Stuck

A year ago, I awoke, thinking of of breast cancer.
This morning, I discovered
things hadn't changed very much.

I believed that once chemo and radiation were finished and surgery was a distant memory,
I would securely feel who I once was.
But the truth is,
I may never be as secure in my heath as I was prior to my diagnosis.
My doctors are hopeful, but have stopped short of declaring, "You're cured."
Instead they say - "You don't have cancer."
What they mean is: You don't have cancer...right now.

Each scar and every unanswered pain
are reminders of who I am now and what I've lost.
Every ache, doctors' appointment and story of recurrence moves me closer to edge of confronting my own mortality.

My mortality...
it's always been there, but the difference is that I've never had to stare it down,
without blinking,
but fighting,
the way you do when you hold back the tears as they try to overrun your will not to cry.

Last year I discovered that I am stronger than I ever knew.
This year's challenge is accepting that it may be impossible for me to ever imagine my future without cancer, while remembering what life was like before the disease.

This is my new reality,
I've just got to keep figuring out how to manage it.

So, I spend most of my waking hours, fighting back the negativity of my most private thoughts; trying to keep the door to my fears, firmly shut, chained up and padlocked.

What seeps out, is what I'm left to clean up.