Sometimes it hits me at weird times. The overwhelming part of all this; the utter loneliness of being in this classification of cancer survivor. My weekend plans had been shot after my friend’s car failed to work. Something about a computer chip. So, I was looking at a weekend at home with my books, my t.v. and my cat. This wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t really been looking forward to going out and doing something for a change. I was excited to be going somewhere and getting away. But there I was on Friday night, watching the end of Gia on HBO. And I know that she had AIDS and it’s a movie, but I watched her in the bed, a shadow of who she was and I had to shut it off. I couldn’t think about it. And I went to go into the kitchen to get myself a glass of water, but I suddenly couldn’t walk any further and slid down the wall and just cried. I needed to be distracted for a while, but I was only met with silence and the fact that half my friends were at the Shore or with their boyfriends and I was here, contemplating the fact that I didn’t want to be dying; I wanted to be just fine and if I was going to die I wanted it to be quick and I didn’t want to know about it. It wasn’t an existential discussion at a bar over martinis about life and death. It was this internal dialogue, a raging debate inside me: how do I go on with what happened and how I’m going to deal with what has yet to be? What if it comes back? Before I was diagnosed, there was no “what if”? It simply wasn’t part of my consciousness. Sure, I wondered if I would get married and have kids—more so out of the fact would anyone be willing to make that type of commitment to me, rather than would I be around long enough to entertain the option. But now, I panic when I feel tired or a little back pain. I know what has come before and I know what could come again. And I don’t to have to do it all again (and I truly applaud the people that do. It’s amazing to me. The strength and resolve and spirit). I didn’t want to be worrying about lying in a bed with IVs and living out my days knowing that when I went to sleep that night I might not wake up. I wanted to be laughing and dancing and forgetting about the fact that I have to go for a PET/CT Scan the next week. A lot of my friends don’t even ask me to do stuff anymore; mostly because they don’t think that I can do anything because I said that I couldn’t for so long. They feel bad to ask and have me tell them that I can’t. And I can’t keep having my friends change their plans because I’m tired and can’t do much. And I hate after a long weekend being asked “So whaddya do?” And I have to admit to nothing. Shopping and cleaning. Got to watch The Manchurian Candidate, The Hudsucker Proxy and Bowling for Columbine. And the silence on the other end, like the disappointment that I didn’t do something better; that I’m not totally living life to the fullest as I should be. “How about you?” I’d ask, and I’m met with “I had a really good weekend.” And they sound like they mean it. They went to the beach, went to parties, went to a cabin with their families and I was home, putting together my new bathroom accessories. It makes me feel like I’m failing at my twenties, some unknown barometer of how well you know how to party and live. So I’m stuck in two places at once. On one hand, I’m dealing with the fact that I just got over this huge life ordeal and should be proud of the strength and resolve that I had to do so. Reconciling with myself that it’s going to take time to get back into the normal swing of things and that dating and going out and all that stuff was put on hold so I could like, live. And then to realize that I am getting my life back and I can be a normal 24 year-old again but I’m not even sure what that means anymore. I’m not sure what I should be worrying about. Should I go and get this great dream job because who knows for how long I’ll be around and why waste my time filing and faxing? Or if I approach life like the news that I’m going to be dying is coming, does that mean that I’ll live life to the fullest any more or less? What should my priorities be? Does it even matter? You know what I wish? I wish I could put my hair in a pony tail. Maybe something that simple would make it better.