The greatest compliment and the person never even knew it

So, I’ve been mentioning these past few blogs about my trip to San Diego by myself, where I tried to do something physically and emotionally satisfying each day, things that I cannot do when I am with my three kids.

All week I had this plan to go kayaking in the Pacific Ocean to look for grey whales that are currently migrating from the Bering Strait to the Baja Penninsula. I figured if my TV debut was off, I was going to make the most out of this trip, come hell or highwater!

I became very discouraged earlier in the week when I was told I might not have a kayak tour because I was only one person, and it wasn’t cost-effective for the shop to send out one guide with one person, and no one else had signed up for a kayaking tour. But, they kindly acquiesced the morning of my scheduled journey and said they would take me alone (La Jolla Kayak http://www.lajollakayak.com/ was the shops’ name and they were great. Highly recommend using their shop for all types of adventuring out in San Diego, CA).

By the time I was supposed to go out on my tour, a family of four (mom, dad and two teenagers) signed up as well! I was pretty psyched. Family was from Canada and the parents were really nice and very friendly. The mom and I both got sea sick on our trip. She actually voiced it to the guide first, and during the journey, when we had paddled out farther to search for whales, I joined the barf-bandwagon.

When we got back to shore, she told me how brave she thought I was for kayaking by myself. She said she didn’t think that she would have chosen this activity if she had been by herself. I wanted to cry. I wanted to tell her about my cancer diagnosis a year ago. I wanted to tell her that I have fake boobs and sometimes I am still worried about doing physical activity with my upper body, and how proud I was of myself for kayaking for two hours straight, but I didn’t. I am trying not to broadcast to the entire world that I am a cancer survivor of just a year. I don’t want that to define me; yet, I feel like it is still an all-encompassing thought in my head these days.

I hold out hope that after a few years I won’t think about it every day as my defining moment in life, but right now, it is what it is, so I will continue to write about that.