Trust has to be the most loaded word in the English dictionary. Way so more than love. Probably because love is sometimes contingent on trust and if you love someone and they break your trust then that is probably the most devastating thing.

Anyway, the thing about having cancer, going through cancer, surviving cancer is that you have to have so much trust: in your doctor, in the research, in the medicines, in yourself and ultimately in some unknown force that you are hoping is watching out for you. The lack of control that cancer bestows on us leaves us vulnerable to so many outside forces—chemo makes it so that even the tiniest cold germ can have us taking up space in the ICU, sucking on oxygen. You have to believe that the doctors know what they’re talking about, that the researchers have stumbled upon the right combination of drugs, and that the medicines won’t kill you when they’re trying to make you better. That was the hardest part for me. I couldn’t look at the statistics, I couldn’t listen to the success stories—stats can be altered and truthfully for every success story is a sadder story of loss. So, I’d have to go on blind faith and the notion that whatever will be will be.

So one would think after becoming completely dependent on forces outside my control, that I would have far less trust issues. After all, it worked! But I don’t. I constantly question the good news, wondering why I should make it through and be okay; the unfairness of it all is something that I dwell on. I was never like, “Why me?” when I got sick, but I’m completely like, “Why me?” now that I’m okay. I can’t trust the present. I’m petrified to let my guard down and be that vulnerable again. When your whole world has been shattered and rebuilt, you tend to put up better fences this time around. But it makes you a hard person to have a relationship with. The constant doubt, the constant questions, the insecurity, the fear, the tears, the confusion—I can only imagine that it would become too much. Or maybe that’s one of the walls. Make it hard enough and then there’s your excuse and you get to say, “see I knew you couldn’t handle it.” I don’t know. Some of it is probably real and some of it is probably a defense mechanism.