Human beings thrive on predictability.

We like routines, rhythms. We are part of nature in that way.

Spring follows winter.

The tides go in and out.

The sun rises and sets.

When I was in graduate school studying to become a psychotherapist, I had a much beloved professor, Candy Saunders, who taught us about psychological containment and how important it is for humans to feel contained. Held. Safe.

Our routines and daily rhythms are containing. Having a sense of what tomorrow holds, however naïve our assumptions about it may be, is containing.

I liked my rhythms, my routines. I enjoyed populating my schedule and feeling productive. I liked my plans and having a sense of what my future would hold.

And then it changed.

It. All. Changed.

On July 29th, on a deliciously warm, sunny summer afternoon, my spouse, Heather, hauled our broken jet ski lift to shore so that my dear cousin, Jon, could fix it for us. It’s heavy and incredibly awkward to haul a jet ski lift through the water, but Heather took on the challenge and got the job done while dear cousin Jon supervised from shore.

That night she had a pain in her abdomen and assumed she had pulled a muscle hauling the lift. Poking at her sore belly, she felt a large mass in the lower part of her abdomen.

“Hey Jack, feel this,” she said somewhat quizzically. “I don’t think this is supposed to be here.”

I leaned over and poked and prodded. Then I flopped down on the bed and probed my own stomach just to be sure.

“Nope. That’s not supposed to be there.”

Assuming it was a pulled muscle or maybe a hernia, we put off seeking a consult until August 11th, when we went to Urgent Care, who sent us to the ER. After several hours and a couple of scans, the ER charge nurse directed us into a small meeting room. In a kindergarten teacher voice, she told us that there was a large tumor in Heather’s abdomen, that it appeared malignant, and that she needed to be seen immediately by a gynecological oncologist.

What?

Malignant?

Tumor?

Oncologist?

A few confused phone calls later and we were connected to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The diagnosis that followed was stage 3 ovarian cancer.

Our lives upended.

Our plans aborted.

Our routines and rhythms completely changed.

We were now living what I have come to call, “The Unintended Life.”

I’ve spent a good part of my professional life teaching people to live intentionally. Know your values. Be clear about what matters to you. Make choices that reflect the person you long to be. I’ve written books and built entire programs around these ideas.

I still believe in them. And here I am with a calendar full of things neither of us have chosen.

There is something deeply disorienting about being very busy with a life you didn’t intend.

There are appointments to attend, medications to track, research to do, questions to ask. There is a whole new vocabulary to learn, much of which I would have been perfectly happy never knowing.

HGSOC. Carboplatin. Paclitaxel. PARP inhibitor.

My accomplishment of the day being to learn to spell intraperitoneal and have a cogent conversation about its use.

I can be productive all day long and still find myself thinking, “How is this our life?” It’s all so surreal.

Meanwhile, the rest of life has apparently not received the memo. There is still work to do. The dog needs walking. The dishes need to be done, and groceries need to be bought. Some of this is comforting in its familiarity. Some of it feels absurd.

How can so much have changed when there is still the same ordinary business of getting through a regular Tuesday?

And Heather is the one going through treatment. I can research, cook, run errands, organize her meds, ask questions, sit beside her. I cannot feel the pain, the fatigue, the nausea. I can’t make it go away. There is a limit to what even my most determined efforts can accomplish, and I am not particularly fond of that limit.

I keep coming back to the word unintended.

So much of what we call life includes a future that hasn’t happened yet. We make plans for next month, next summer, the years when we’ll work less and have more time together.

We had just finished building our home in the 1000 Islands. A home that we dreamed and envisioned and planned and even managed. We were building a home and building our future. We lived as though that future could be counted on. We all do.

Then something happens, and suddenly even a simple plan has a question mark attached to it.

I suspect most of us eventually find ourselves living some version of an unintended life. A marriage ends. A child struggles in ways we never imagined. A parent needs more care than we know how to give. We look around at the circumstances of our days and barely recognize them.

I don’t have a tidy spiritual explanation for any of this. I have no interest in making Heather’s cancer into a lesson so that it feels more acceptable. I want her well. I want our ordinary life, with its plans and joys and aggravations and broken jet ski lift.

But I also don’t want to spend our days treating them as something to endure.

That is the part I am working on.

How do I live intentionally inside a life I never intended? What does that actually look like when I’m tired, and scared, and trying to remember the schedule of the upcoming treatments?

For now, it looks fairly ordinary. Making a meal. Taking a walk together when Heather feels up to it. Working. Letting myself enjoy something without immediately calculating what might happen next. Being upset when I’m upset, without adding a performance review of my spiritual development.

We are still making plans. I want a future we can look forward to. And yes, I would very much like to know how this turns out. I long for the mundane, the predictable. I long for the life we had intended.

But alas, Heather and I have a new life. One that includes ovarian cancer and surgeries, and chemotherapy treatments, and the risks and fears of this whole journey. And it includes the people who have come forth to love and support us in unimaginable ways. Food. Books. Money. Funny socks. Dog care. It’s all been so incredibly meaningful, and we are so deeply grateful.

Here we are. I didn’t intend this life. And I’m still figuring out how to be in it. The context of my life has changed dramatically – but what I know for sure is this: I am still me.

I still love life.

I still believe in goodness and have faith.

I don’t know how to do this, but it’s ok to live in the not knowing.