I'm Not Ready to Break Up With My 'Normal' for Cancer

People keep telling me, “Kelly, always remember that you are not your cancer!” and that’s honestly a crock load of shit. Because, how can I not be my cancer? I mean… I get it,  I’m not the literal term “cancer.” I’m not an uncontrolled division of abnormal cells or anything. I’m still me in some sense. But, I do think about cancer stuff now – all the damn time. Treatment options and possible side effects and survival rates and even the possibility of an early death.

Because that’s my life now. I am my cancer. It has control over my present and my future. It has control over my appearance, my emotions, my thoughts. It infiltrated.

What I can’t stand about all that is I’m slowly forgetting what my old normal was. Not “who” I was really (Although, that may happen. Who knows?) — I can almost remember walking down the street and not be thinking about anything in particular. Or worrying about mundane things like if I’m eating at Sheetz too much. (Side note: there is actually no such thing as too much Sheetz.) I miss that normalcy. And, do you know what sucks even more about it? At the time, it didn’t seem normal to me at all. It was so normal that I didn’t even try to think about what exactly that meant. I didn’t think I had to. Now, it’s all I think about.

A friend of mine told me I will never go back to that. It’s impossible. And yet, I can’t imagine just sitting back and accepting it’s gone, you know? I will surround myself with my old life until I burst. I will go to shows and to bars and on walks and to work, and I will suffer through these new anxieties every damn time if I have to just to feel that old normalcy again.

Because fuck this. This shit sucks. I don’t want to worry about the things I may miss out on soon. I don’t want to worry about medications or treatments or side effects or survival statistics. I really would rather not worry about death right now.

I feel like my old life and I, even though we were really close and we got along… I feel like we just grew apart suddenly. Our schedules got busy, and we could never seem to find a good time to get together. And I will not let the relationship fade away. I’m just too much of a stubborn ass to let that happen. I will call and text and reach out as many times as I possibly can because I’m not ready to accept the fact that we just grew apart from each other. At least, not just yet.