The perfect Vancouver fall day awaited me. A day when you forget about the rain that has doused the city over the past two weeks and the rain that will begin to fall again the next day. When you tell yourself that this year, the dreary days of winter won’t get you down. A day when you can wear your favorite sweater, but you don’t need to cover it up with a coat.

E picked me up with Starbucks in hand and we headed for a walk through the fall colors of the University trails. The leaves on the ground made me want to create a huge pile and then go careening towards it and dive in. This was the fall game that my sister, brother, and I would amuse ourselves with when we were supposed to be raking the lawn. Why did those games have to halt when adulthood set in?

As we crunched through the leaves, I tried to forget about my throbbing left breast. Two days before, I had patiently endured a second biopsy. This one while my breast was compressed snuggly into the pocket of the MRI table and my face mashed into a round donut, as if the medical system wanted me to believe that a massage was on the agenda.

I had taken my first real breath in weeks when the doctor said that the dye hadn’t lit up as much as the last time it had journeyed through my breast tissue. This meant that all of my worry was probably unnecessary. I would likely receive the “all clear” in a few days and could go back to forgetting about my high cancer risk for at least six months.

With thoughts of cancer banished from my consciousness, we got back to the important topics of the day: men and career.

She asked me if my job still made me happy. I nodded vigorously. I had the opportunity to impact my candidates and my colleagues everyday. I loved the challenge of trying to do ten things simultaneously and the option to push the limits of my income by working as hard as I could. Yes, the recent downturn in the economy meant that my business had taken a hit, but it would rebound. It had to.

“But, Terri, what would you do, if you could do anything in the world?”

Hmm…what would I do? I had been far too busy to consider that question in a long time. A daydream from my teenager years flooded my mind. In my fantasy, I spoke to a crowd of hundreds (or maybe even thousands). The crowd listened attentively to my message and began to contemplate their lives and where they were headed. They turned to their friends as they left the auditorium, high school gym, or convention center, to discuss what was really important to each of them.

I looked furtively around the wooded area. I didn’t know if I should admit this out loud. I had all but forgotten about it until that moment. “Well, when I was younger, I wanted to be a motivational speaker. I remember an Olympic runner who came to speak to our high school. Her words had a big impact on me.” In case she was about to judge me, I continued on, “But that’s ridiculous I’m 30 years old and nothing significant has ever happened to me. It’s not the kind of job you can apply for on-line.”

She looked at me seriously. “Why don’t you write a book? Then you could travel and speak about it?”

I scoffed at her, “a book? What on earth would I write a book about?”

“Well,” she said, “You’ve got a good sense of humour. You could probably write a funny book about being single at 30. Or, what about a book on recruiting? I know you teach as part of your role, I’m sure you could find enough material for a book, couldn’t you?”

I contemplated these options for about 10 seconds. “Nope. I’m sure plenty of books like this already exist. Besides, I can’t exactly tell a successful, “motivating” story about dating. I’m still single.”

We laughed and I set our conversation aside as we continued on our walk. But, I will admit that I continued to mull it over throughout the rest of the weekend.

Three days later, I got the life changing call about my diagnosis. I called E to tell her. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t have told the universe that nothing significant had ever happened to me. At least now I finally have a topic for that book!”