Just last night I was thinking about how the “if it turns out to be something” and “if it’s anything you’ve caught it early” I’ve been hearing from the doctors and friends/family, means something. It means I might be walking around with a 1cm circle of cancer in my right breast. Cancer. That feels like it should be a foreign word to me but its sickly familiar and almost expected. I feel like I’ve crash at 100 miles an hour into the legacy I was pretending I’d out run. Because that’s what cancer is to the women in my family. An unfortunate legacy that means my grandma died young, way before her kids were grown; and it means my mom died young, so young. It’s a harsh moment to be confronted with. My incredulous self at 18 and 20 and 21 was adamant and full of pride that I was going to break that dreadful chain. I was proud and loud and unafraid.
One of my favorite quotes by an author I love is about acceptance, and she says “Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.” And she’s right. In this small quiet room I am letting go of my naive bravery and accepting that I am scared and accepting that being certain in the face of nothing, was never really certainty at all. Even though I am scared I am now very certain, faced with mortality and feeling the weight of my mother and her mother on my shoulders — that like them I am going to do whatever it takes. And I am not going to let my fear keep me immobile and thanks to advances in medicine, “even if it’s something”, even if it’s fucking cancer, I’m going to be okay.