4/22

Everything has a bright side.

One benefit to getting cancer is that people have started referring to me as young again. People are like “you’re so young to have this happen to you” and I’m like “thank you so much for saying that!”

When I was a kid my aunt took me to visit the University of North Carolina. We saw all the sights and I was particularly struck by the Morehead Sundial. There’s a quote on it: “Today is Yesterday’s Tomorrow.” I was like 9 or 10 at the time and it really hit me. “Today is yesterday’s tomorrow.” True. Concise. Sad. I thought about that moment because on my first day of treatment I was listening to the podcast S Town, and the main protagonist was talking about sun dials and that they usually have quotes on them and those quotes tend to be melancholy.

• Life is but a shadow: the shadow of a bird on the wing.

[if !supportLists]• [endif]Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away.

[if !supportLists]• [endif]It’s later than you think.

[if !supportLists]• [endif]Today is yesterday’s tomorrow.

Time is the only resource we don’t get more of and have no idea how much we have in the first place. “You could die today or live to be 100. Alright have fun out there!” Then of course we get busy with our lives and all of a sudden time starts to fly by. Months feel like weeks and weeks feel like days and days are gone before we knew they started. Sometimes it takes a sundial, and a dash of melancholy, to force us to take a breath and remember that we are here now, and won’t be forever.

See…bright side.