One Year Later

I’m still adjusting to the whole idea of cancer. My diagnosis anniversary passed without any notice. I went to work like usual, I sat in a ton of meetings, I came home exhausted and just wanted to sleep. And even though I didn’t spend the entire day dwelling on it, breast cancer was a nagging thought in the back of my mind. There was a part of me that wanted some sort of celebratory day in my honor and another that very much wanted to ignore the whole thing. Even now, days later, I’m not exactly sure what it is that I want. I’ve given up the very childlike wish I had that somehow time would turn back, like some great movie flashback, and the doctor would tell us that “it was nothing.” I’m just trying to figure out what it will mean to stop being a patient and start being a survivor. I’m just trying to figure out how (or whether) these new anniversaries I’m going to accumulate are to be celebrated.