‘I’ve got to pace myself with all of this. I want to be strong, hopeful, powerful, peaceful, present and feel as fully alive and the best I can through it all. I will get there, I can do this…It is unsettling, confusing-how did my own body manage to do this? Such a large mass of cancer from one bit of my genetic material gone awry. How am I seemingly so healthy and yet have cancer, and stage III at that?...Life is so beautiful, and I am so happy for mine and the beautiful, bright, loving and amazing people who share in this life…the joy of human life and connection is such a beauty to share, may I be simply content with that.’ 

As I look back on some journal entries from the time of my diagnosis and treatment, I am reminded of the constant tension between crisis and encouragement through that experience. Two years later, it still becomes nearly palpable when pausing to recall. Cancer takes one through an undulation of countering emotions and experiences. Treatment is isolating, yet there are moments of such rich connection. The mundane and normal becomes a delight. There are times of overwhelming darkness and unknowns and yet instances of humor and stark certainty. Inertia and momentum as you know it changes entirely. There are moments of complete vulnerability and others of feeling invincible despite physical deterioration. The inevitability we all face in death presents itself, and life becomes all the more precious. 

Life is an extensive composite of often opposite circumstances. Sorrow and joy, relaxation and work, restlessness and calm, pain and comfort. Cancer can cast you into the extremes of these circumstances. Sometimes in that space, somehow in that discomfort a broader understanding of the opposite can grow within us. Somehow in feeling unfamiliarly weak, we better comprehend the subtle places strength is profoundly demonstrated. In experiencing peace, we better recognize unsettling anxiety when it approaches. When we experience loss, we glimpse the beautiful power of gratitude. When existing in the midst of these spaces there is something that is raw, vivid, and remarkable. These seemingly opposite places are connected by a thread, and in the murkiest moments a tug of that thread may reveal something beautifully and intricately woven.