Still Here, in the In-Between

Register for our upcoming Perkatory event to hear Arlene read her piece aloud.

It’s been 1,236 days since I first heard the words you have breast cancer.

1, 779, 840 minutes…

The world has moved on, and I’m stuck in the in-between.

In between a body that’s healing and healthy…

In between young adulthood and maturing into the woman that I am now in this state of menopause.

Feeling like that song “Outside” by Mariah Carey..Oof.

The cancer is gone, and my world has moved on, and yet I’m still just stuck…

..Afraid to move forward too fast on anything because I’ve been met with sickness and failure and hurt-
AND I’m tired of being resilient way more times than I can count.

I don’t want to give up, because I’ve got so much love in my world, and because I’m still curious and really nosy about the future that is on the other side of stuck -where I get to join the rest of the world in moving on.

I feel stuck in between the space where I don’t trust myself as much as I used to…

Cancer while pregnant emboldened me, and now this new life in survivorship scares me into indecision and fear of not knowing what’s next.

What I can trust is this breath, and the next one, and the next one.

The world has moved on, and physically, so has my cancer, but I never imagined that the only way to catch up with the world in this season is to slow down, find my breath, and exhale the weary words, “keep going”.

My soul obeys, and so I’ll pretend I’m ready to move too, until my breath and mind unify, and I’m as healthy mentally as I look physically.

Herd: Let’s breathe and take one more step toward healing- together!