Stronger Than We Think

Today’s drawing of Mary Magdalene.

When I first became interested in Mary Magdalene, I had recently been through a stem cell transplant, a type of cancer treatment that is extremely harsh and powerful. They give you high doses of chemotherapy and destroy your bone marrow, then inject stem cells in your blood stream so that they go in and rebuild you inside. I remember losing one pound per day, and one time I ate something that destroyed the delicate cells of my esophagus and I spent many days in immense pain that had to be treated with morphine. It’s a good thing I didn’t realize that the cold sweats I got after I returned home were a consequence of the morphine and not of the treatment.

But the human body is amazing and self repairing, and after so many years, I have been well. I wouldn’t say my body is perfect because there are some side effects such as lymphedema, but when I feel like complaining I tell myself that I could be dead, and that fixes any temptation to see the negative.

As the wise of YouTube say, in order to change (an illness, a state of mind, your economy…) you need to change yourself. There is no change without a change in the individual. So for me, the change I needed to make was a direct result of my interest in Mary Magdalene. By reading about her, I learned about new things, new thoughts, new ideas, and new aspirations. Because I didn’t want to go back to the old life of illness, I worked hard to find new thoughts and apply them.

Then my life fell apart again, this time not because of illness, but because I lost my house. I had felt a great change coming for some time before that, but had no idea what it was. I could never have thought my building would have any problems that made us leave it. But nothing is impossible. And the most unexpected happened.

The good thing is that losing your house is nothing compared to losing your health. So I made the best of it and had some important adventures in the process, such as buying my father’s house in Puerto Rico and discovering that my skills as an independent artist were highly valuable and applicable to real life. Yes, I don’t consider being an independent artist “real life” because it was my “ideal life”. But while I get back to it, I have been working on applying the lessons of Mary Magdalene in this stretch of my life.

When I think of what brought me to this point, I can see some glimpses of what might have been at work in my mind to create this reality. It’s created now, and it’s given me time and space to recoup. Breathing space.

As I continue to walk accompanied by Mary Magdalene and her teachings, I realize that I am trying to once again become a new person. I’m not sure what I will have to break now or how it all will change. What I envision is using all the skills I have gathered to create a life that’s fun, productive and highly creative. A life in which I continue to help people in a way that comes naturally to me, and that feels true and plentiful.

Mary Magdalene learned her lessons by having eyes to see and ear to hear, and I hope she will guide me in developing these skills more fully. For now I will continue following my instincts and working on a bridge to the next stage every day. Keep drawing, keep writing, keep painting, keep dreaming. Keep working. I have discovered I am stronger than I thought. I think that’s the lesson we all should seek to learn.