the end (of the year).

hello to all and happy new year / decade! i know you’ve heard and seen that all over your texts, e-mails, and social medias in the last 24-72 hours and, if many of the posts you’re reading look anything like the ones i’m reading, i think we can all agree that: LIFE IS A TRIP.

sometimes it’s the trip from hell: you miss your flight, your baggage is lost, your rental car gets totaled with no insurance, there are bed bugs in your hotel room, you don’t get to spend all day on the beach because of the rain, or you lose your passport.

and sometimes, it’s the ideal respite from your everyday: you learn to relax to the sound of waves crashing, you don’t get sunburnt, the powder is fluffy and the beers are cold, you don’t have to share your row on the plane or maybe you do but there is someone enjoyable to talk to, you frolic in a new city/state/country/continent, or have the best meal of your life in an unexpected place.

there is good and there is bad - forever and ever, amen. flying home from florida on monday, where it was overcast and dim, to minnesota, where it was snowy and dim, i leaned over to Audrey and shared with her the sage wisdom of the 30,000 foot view:

when you get past the cloud cover, it’s sunny. our moods, our emotions, our thoughts, they can feel like inclement weather. they can weigh on us heavy like the clouds. but it’s always, always possible to get above it, beyond it, and enjoy the sun. to find something to be grateful for, or to glean a lesson from (surprising to no one, she gave me ‘the look’ and went back to the iPad).

in the last 10 years, i have faced the greatest sum of personal adversity experienced in my life, as well as the greatest spiritual, emotional and professional growth and evolution… and honestly, the majority of that was BEFORE i found out i have breast cancer.

tomorrow i will meet with the radiation oncologist to plan treatment to the lesion on my sacrum that rendered me stage IV. it will likely be 3 sessions over 1 week and considerably easier than the former radiation treatment endured — so much so that i consider myself out of active treatment and this is a penny in a pocket of change compared to the rest of it all. and that is why, i am setting the prayer into the universe that 2019 was: The Year of Cancer and that all future years will be able to be The Year of Something Else That Isn’t a Health Tragedy Leading To An Early Demise.

however, i know without a shadow of a doubt, that whatever the future brings, however long the future is, the sun is shining out the airplane window. this is true for me and this is true for you.

thank you for the unending support, generosity, and light you have allowed me to experience in an otherwise dark and dry year. thank you for following along with and encouraging my ability to tell the story through this platform. i am honored to have woken up today, the first day of a new year and a new decade, as a published writer because of it.

for the time being, this concludes the Project Cancer Chapter of hanapaq.com and i will be transitioning to use this space to share more of my ponderings and perspectives, reflections on some of the other adversities and growth i have experienced, and, well, whatever comes. (but if you’re here for the cancer, don’t worry - that will still be a theme to much of it, i imagine, as i continue to adjust and adapt to the new normal).

feel free to share your favorite theme-o, takeaway, or specifics you might be interested in reading my thoughts on in the comments. i am a perpetually curious individual who loves to hear how others have experienced having proximity to this story, events in their lives, or generally anything to be honest.

my best,

hana / paq

* pictured is me with two of my favorite guys, on NYE, making homemade pasta to accompany a seafood extravaganza i planned and prepared last night for some of my best people. one of the skills i’ve learned and come to love in the last decade is not only cooking, but preparing (sometimes ambitious) meals and savoring in the joy a good meal brings to those enjoying them. i hope to do more of this in the future.