Anna's Lipstick Journey

I know it’s been a while since my last blog but sometimes whether you like it or not, busy takes over. Between work, kids’ activities, other hobbies, etc…life takes over. A couple weeks ago my daughter’s good friend’s dad passed away suddenly in an accident. He was our neighbor, 49 years old, and a father of three. It reminded me how precious and tender life really is. With cancer or other illness, albeit difficult, people have time to prepare and say goodbye. Here one second, gone the next, is completely different and unimaginable.

There is an artist based out of New Orleans named Candy Chang and with the sudden death of someone she was close to she decided to paint the side of an abandoned home with chalkboard paint and asked the question ,’Before I die I want to….’. Not only did hundreds from this community fill in the blanks, with things like ‘sing for millions’,’hold her one more time’, and ‘straddle the international dateline’, but it has become an international phenomenon with ‘chalkboard walls’ around the world asking the same question. Her motivation? We live in a disconnected society where people don’t take time to share struggles, hopes, and dreams, and at least if you can see that people want the same things as you, it can open up connection. The morning after my surgery from having cancer the first time, the doctor came in and told me that my prognosis was bad and to make preparations. Essentially he said, my time was going to be cut short because the cancer was ‘all over the place’. After he left my hospital room I sat alone contemplating this very question (and crying my eyes out of course), before I die, what? I thought about my kids first, what do I want for them, how do I want their life to be, who will surround them with love, how will they navigate through adulthood? Then came the, ‘but I haven’t done _______ yet’ and ‘I haven’t seen________yet’. My list in my head included things like perfect another language, write a book, learn another instrument, see The Great Wall of China, etc, but what impacted me the most was the time factor. All I wanted was more time with people and family; time to sit, to talk, to laugh, to cry, to just be. I wanted to free myself from the cage of an image and I wanted to be real, to be myself, because in the end, we only have our time and our relationships.

It’s easy to get busy and get caught up in day to day junk while forgetting what’s truly important to us and what matters most. Death always brings clarity to what those things are but because of how quickly time passes and the ‘stuff’ of life, it’s sometimes difficult to maintain that perspective. I never want to forget how I felt and how I thought for those long moments alone in my hospital room. What is it you want to do before you die? I’m curious. ‘Life is brief and tender….thinking about death clarifies your life.’~ Candy Chang

Today I wear Nars Lip Gloss in Wonder. Nars reformulated their lip gloss a short time ago and what I liked before, I like even more. They have a little more color and are a little heavier but not sticky. Don’t let this color scare you, it looks orange but is still sheer and pretty. I chose it mainly for the name because I always want to look at life with childlike wonder. Life is beautiful, cheers!

Tags: Anna Warner, beauty, breathing, cancer, cancer survivor, external beam radiation, faith, family, friends, friendship, hope, inspiration, life lessons, lipgloss, lipstick journey, motherhood, My Lipstick Journey Through Cancer, relationships, thyroid, thyroid cancer survivor