It was weird after I finally made it out after my cancer treatments were over. It was like time stopped for me. For the past several months, I was confined to my home by my sickness. But when it was over, and I went out, I saw that life went on. My friends continued on with their lives; meeting new people, getting new jobs, new homes, new relationships and changing their looks and such. I guess I expected everything to be the same, but it wasn’t. Even the old stores I used to go to changed their layout. The mall changed. A gas station shut down. I felt like I was a stranger. That made me feel uncomfortable.
I didn’t want the world around me to change. I needed it to be the same: Waiting there to welcome me back and invite me to jump right in, just where I left off. I needed that to happen. My life with cancer made every moment of every day different and unpredictable. From day to day, I never knew what was going to happen; how I was going to feel; which part of my body was going to change or fall away overnight. With that uncertainty, the one thing I had hoped to depend on to help me find my place again, was the “outside world.” I needed to find that place outside of myself that was familiar. But even the grass grows around those things when you’ve been gone for so long. Then, it looks different. It’s all different. I suppose..I’m different too.
That was hard: Realizing that while I was dealing with my cancer, time continued to flow. Nothing was the way it was. No one was the same. I am not…the same. Of course I’m not. But then who am I? Cancer had once defined me. It ruled my day, had power over my body. But now it’s gone. So. If I’m not that person with cancer, and if I can’t be that person I was before the cancer, how do I find the person I’m supposed to be? Where do I belong when everything and everyone else in my life continued with the flow of time while I was stuck? Where do I fit in?
One Pink Warrior 