This is a post that I want to dedicate to my friends and family who have seen me through the ups and downs of the past year. Who have shown me that there is so much more out there and whose love for me has really made me who I am today.

Love is a funny thing. We hear the word and depending on who we are, we associate a million different things with it. My doctor was talking about it with me. She was discussing how crucial it was for cancer patients and their families. How sometimes just walking around the ward can make people feel better. Why sites like ChemoAngels are so successful; it makes people feel connected and ultimately cared about. I mean, love is so many things. And everyone has a different definition for it—some liken it to a flutter in the chest, a flip-flop in the stomach, romance, friendship, family, trust, loyalty, caring, the list can go on and on.

Our life experiences color the word too. Some of us take love in the form of money; others will have the life beaten out of them because that’s what they were taught love is. Some of us hide from it; some of us embrace it. Some of us run from it, while others of us constantly find ourselves chasing after it. It’s elusive, it’s intangible and can be as healing as it is destructive.

But for me, and I believe like so many of us, love is friendship. It’s comfort. It’s caring. Love isn’t some mystical and magical movement in your heart. It’s the feeling that you get when you know that someone means a lot to you. When I was sick, I remember feeling the need to constantly tell everyone around me how I felt about them. And I was lucky that I was surrounded by people who would love me back; I can't imagine how lonely someone would feel if all they had was themselves to rely on. And I've met people through my work with the Lymphoma society that did feel all alone and unloved and confused and unlucky. And I kept thinking, "how unfair is that?"

Because this whole experience taught me a lot about life and love and friendship. It changes how you look at the people in your life that you care about. Who you let in. It changes how much of yourself you’re willing to give to any one person; I've been accused of giving too much to friends who don't seem to give much back. But it also gives you a certain freedom in not keeping around people you only have lukewarm feelings for. And you just want to constantly surround yourself with love. Because it’s what gives you the reason to fight the disease that has infected your body and to make sure that it doesn’t come back. When it seems like your world is just going to be surrounded by so much darkness, when your body fails you, and all your left with is hope, you truly believe in the fact that love—the way your mom holds your hand, the way your brother sits at the end of your bed, how your friend brings you over a ton of movies, and your dad just sits in a chair and looks at you—will make it all better.

I could’ve been very bitter after I got better. The person I had once been in love with had skipped out. Best friends since college, whose wedding I had read in just months earlier, had bailed out. I had no hair, scars on my chest, pounds added on from steroids and a complete lack of direction. On one hand, I might only have a few years left. On the other, I may have had just as long a lifetime as anyone else.

They say that having cancer is a grieving process. Most of us suffer something akin to a broken heart or losing a sibling. Imagine, at 23, you feel that you have your entire life ahead of you. Then at 25, feeling that you’re not sure how much life you have left in you.

So, first you shut yourself off. You look through old pictures, crying about the past, the memories, thinking, “If I could just recapture that feeling, I’ll be okay.” But then you realize that isn’t why you were given a second chance. So, you start to go out again. Remember what it’s like to smile, to laugh, to dance, to have a good time. All that stuff you were in that hospital bed fighting for comes rushing back. You start to remember how good it feels to be open to possibilities.
But see, your heart can still be broken from being sick. You feel betrayed by your body, by God, by things that are out of your control. You cry for no reason. You don’t trust anyone, including yourself.

We forget that we tell our parents, our siblings and even our friends we love them all the time--because we do. They’ve become such a fabric of our being that we just simply love them. They’re a part of us.

But being able to be to love, means being able to be vulnerable. If you’re not willing to be vulnerable, to be open, you’ll always be scared. You’ll always be looking for something that isn’t there. If you’re going to embrace the good in life, the good in the people that care for you, you must first let go of all your anger, all your hurt, all your confusion and all your pain. Let go of your expectations, your comparisons, and your conviction that you know how it should be. I know that life will work itself out and show you that there are things that will be surprising. No one person can fix someone else’s broken heart—but they can make you see the possibility of more. And if you’re willing to take the time, to let yourself heal from this sickness, to accept that right now there are no real answers, then you have a shot. Because there are some things in life that are very rare—and a friend, a good friend, a great friend, a friend who loves you for all that you are and all that you can be—is one of those things.

I think that experience is our greatest teacher--and our worst enemy. It gives us the tools survive but at the same time can make us jaded and wary; cynical and distrustful. It shapes who we are in ways we're sometimes not even aware of.

Because of my experience, I know that I have trouble with trust and having faith. Fear--of what I can't control, of being vulnerable, of opening my heart--rules who I am these days. I find myself constantly uneasy with just BEING. Everything has to have a plan, a purpose. I need to know EVERYTHING & ask a million questions instead of just letting the answers make themselves known. I subconciously test people--pushing them to the point where they are looking at me and saying, "Is this really even worth it?" Once something takes on meaning to me--I feel the need to question it. Confidence becomes uncertaintly because now it has weight and value and the potential of loss is really...well, there you go.

But I know that these thinsg aren't who I am. They're simply my experiences getting in the way. Shielding me from getting hurt but at the same time blocking me from being 100% happy. We guard our hearts for lots of reasons--but ultimately we are all terrified of getting hurt. Because when we didn't know any better we handed all that innocence and trust over and said, "this is important, don't break it." But we're all only human and for one reaon or another we find our hearts, our innocence, and our trust shattered into a million pieces. And whoever wants to go through that again? If you're me--you shut yourself down, away, find something wrong with every guy you meet, swear to your friends that love is a myth, a joke. And then three years later, you realize how much has gone by. How by not taking the chance on being disappointed, you've accepted just being empty. Using a broken heart as an excuse. And it never heals because you've forgotten what it means to connect. Experience has kept you from experiencing anything--pain, misery and ultimately happiness too.

I may have a ton of hang-ups. A relationship with me is uncovering all those land mines, those things that I've been very good at forgetting about and running away from. Opening up old wounds and healing them--but ofcourse first it's got to sting a little bit. And not hiding behind my illness anymore. I believe that I have the capacity somewhere to let it all go and start over. To not bring all my disappointments with me. To allow myself to be vulnerable without being insecure. To trust the good stuff. To stop questioning everything because I'm so scared that if I've not thought of every scenario, every angle, then I won't be prepared. I need to appreciate the unexpected and be open to all the possibilities. Because if experience has taught me anything--I deserve to be happy.