Today Mind the Gap put up a sign on our door.

This was not easy. 

This was hard to do.

Maybe the sign was inevitable. Of the few I’ve told, none seemed especially surprised. I probably was the last to know. How typical. Too stubborn, too delusional, to accept the world around me.  

But it’s not what you think. Well… maybe it is. But there is more than the fact that cancer takes up a WHOLE lot of time and it was near to impossible to run a business out of a hospital. There is more.

It comes down to attention.

Mine got hijacked.

Got taken over. A hostile takeover if you will. No freewill here. 

And how could I not be hijacked? Have you seen the 9th floor of Sloan Kettering? Have you seen all the sick children? Even if you try to tune your attention elsewhere, it has beeps and dings to pull you back. There are loads of mechanisms to keep us cancer mom on our toes. And in addition, my digital life has been hijacked. My feed is all of a sudden full of healthcare. My books have changed. No longer do I read studies on learning, but rather on cell health. My inputs are all here in my cancer world. And while Mind the Gap’s work is VERY important, it’s just not where I live. It’s not where I am right now. 

I sometimes get upset. 

Did I fail? Did I let cancer win? I wonder where Mind the Gap would be right now if June 18th never happened. Where would I be now?

But that’s a useless game to play and I don’t even have the attention to play. I’ve finally stopped fighting it. I realized that my attention can’t be refocused and that I’m different too. My passion has shifted. Maybe I can use my expertise on learning to make a different impact? A bigger one?

And I’m fired up. I’m ready to fight. Why are so many kids getting cancer? Why does Jacob receive chemo in a waiting room as there aren’t enough rooms for all the kids with cancer? Why? 

And while Steve focuses on the fight, I want to spend my time understanding the why, the environment, the pool, the water, the carcinogens. I want to know how to prevent this. We know prevention works. Cancer rates are lower than ever but don’t be fooled… This is pretty much all a reflection of the decline of smoking rather than of cures. We still don’t know all the WHYS. Jacob’s cancer was not caused by smoking nor Steve’s. So there is still a lot of work to be done.

So I closed my business. 

I was expecting to be sad. I was expecting to be depressed, but I’m not. I know that I will pick this work up again. I’ve decided not to sell it. NO. This needs to be done right and it is the timing that is just off right now. The time will come back.

So what now?

I’ve decided to spend the little time I have focusing on making sure that there will be someone listening on the other end of what I have to say. That we have leadership that will listen and cares. Someone who gets the bigger issues like the environment, etc. And most importantly, that we can change the moral compass of this country. I don’t think anything really upsets me more than the lack of civility and respect playing out in our nation’s leadership. It is difficult to raise respectful children when these are their role models. So I’m volunteering my time for Mike Bloomberg’s campaign. I’m volunteering to help get our country back. I’m volunteering for Mike.

And I implore you to spend whatever attention you can to look into his campaign. This does matter. He really can beat Trump and I’m going to give everything I can to help make that happen.

So while a door closed today, another one opened. And I am not fighting it. There is a reason this all happened and I’m going to stop fighting for my old life back and think about the possibilities of the future.

Let’s set a brighter future.