Kuala Lampur, Sept. 9 -- Much as I am loathe to admit it, it feels like my 40s are now separated by "BC/AC" or Before Cancer/After Cancer.

A pandemic, a new major war and a cancer diagnosis are not what I wanted to experience in the fourth decade of my life and now my fifty-something years loom ever closer.

Right now I feel a strange peace.

Now, I'm not about to proclaim that I have reached enlightenment or that I am a candidate for sainthood.

It's far more mundane than that.

As I continue to spring clean my house, throwing away broken and un-giftable things, I find things I have no recollection of buying, no memory of why I wanted them in the first place.

Besides things I have also let go of something I think most people should lea...