When I first started this blog, it was to be a real information source for others in my situation, a platform to share with those important to me how I’m doing, and just an outlet to help myself open up in a way that I love, writing. It’s not always positive, as much as I would like for it to be.

 I sit here incredibly conflicted with my emotions, having that feeling where it’s out of my control. It’s easy to share simple facts, updates, and the uplifting experiences. The dark and often emotional provoking thoughts are the more personal and difficult to admit. It’s moments like this where my emotions suddenly betray me, and I’m filled with a sudden sadness. Thankfully these feelings for me are short-lived, but hopefully by sharing them I will not omit the presence of pain that does unfortunately come along.

When you’re battling an illness, people see your strength. They know you’re strong, and you have no choice but to be. Sometimes you can feel like you’re letting them down when you start feeling that prick of reality, and allow the emotional toll that is surely becoming too much to much without speaking on it. This battle is almost 100% mental, and you need your mind to be focused on a positive energy, so you can have the energy and willingness to fight.

Sometimes though… It’s okay to just admit you’re sad. The thing is, this sudden feeling of sadness, it’s triggered by a thought that I have. A thought that lingers in my mind and never really goes away. I can dismiss it for so long, but it inevitably will remind me again and again it’s there to stay and it’s because it’s the truth.

It’s the thought that even though I’m strong, and fighting this battle, I’ll never truly win.

Sometimes I want nothing more but to be able to have that moment where I say, “I beat my Cancer!” or whatever empowering fulfillment people feel when they can put an end to something that had taken their life from them temporarily.

I will never truly have that moment, and no matter how much I fight, it’s not temporary. I don’t mean for that to be as incredibly depressing as it sounds, but this is just part of the reality I have to accept. This is why I have such great difficulty removing that thought from my mind.

Going away for the week on a peaceful forest oasis was a blessing, it was a place where we could just relax and I could at last just give into my thoughts and just finally be at peace with them.

This will probably be the one time I openly admit how painful it is to be twenty four years old and feel my body is so so much older.

I will confess that even though I keep it together 99% of the time, that other 1% is the loneliest place I’ve ever felt.

This will be the first time I admit it’s extremely disheartening to witness life moving on, even though I can’t.

It’s challenging to accept this as my life, and watch others my age able to enjoy such normalcy. What I would give to say “Oh, I have to be at work in the morning!” This normalcy is going to work, going to th doctor just for a cold, being able to just walk around a new city,  have a glass of wine.

I’d like to go on vacation and not worry about how far I am away from a hospital, go to a concert and just be part of a crowd. I would like to be able to exercise and not worry about my adrenaline secreting to the point of having a stroke, do the laundry without breaking out in a full body sweat, bend over without feeling nauseous.

Or even just…. Not feel pain for one single day.

I would love to have a ten year plan, or just be able to plan next week…

People think that when you’re battling an illness the scariest part is what you’re up against, but for me honestly it’s just all the life I don’t get to live while I’m still alive! It’s being challenged with these seemingly simple tasks constantly, that are literally the hardest things for you to do. The constant explanation of your inadequacies to have people around you understand why you have to say no to so many things.

What no one realizes is that it’s all consuming, every decision, any activity, fun or otherwise… You have to be reminded you’re not normal every single day and you have to remind yourself just as many times that it IS okay.

Though I miss and sometimes crave the normalcy of life, I am forgetting about all of the rarities that I posses. The opportunity to say I may not have beaten Cancer… but I still get up and live through it everyday.
To have been given the honor of witnessing true love, real compassion, and posses solicitude towards humanity, and most of all… being able to say if I died tomorrow, I will posses what everyone strives to feel, true undying love and happiness.

I may not be able to say I’m a normal twenty four year old woman, waiting to experience life for all its got, but I CAN say I’m not your average twenty four year old woman, ready to take on literally anything the rest of my life can throw at me…

And I will be smiling the entire way through