You know those anti-depression pill commercials? The ones were the cloud follows the person around where ever he or she goes? That is what it is like living after cancer.
That cloud is the thought(s) of cancer. I have to take it with me everywhere I go, to school, to work, when I hang out with my friends. It doesn't directly interfere with what I am doing, but it makes some things much harder. I don't laugh as much as I used to. And when I do laugh, it is not for as long or as hard. And I cry more. A lot more.
When I am alone I try my best not to think about it. But when I am with others I just can not help it. I keep asking myself why others seem so much more care free than me. Then I remember they don't have all the "what ifs" hanging at the back of their minds.
I feel like cancer has stolen my innocence from me. That part of me that could laugh without feeling guilty about others dying.
But cancer also gave me something. It gave me the great peace and joy for the things I have, for all those things I took for granted. I can't even get out of bed without remembering how I couldn't before. Every time I run up a set of stairs I remember what a struggle it was just to climb them eight months ago.
I never asked to have cancer, but nobody ever asks for life to be hard. Nobody asks to be the hero, they just become one. Maybe the cloud will always be with me, or maybe one day I will look up and find it gone. I never don't want to care, I just want to enjoy my second chance. maybe the cloud is there to remind me that I have a second chance.
