Listen to the audio experience as you view my pieces and read my story below.

Then: I’m not a monster, but my body scares me. I’m not dead, but sometimes I feel like I’m dying.

Now: I know I am worth more than a metaphor for trauma. I am currently the product of science working at its best and the timing of the universe. I’ve mastered survival mode. Now it’s time to stop and smell the roses.

The in-between: Late at night, when darkness envelopes me and shapes turn into shadows, I wrap my arms tightly around my torso and feel the gap between my arms and my chest. I run my fingers gingerly over the raised map of scars that decorate my body. Tears stain my pillow, a welcomed coolness as my body radiates warmth from the rolling hot flashes.

Inhale. One. Two. Three.

Exhale. Three. Two. One.

I gave so much away to be alive: I sacrificed my body, I lost months of my life. Cancer took and took and took until I had nothing left. I had to make a choice to surrender to my situation in hopes that surrendering didn’t mean that I was giving up, but to make way for what was next.

In the cancer world people often talk about finding a new normal after cancer, but nobody tells you how to find it. The dust has settled, but I am finding that I am too scared to step fully into the “now.” When your survival rate is 30% at the five year mark, when a new normal feels like a constantly moving target you cannot seem to grasp, planning for the future feels like I might be getting ahead of myself.

Will I ever feel safe to dream again?

So for now I sit in the in-between, with hope a prerequisite for my survival like it never was before cancer. I can’t go back, but I can always move forward.