Breast cancer 12 years

To myself 12 years ago, immediately after being diagnosed with breast cancer:

Dear Mia:

You must be terrified right now.

Afraid of losing your health,

Afraid of losing the life you had planned,

Afraid of seeing yourself becoming increasingly unfamiliar in the mirror.

You're afraid breast cancer isn't just taking away a part of your body.

More than that, it's taking away all that you took for granted,

and the confidence you thought you'd never lose,

all of it.

You'll cry.

You'll be angry.

You'll feel resentful.

You'll ask yourself countless times:

"Why me?"

But 12 years later, I want to tell you,

You won't find a satisfactory answer.

And one day,

you won't be so fixated on the answer.

Because what life truly teaches you isn't finding the reason,

but learning to live through the storm.

Along this journey,

you will lose some things.

Hair, breasts, health,

and that self that always thought you could handle anything.

But you will also gain some things.

Courage, freedom, empathy, and eyes that can see the beauty of life.

You'll start planting flowers,

you'll start painting,

you'll venture into the mountains,

and you'll meet many others struggling through life's low points just like you.

You'll discover that

sharing your wounds isn't about gaining sympathy,

but about letting others know:

Even after a hard fall,

there's still a chance to get back up.

Most incredibly—

Years later, you live more like yourself than before you got sick.

You no longer have to win everything,

you no longer rush to prove yourself.

You begin to appreciate the blooming of a flower,

enjoy the moment paint flows on paper,

and cherish those who truly love you.

And what I most want to say to my younger self is:

Thank you for not giving up.

Thank you for enduring those chemotherapy treatments you thought you couldn't make it through.

Thank you to the person who once cried in the treatment room, telling the doctor:

"I don't want it anymore, I don't want chemotherapy anymore."

Because I know,

that wasn't weakness.

It was truly unbearable suffering.

The suffering was so intense, so unbearable, so unbearable, that you questioned why you were continuing.

But later,

you still walked into the treatment room time and time again.

With fear,

with tears,

with reluctance,

yet you never turned away.

Honestly,

I never imagined

that I could live to this day safely.

And I never imagined

that I would be preparing for my 60th birthday.

Twelve years ago,

you probably couldn't believe it, right?

The person who thought life had been forced to pause,

later traveled to many places, met many warm-hearted people, and learned many things they never imagined before.

You can still smile as you watch flowers bloom,

watch paint flow,

watch puppies chase balls.

It turns out,

life really is more resilient than we imagine. Because of that brave you 12 years ago,

I am the person I am today, still loving life and still full of curiosity about the world.

❤️

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