…more cyclical than I anticipated.

It began here in 2012 as a way for me to talk about my cancer experience 3 years post-treatment. At the time, I would’ve called myself a cancer survivorship blogger. I wrote about it exclusively, and I held myself to a relatively rigid posting-schedule.

Eventually, that rigid schedule got to be, for lack of a better word, too rigid. Both schedule-wise and content-wise. I reached a point where, gratefully, I was “normal” enough to not want to look back. Grasping each week for a cancer-related topic started to feel like summoning demons and bad memories, and so the blog became more of a cute little side-project for me to, occasionally, write about cancer or whatever the hell I wanted. But I was really trying to live my life separately from cancer.

Which is great, if you’re lucky enough to be able to do that, as I was. The only problem is, you can only live separately from it for so long before it begins demanding your attention.

In the latter half of 2022, I planned to begin in-person hospice volunteering, having completed volunteer training with a local hospice and death doula certification. End-of-life care, especially in the United States, is not only neglected…but feared. Death is hidden from us as children, and so this fear thrives and continues in perpetuity. It’s a never-ending cycle, and I could speak about for pages and pages…

But something else happened to me in 2022, that cut those plans off at the knees.

I began to remember. I’d been living separately from my cancer for so long, pushing future concerns far, far into the future…because…I could. Apart from the yearly check-ins and blood draws, I felt like I could put the past in the past.

Until I couldn’t.

It was something that, in retrospect, happened gradually, and then all at once. In 2020, at age 29, besides the obvious health threat, it was decided that my risk was high enough that I should begin having mammograms and breast ultrasounds.

In 2021, I had to acknowledge with my doctor that we were creeping up on a time when it would be necessary to test my ovarian function.

And then, in 2022, people began asking me if I was excited for my 2023 wedding. I’d smile, awkwardly, as I scanned my brain for an adequate response…but came up short. I couldn’t imagine the wedding because all of a sudden, I couldn’t promise myself that I’d live to see it. There were so many check-ins, blood tests, mammograms, and breast ultrasounds that stood between me and July 2023, that nothing felt certain, and therefore, there was nothing to be excited about.

In addition to my wedding anxiety, I began pushing hospice volunteering off until I was “less busy”, until I “got used to my new job”, until “the holidays were over.” In truth, I was (and am) too preoccupied with MY death to help someone through THEIR death.

In January of this year, I looked forward to my yearly oncology visit, because I was sure it would put my fears to rest. My doctor always seemed happy with where I was, encouraged me, made me feel like I was doing just fine…

After telling me it was time to consider colonoscopies, and that my risk of secondary cancers would start increasing with age, I told her, horrified, about my fears that I’d

-die before the wedding

-make it to the wedding, only to die shortly after. Or

-I would live just long enough to somehow have a child only to leave them motherless, before they could remember my face and my voice, and Matt as a single parent.

And what if I DID die early, and Matt… someday…remarried? It was too painful to even contemplate…but what did I expect? For him to remain chaste and alone for the rest of his life?

I don’t know what I was hoping she would say. I knew she couldn’t guarantee that these things wouldn’t happen. Maybe “you shouldn’t worry, Jesse, all signs indicate you’re still perfectly healthy!”

I didn’t get that either.

She said “These are very normal things that cancer survivors fear.”

But, I thought, I’m not really a cancer survivor…right? I’m officially “normal” right? Like, I’m not even in the same group anymore, right? There are “cancer survivors,” and then there’s, like, people you look at and you’re like “WHOA there’s no WAY you had cancer! You are so, so normal, you will live a long time!” and I’M IN THAT GROUP, right?

Wrong. I was wrong. And I had been the whole time.

To my amazement, I realized I’d been a cancer survivor this whole time.

I saw the last decade flash before my eyes: Drunken New York City brunches and outings, questionable choices, Chef Ramon’s buttered noodles–butteriest in the world! Late night pizzas, and crossfading, and Bedford Burgers, and skipped kidney medication, and Shake Shack, and diet soda…so much diet soda.

I’d been so normal I’d screwed myself. I could’ve been taking painstaking care of myself, if only I’d remembered I was fragile.

It hadn’t been the doctor’s intention…but I felt doomed after that appointment.

All this to say…as much as I may have tried to get away from the cancer survivorship community…I need it. I am it. I can’t blame myself for disassociating from this for so long…I can only go forward with it and try to work WITH it instead of against it.

So, I decided to revive this blog in earnest. It has a new name, as my last name will be changing soon (haha unless, I die. Jk. Kind of). It may not always be cancer survivor-related, but it will certainly be an outlet for me, just as it helped me cope in 2012.

And sometimes I may just shoot the sh-t. Or post a picture or a quote or…whatever.

But something new…something new is that I will not be sharing all my posts on my social media channels. I truly intend for this to be something for my benefit first, and if others enjoy it, great. I also hope to post more HERE and move away from Facebook.

I like thinking that, if I were to die sooner rather than later, this little corner of the internet will still exist, and I will exist here, too (as long as someone foots the wordpress bill…drum sting!).

Maybe soon I’ll feel ready to go back to my end-of-life care plans.

Maybe not. I feel very called to that kind of work, even if it’s only in a volunteer capacity. (And yes, my therapist has drawn the connection between this “calling” and my own cancer experience/fears about dying.)

Maybe I’ll need to step away from blogging as I have in the past.

Maybe not.

Maybe I’ll live to be 100.

Maybe not.

Maybe I’ll die in Disneyworld on my honeymoon.

I can think of worse places to go.