It’s a minute before 8:00 p.m. on a Saturday night. The sun has just started to set. I can tell we’re approaching the golden hour because rays of sunlight are hitting lower on the tree line that stretches across our backyard. It is my favorite time of day in all of Indiana.

I am on my back deck with an after-dinner coffee drink made just the way I like it—frothed vanilla almond milk, lots of honey. I have two candles burning and am listening to the Talking Heads via my phone and a bluetooth speaker. Everything feels manageable right now. Actually, at this very moment, everything feels damn near magical.

I Googled ‘saturday name origin’ before writing this post to find out how Saturday came to be associated with the Greek God Saturn. The very first search result said that the seven-day week started with the Babylonians and that the Romans followed their lead, naming the days of the week after the planets, the sun, and the moon which they had named after their gods. Eventually the days of the week were renamed by Germanic and Nordic populations, except for Saturday. Saturday, the day Romans named after their God Saturn, stayed Saturday. The best part of this story is that Saturn was the god of agriculture. He represented strength, fertility, wealth, feasts and abundance. The Romans created a holiday to celebrate him: “Saturnalia was the festival of Saturn, celebrated in December in ancient Rome as a time of unrestrained merrymaking.”

Unrestrained merrymaking may just be the best two words I’ve seen smooshed together all summer. It’s hard to say them without smiling.

Today has had big unrestrained merrymaking vibes, starting with my trip to the farmers market where I met up with my cousin and aunt. There were conversations on coffee shop couches. There was a walk through the woods and along a creek and over two walking bridges followed by an iced coffee and drive through the backroads of our Southern Indiana county. I’ve eaten fresh peaches and homegrown tomatoes today—the little orange, sungold cherry tomatoes that taste as good as they look. My son has friends over. My daughter is backpacking through Utah’s Uinta mountains, the third time in three years. My husband has set up the pizza-oven on our outside table and the boys are making personal pizzas.

Unrestrained merrymaking.

A little over two years ago, on June 16, 2022, I had a double, nipple-sparing mastectomy. That mastectomy was followed by six more surgeries, all part of my breast reconstructive process. In the span of 20 months and 19 days, between June 2022 and March of this year, I had a surgery, on average, about every three months.

Tonight I was looking through my cancer journal, trying to find a list of my surgery dates. The journal is a 5″ x 8″ dark green spiral notebook with the words “Focus on the good & the good gets better” imprinted in black block letters on the front cover. It had set unused on my desk for weeks before the diagnoses. The first entry is dated April 24, 2022, five days after I got the call confirming my biopsy had found cancer in my left breast. I used the journal to log all the details I knew I would forget if I didn’t write them down during those 20 months. I wrote appointment dates and medical office phone numbers and hospital addresses and the names of doctors before I met them. It’s where I kept all of my notes when asking those same doctors a million questions once I made it into their exam rooms.

I always had it with me so that I could journal while sitting in waiting rooms or waiting to be prepped for surgery. I wrote this the morning of my third surgery:

“We were up at 4:00am to be here by 5:30. I’m tired. And hungry. I’m looking forward to sleeping and having the next few days to relax. I’ve been thinking about that. About how it shouldn’t take surgery to take days to relax. And it’s not just relaxing from work but from all of the tasks. What do I want to do after this final surgery?”

[Arrested Development Narrator Voice: “This would not be the final surgery.”]

I had four more surgeries, the details of which I don’t want to try writing about tonight. It turns out that the list I was looking for did not include exact dates, but just the months that I had surgery. So tonight I created a new list, with exact dates and figured out how long I went between each surgery—the shortest span was 40 days, the longest was 175 days.

Here’s another span of time I hadn’t tracked until tonight: I am officially 150 days since my last surgery. I am well. I’m better than well. I’m having a perfect Saturday filled with unrestrained merrymaking.

In the cancer journal entry I referenced above, where I asked “What do I want to do after this final surgery?” I followed the question with a list of “I WANTS” right before the entry abruptly ends, mostly likely because the med team had arrived to take me to the OR. Before they wheeled me back, I wrote, “I want to get back in shape” and “I want to walk everyday” and “I WANT TO WRITE.”

At the start of April this year, I was released from my post-surgery restrictions after what was finally my last surgery of this entire process. I have walked, at least, three miles, usually more, every day since April 1. I feel good about my shape. And tonight, I am writing.

I had no memory of that journal entry until I read it tonight. I have yet to sit down and read through my cancer journal page by page, but what a lovely surprise to read a list of wants that are now a reality.

Unrestrained merrymaking … in hindsight.