Too Much, Too Soon

I used to think the hardest part of dating after cancer would be finding someone willing to. I didn’t think anyone would want me anymore—I was changed, insecure, and utterly, profoundly afraid. I was twenty-five and already my body had failed me; already I’d had my head sheared, my body drilled into and scarred.

Then, after I discovered that there were men who were willing to stick around even after I’d informed them, almost sheepishly, that I was just a few months out from being treated for leukemia, I had to consider the wig. There really isn’t a sexy way to remove a wig, and I had to, eventually, in front of the men I dated post-chemo. Most of them were kind about it. One tried it on himself, tossing the long blonde waves behind his shoulders, prancing around the room. Then, after I stopped wearing the wig, the chemo curls that sprung from my head made me feel awkward and boyish. I always had the scars, too, the dots on my lower back from the biopsies, my mutilated belly button from an abscess removal. No part of my body felt like it was mine anymore. All of it had been transformed; all the way down to the cells in my blood, which had caused all the trouble in the first place.

But the bodily concerns, that wasn’t even the hard part.

The hard part was how my cancer rewired the way I looked at people, especially the men I dated. It collapsed time. Before, I would wonder if someone would be a good travel companion, if they’d read the books I recommended, if they liked to be outside. After, I’d look across a table and think: Would he stay in the room as I pulled blood clots out of my throat? Would he look at me, and be proud to be with me, even if I was bald and moon-faced? Would he be able to make me feel some peace if it comes back, and there’s nothing we can do?

These are not first or second or third-date questions, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking them. Nothing felt casual because I wasn’t casual; I lived too close to the bone of things. I imagined how the men I dated would be if I were sick and dying because I had, quite literally, just been sick and dying, and it was difficult for me to imagine anything else, not when I still had nightmares about hospitals and needles and blood every night. I didn’t go on much more than three dates with anyone. It wasn’t their fault; many of these men were good people, they thought I was beautiful, they said kind things that I think they believed. We all think we’re the type of person to be brave when life asks us to be.

For me, it came down to whether they’d be the person I’d want holding my hand as I died. That’s not a reasonable question to ask, not so soon, and it wasn’t even necessary, really; I was in a solid remission, and my prognosis was positive. And yet, that was all I could think. Would I want this person to be the last person I touch? Understandably, the answer was always no.
Until it wasn’t.

The sort of questions I started asking myself about the men I dated after cancer were too grave for the relationship stage we were in. I asked for too much too soon; I recognize that. Still, these are the sorts of questions we all must grapple with sooner or later—about who we want beside us when our bodies fall apart, about whose hands we want to be the last ones we hold.

There were men who said they’d stay with me if my leukemia returned, and maybe they would’ve. We’ll never know. All I know is that it didn’t feel right until it did, until I fell in real, “in sickness and in health” kind of love with a man whose presence felt like sunlight and peace from the first moment we met. Would I want him to hold my hand as I died? Absolutely. I want him with me always.