Looking Back, Looking Forward

Travis, our niece Macie, and I found these heart rocks on the Tree Springs Trail in Albuquerque.

My fingers are click-clacking the keyboard so that I can say hello after a long hiatus. Thank you for continuing to send heart photos even when the website hasn’t been updated for months. 

In May, I updated the website with heart photos through March. This was an intentional stopping point because it marked a year since I reimagined the Hunting for Hearts space, making it more social with in-person and online events, pages for your heart photos, and pages with invitations to submit your photos and stories. I am very late in sharing this, but I can’t seem to move forward with the site until I communicate the incredible participation from this community from March 2025 to March 2026.

• During those 13 months, or 396 days, more than 250 photos were shared by members of this community. Amazing! That essentially averages out to hearts seen, photographed, and shared on more than 63% of days those 13 months. This does not include photos captured by me.

• More than 40 members of this community captured and shared heart photos.

• This community also more-than-doubled in size from 43 community members when I re-imagined the site to 100 today.

• From March 2025 to April 2026, some writers in this group gathered for 10 Music and Writing Nights.

• In addition, some hikers in this group met in person for two hikes in Albuquerque. We collected heart rocks together and left them on the trails.

This is amazing! Thank you for sharing so much love, for participating in events, for following along, and for the support.

Looking Forward

I’m going to begin sharing heart photos on the website and planning writing events again. I didn’t mean to disappear. In May, I thought I was through the radiation haze following active breast cancer treatments, but the truth is, I’d just begun recalibrating.

My life between October and early June was filled with medical appointments and follow-ups. I tried to keep things as normal as possible, but looking back, I was, in some ways, just getting by. By May, radiation fatigue was fading and my graduate school semester ended. My life felt more open again and I could begin processing what happened over the last many months.

It’s been an interesting time. There are social media accounts dedicated to cancer survivorship - the time period after active treatments. It’s a trying time for many as cancer survivors’ friends and family reduce check-ins, and the survivors find themselves in a new “normal,” often with lower energy levels, fresh scars, and persistent pain. I am still figuring out what survivorship means for me.

I look at pictures from last summer and these will forever be moments before I knew what was coming. Strange sensations in my left breast began around July or August and I’d do self exams, but felt nothing. Then I went in for a routine mammogram that would force my life and body to change for a time, and in some ways, forever. Pictures taken following November 10, 2025, are viewed as “after the diagnosis.” Photos taken after April 14, 2026, are viewed as “after active treatment.” The time segments have different emotions and experiences attached.

I’m trying to find a rhythm again. My mind and body are a bit different now. When I feel fatigue, anxiety, or depression, I wonder whether to blame Tamoxifen, the estrogen-blocking medication I’m taking now, or accuse a combination of factors such as the stress of a master’s thesis project I’m working on this summer, continuous negative national and world news headlines, or lingering effects from many doctor appointments and 21 rounds of radiation. It’s probably the latter - a combination of factors.

I am making my way back to sending regular updates. A couple of you asked whether I’ll plan writing events again, and the answer is yes! I’ll send information soon, so watch your email inboxes.

As I wade through thick thoughts and push new goals like boulders that seem to weigh 2,000 pounds, I’m making small, intentional adjustments to realign my body and mind with what is happening now. I’ll keep looking for love and posting it along the way, and I’ll be sure to share your beautiful love, too.

Take care, friends.