I’m stuck with myself, and am tired…a new horizon isn’t reinvigorating the She-ra that I used to be.

I try to keep planning. I have ideas of long walks I could do with the help of a stroller, or maybe even a modified pack, but I also get tired so easily. I don’t know that I like long walks anymore. Renee has different motivations now.

I’m in the messy middle, and am trying to be ok with whatever it is I’m becoming. Or maybe my becoming is done now, and I’m just existing in the present. The present isn’t a terrible place to be.

I come back to the idea of writing a book, and I don’t want to think of getting published or anything like that. I’m writing to make the days bearable. To give me something to do. To skip ahead and picture the finished book is counterproductive if I’m writing to find out.

Writing so I can think is the thing.