It’s late February, and I’ve got about six more weeks to go before I can finally be done with cancer surgeries, bags, and the general inability to use a toilet like most people in this world. It’s been a hell of a year— and that’s putting it lightly.
Lately, I find myself staring at my healing incisions every morning, studying them like they might answer a question I haven’t quite figured out how to ask. I wonder what kind of scars I’ll be left with. I’m not worried about them from a vanity standpoint. I’m more curious about the story they’ll tell. What conversations might they start if they’re ever visible to the outside world? That probably won’t happen often, but still, I think about it.
In some of the Reddit forums I’ve been reading about cancer survivorship, someone wrote that scars are a reminder that cancer was there—and that it never really lets you forget it could come back. Scars aren’t “goodbyes.” They’re more like, “Don’t forget about me.”
I don’t know yet if that’s where my mind will go once I get some distance from all of this. I hope not. I hope I’ll be strong enough to look at those scars and think something more like: I know cancer fancies me, but that doesn’t mean the asshole gets to dance with me. (That could’ve been a cancer pun, but it wasn’t this time.)
Still, I’m trying to brace myself for the moments that will inevitably come—the random ache, the strange pain, the odd feeling that makes my stomach drop and my mind race. The “what if it’s back?” moments. I don’t yet know exactly how to combat that fear.
What I do know is this: the best defense I have is the mindset I’ve been building this year—the belief that today is a gift. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. None of us do. But right now, in this moment, I can choose to fully engage with whatever is in front of me. Big things. Small things. Ordinary things. I don’t want to look back someday—whether cancer ever tries to cut in again or not—and wonder why I didn’t take advantage of the time I had.
It’s easier said than done. Living like every day matters sounds great on paper. In practice, it takes intention. It takes reminding myself over and over again.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned through all of this, it’s that no one grows during the easy seasons. Growth comes from the stretch, the discomfort, the uncertainty. So by that measure, I must have grown a ton this past year.
I’m not entirely sure yet where or how.
But I will