This post is part of my Cancer & Healing journal, an archive of the updates I wrote while going through treatment for Stage III rectal cancer. These entries reflect what I knew and felt at the time.

Today is Cancer Survivors Day.

In the cancer world, a survivor is anyone living with a cancer diagnosis.

Whether you were diagnosed yesterday, twenty years ago, or somewhere in between, you are a survivor.

My one year anniversary since diagnosis is coming up at the end of August.

A year ago, I had no idea how much life could change in a matter of days.

Survivorship Isn’t a Finish Line

What I’ve learned is that survivorship isn’t a finish line.

It isn’t a bell ringing, a clean scan or a doctor saying, “See you next year.”

It’s living in the space between appointments.

It’s scanxiety, labs, port flushes, MRIs, CT scans, treatment decisions and the ongoing conversation of surgery versus watch and wait.

It’s wondering whether that new ache is from sleeping funny or something more.

It’s asking yourself questions no one can answer with certainty.

Is the cancer really gone?

Will it come back?

Has it spread?

And then somehow going to work, making dinner, laughing with friends, planning vacations and living life anyway.

The Conversation No One Else Hears

The funny thing is that most of us probably look completely normal from the outside.

But inside?

Inside is a daily conversation that few people ever hear.

It’s fear and hope sharing the same space.

It’s gratitude and grief sitting side by side.

It’s tears one moment and laughter the next.

Honestly, living with cancer is a little like being at a dance party you never wanted to attend, doing choreography you never learned, with a dance partner straight out of your nightmares.

Some days you step on each other’s feet.

Some days you cry in the bathroom.

Some days you laugh at how absurd all of this is.

And some days you realize you’re actually getting pretty good at the dance.

Keep Dancing

What I’ve learned over this past year is that cancer survivors are some of the strongest, funniest, most resilient people I’ve ever met.

Not because we chose this path.

But because we keep showing up anyway.

So today I’m celebrating every survivor.

The newly diagnosed.

The ones in treatment.

The ones living scan to scan.

The ones navigating recurrence.

The ones thriving years later.

The ones carrying fear and hope in the same heart.

Keep dancing.

Even when the music sucks.

Looking Back

This was written before surgery.

Before pathology.

Before I knew there would still be viable cancer in the tumor bed.

Before I knew four lymph nodes would come back positive.

Before ctDNA would put me into another strange place where there is evidence suggesting cancer may still be somewhere in my body, but no scan showing me where.

And yet, reading this now, I’m struck by how little I would change.

I wrote:

“Survivorship isn’t a finish line.”

I understand that sentence differently now.

At the time, I was living between treatment and a decision about what came next. Chemoradiation and FOLFOX were behind me. My biopsies had been clear. Surgery versus watch and wait was still an open conversation.

I was hoping cancer treatment might become something I could eventually place firmly in the past.

I hadn’t yet understood just how complicated that could be.

Fear and Hope Can Share the Same Space

This may be the part I understand most deeply now.

I used to think hope required pushing fear away.

I’m not sure it does.

I can be optimistic and still understand the possibilities in front of me.

I can believe there is every reason to keep moving forward while also acknowledging that there are things I cannot control.

I can laugh.

I can work.

I can build things.

I can make plans.

I can think about Christmas and perfume and travel and what I’m making for dinner.

And somewhere underneath all of that, I can also know that cancer has changed my relationship with certainty.

Those things aren’t contradictions.

They’re just what life looks like now.

Maybe that’s what I was beginning to understand when I wrote that survivorship means asking questions no one can answer with certainty…

and then living life anyway.

The Dance Changed

The dance partner is still terrible.

Zero stars.

Would not recommend.

But I understand the choreography better now.

There are days when cancer occupies far too much space in my head.

There are other days when I’m working or laughing or doing something completely ordinary and realize I haven’t thought about it for hours.

Those hours matter.

Maybe that’s part of survivorship too.

Not defeating every frightening thought.

Not reaching some magical place where uncertainty disappears.

Just learning how to make room for everything else.

Nine months after writing this, I don’t think survivorship means I’ve conquered cancer.

I think it means I’m still here.

Still loving people.

Still building things.

Still making plans.

Still laughing at inappropriate moments.

Still hopeful.

Still realistic.

Still living.

And apparently…

still dancing.

Even when the music sucks.