*Now, before you totally cancel me for saying that (because it’s weird, I know), I want to explain. First, I tend to say things that some people won’t say, can’t admit or simply don’t see the same way and I am fully okay with each perspective.

Next though, in my experience, here is why I say that: When I was diagnosed, many people, well intended, told me, “You’re not cancer. You’ll beat this,” or “You have cancer but cancer doesn’t have you.” I completely get the sentiments and there are some important truths in them. And I appreciate the encouragement because, well, cancer really sucks…early on and 3 years in. But here is the 3-years-in reality that also holds some important truths: cancer invades more than the cellular level. And what is even more complex than that: it’s acceptable to admit that it does.

I am okay with saying, “I am cancer,” because it walks with me everywhere I go. I am not without it, just as I’m not without my body, my heart, my spirit. I even wrote about The Companionship of Cancer last year. It has fundamentally changed me and as the both+and person that I am, I can say that I both like parts of what has been changed so much so that I want to keep those things changed (which would require me to admit the infiltration of cancer on my life) and be honest about the ugly, confused mess that it has left behind (….requiring me to admit the infiltration of cancer on my life). 

I am cancer because while I currently sit with a lab report on my lap that says, “no evidence of disease,” (which has come at an incredibly high cost) that doesn’t mean the book is closed…there is more to be written with the story. 

I am cancer because trauma isn’t something to “move on” from as it has forever scars—both tragic and meaningful—and moving on would mean moving on from both. 

I am cancer because I don’t get to be “fully restored.” That is actually reserved only for heaven.

So as I sit here today, in the midst of the torrent of anniversaries that bog down my calendar and my soul, I am offered the opportunity to accept, more and more with each passing day, the identity transformation of cancer. And that it’s okay to accept that.