No one really tells you what happens after you survive.
After the meals get dropped off.
After the appointments slow down.
After people stop checking in every day.
Survival has a finish line. Living does not.
When breast cancer ended for me—at least on paper—there was an expectation that I would return to who I was before. Grateful. Relieved. Strong. The word people used most was lucky. And in many ways, I am.
I also felt so much guilt after my diagnosis. After I chose to have a double mastectomy I knew this meant no radiation or chemo. But why was I given “the easy way out” when so many other women had to endure so much pain after their diagnosis. That “survivor’s guilt” has been with me since I chose my course of treatment. Why was I so lucky?
But gratitude can become a cage if you’re not careful.
Because when you’re told you should just be happy to be alive, it gets very hard to admit that something still feels off. That your body feels unfamiliar. That your marriage feels different. That parts of you are waking up while other parts are quietly grieving.
I didn’t feel broken—I felt unfinished.
Surviving taught me how to endure. Living started asking harder questions.
What do I want now?
What am I allowed to want now?
Who am I if I stop performing “okay” for everyone else and act like I’m fine.
Cancer made time feel intimate. Fragile. Personal. It took away my illusion of “someday.” And without that buffer, I could no longer ignore the parts of myself that had been whispering for years. The parts that knew I was living a life that looked right but didn’t always feel true.
I had spent so long being responsible, dependable, strong—for my family, my marriage, my children—that I didn’t know how to listen to myself without guilt. Survival rewarded silence. Living demanded honesty.
And honesty, it turns out, is disruptive.
It disrupts marriages that were built on versions of yourself that no longer exist.
It disrupts family dynamics.
It disrupts the stories you tell yourself about who you’re supposed to be.
There is grief in that disruption. Real grief. Not because the life was bad, but because it was meaningful. Because love existed there. Because effort existed there. Because I showed up fully with the tools I had at the time.
But there is also relief. And naming that relief doesn’t make me ungrateful—it makes me honest.
I’m learning that surviving kept me alive. Living is teaching me how to stay
This season isn’t about blowing things up or rewriting the past. It’s about acknowledging that something inside me changed, and honoring that change instead of apologizing for it.
If you’re here—if you’re in that strange space after the crisis, after the diagnosis, after the moment that was supposed to “fix everything”—I see you.
Survival is heroic.
But living?
Living is brave in a quieter way.
And I’m still learning how to do it.
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