Out Living It...A week in the Outer Banks

Here we are a few days from my 3 year chemoversary, well 3 years since my last chemo. Is that the chemoversary? I guess I can make my own rules on what I want to celebrate and what those celebrations will be called. Anyways, here we are, a few days away from my 3 year chemoversary and I have just returned from a grand adventure where I was Out Living It!

I spent the week in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Sun beating down on my pale Washington skin. Hot sand in-between my toes and a salty ocean breeze blowing through my hair. A 3 story beach house with a glorious view of the east coast filled with strangers. Thats correct I spent a week with complete strangers. I disappeared from the real world and entered into a summer wonderland with fellow strangers seeking the same adventure. Introduced with newly discovered nick names but feeling I knew these strangers deep down. I may not know their real names but I know these people. These are not strangers after all! How can 10 people fill this beach house and yet I feel right at home? Well we all have one thing in common that links us in a deep way. We are all young adult cancer survivors and fighters. 

First Descents is what brought us all together and I can't thank them enough. My week spent in the Outer Banks of North Carolina was life changing. We may have arrived feeling depressed or defeated. We may have arrived feeling scared and weak. We may have arrived with determination in our hearts or perhaps hope for some magic. No matter how we arrived I think its safe to say we all left with a new sense of life and adventure. 

My new friends and I learned to surf, most of us for the very first time. The amazingly patient people at Farm Dog Surf School taught all of us some amazing skills. Taught us Don't Just Lay There and Take It! Taught us to paddle paddle paddle. Taught us to stand on our own two feet in imperfect conditions. Taught us to not give up because there will be another wave and you can try again and again. Then theres that first moment you jump up, your toes grip the board and you feel the power of the wave push you along. The air blowing in your face, the surreal moment when you are flying over the water.  Then you let your high carry you down to the water in slow motion. Just to paddle paddle paddle and do it again. 

I know I pushed the limits of my body. By the end of the week my already brittle knees were throbbing from all their hard work. My pale pacific north west skin was crispy and red. My desk job arms used muscles they didn't know existed. But I survived. I made it out stronger than when I went in. Physically and mentally. 

Each amazing day after surfing was spent hanging out with my new friends and the staff who put this all together. The staff was amazing, they cooked, they talked, they lead great conversations and activities. It was a safe, comfortable place. There were times when we went from laughing to crying. These people became my tribe, my friends, my family. Cancer perk I guess. 

Someone (Ruh Roh) had mentioned in one of our great talks that he would tell people, "I hope you get cancer." Not to wish the illness on others but the feeling that comes after the diagnosis. The feeling that life is to be lived. The Hakuna Matata feeling, no worries. I didn't totally feel that after my diagnosis. But after my eye opening week I feel liberated. I feel like I need to be Out Living It more. I need to worry less and adventure more. Even if that means just taking a weekend trip to visit my tribe. 

I wish you all could feel the high I had during my week in the Outer Banks. I forgot about real world troubles. I forgot about all the small things that were boggling my mind. I forgot about my desk job and what would be waiting for me when I returned. I just let the ocean air clear my mind and the lovely words of friends flow in. 

Here we are back to the real world and I am trying to live by the Don't Just Lay There and Take It motto of the previous week. You should do the same.

Yours truly, 

Klassy