You know what I’m still learning in my sixth year of survivorship after breast cancer? Neither the length nor volume of hair I display defines who I am as a woman—as a wife, daughter, or friend either.
I saw you standing there
Atop that mountain high
You had that smile on your face
Though we may labeled cancer-free and though we may appear healthy and recovered…
The truth is that a woman’s body can never be standardized. I’ve spent years attempting…
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When aftermath is more painful than the impact…
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Life after cancer? How about *living* after cancer?
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For the first time in nearly 6 years.
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It’s okay not to be okay.
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Still and Stagnant
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To the survivors who came before me.
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I’m not a mom, and maybe you aren’t either.
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My body will never fit their standards.
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We are so much more than our hair.
You know what I’m still learning in my sixth year of survivorship after breast cancer?
Neither the length nor volume of hair I display defines who I am as a woman—as a wife, daughter, or friend either.
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These words can be especially true when trying to heal from the trauma that is the cancer experience.
And while no two such paths to healing may be alike, the one commonality I’ve found is time and the time it may take.
While some may view time as the giant ahead, I find comfort in time, in knowing that it remains constant, it never changes. And it continues on. I gain peace in viewing it as my vehicle for forward motion. My ride into my own figurative sunset, you could say.
However, I recognize that I have to propel my healing forward; no one can do it for me. And the most challenging parts can be learning how and finding the energy to do so.
So how to begin? For me, it began one hour at a time. The hours became days and the days became months, then years, and I’m still healing in many ways, here 6+ years out from my own breast cancer diagnosis.
Setting small, reachable goals has been key, as has feeling every facet of the feelings that enter my mind and body. I have worked to identify their origin, their role, and how I can best work through them.
Having full faith and trust in both my medical team and in God, and in advocating for my every concern along the way, I have chosen to believe I am safe in my body. I could live in fear of recurrence, but how much of that is actual living?
I have chosen to forgive my body for changing. The the truth is, she never failed me. She revealed the enemy as that awful lump and she endured right with me.
She carried me through every difficult day, and here we are… basking in our own sunlight and riding off into our own sunset every evening.
Friends, the time is long, but it is worth it. Embrace the gift of time and the time with which you’ve been granted.
You are the driver and the destinations possible are beautifully abundant. Go slowly and with grace for you. You can get there. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you cannot.
My joy. My greatest concern after receiving own breast cancer diagnosis in 2016 wasn’t for my own mortality, but instead my joy, my mental health. My spirit.
Would I ever smile again? How long until I would be able to laugh? Spoiler alert, I did and I have!
Learning how to live again after a cancer diagnosis is no easy feat, and there’s no blueprint for it. But it’s possible. It takes intentionality and time, a deep humbling and the volitional relinquishing of our own desired timelines for our lives.
The truth is, cancer can be devastating, it can embody enumerable sacrifices, the rearranging of nearly every priority. That forced pivot.
So when I say it can get better and immensely so, this is not toxic positivity. This is real talk based on personal experience, years of deep introspection and work.
I have sat in it and with it. The depression, the fear, the crippling anxiety… I admit they have each borrowed my energy over the years. I have visited my own personal brink on more than one occasion, and then pressed on.
However, permitting their residence within me was not an option. I assign each the role of passersby, and while I acknowledge each one as they drift through, I instruct them to keep moving. They cannot dwell here because I have plans, and where I’m going, I have no vacancy for them.
I share these 2am sentiments because the reasons to have hope are endless! And while simply hearing it gets better can sound like fiction, sometimes we have to see it to believe it.
*Living* after cancer is better than mere life after cancer. Join me! It’s attainable and within reach. Time and grace, work and grit. It can and will be yours. Believe it and accept no other options.
We didn’t survive to suffer, we survived to live! And here we are, present and with purpose. Living. One day at a time.