I've forgotten how to write good blog titles

I have a 3000 word essay due a week today for which I have written precisely zero words so what better use of my time than to resurrect this old thing, right? I checked and the last time I wrote anything here was over a year ago, pre-stem-cell-transplant, and I am pleased to report that life has now shrunk back to standard proportions, by which I don't mean that everything is perfect so much as all my issues are now your run of the mill issues such as being dumped (shitty), deadlines (I promise it's under control), and the courgette shortage (ok, this one IS a matter of life and death). While it's refreshing to only worry about how many shops I will have to visit before I find spinach, rather than how many chemotherapies I will have to visit before I find remission, it's curious how quickly you can readjust to your situation and slip back into the constant low-level hysteria that is an integral part of uni life.

When will my husband return from the war? [source]

I'm not really sure where I'm going with this post if I'm honest. Just think of it as a little heart-to-heart (in which you, dear reader, are DEFINITELY participating if Barthes has anything to do with it #justliterarytheorythings... also comment sections exist innit) because apparently the impulse to overshare hits me alarmingly often.

So. Things I have become since we last had one of these little chats:

• Over one year in remission (!!!!!!!)
• A second year uni student
• Mildly hysterical (see above)
• Pretentious, apparently (see above)
• Single (and definitely not yet ready to mingle, sincere apologies for the huge disappointment this will inevitably cause)
• Somehow approx 90% vegetarian (I know, if you told me this in 2014 I'd have laughed in your face)
• A tea drinker (ditto)
• Old enough to drink alcohol in every country where alcohol is legal (I think)
• Able to rock a #edgy curly bedhead (or at least this is what I like to tell myself)
• Kind of assertive? I'm as confused as you are
• Full of beans both literally (see aforementioned vegetarianism) and figuratively (see aforementioned extended remission)
• Sleep-deprived (see aforementioned uni-student-status)
• Actually able to think about the future without accidentally getting extremely morbid

It's weird that a year ago, my relationship with cancer was one of the dominating features of my life. When I was in the midst of it I was adamant about not letting illness define me, but I think there is a lot to be said for honouring the experience and its effect on you, and recognising its enormity. There isn't anything wrong with making 'cancer-survivor' part of my identity, and in fact I don't think I really have a choice, it's part of me whether I like it or not, like a prominent scar. You can choose to embrace it, or not, but that won't stop it being there.

It's pretty cool that I lived to tell the tale, right?

A lot of it is genuinely brilliant (honestly, if I hadn't gained something from this veritable shitstorm then I'd be marching into God's private pandimensional study and demanding a refund). It's subtle differences in the way I look at the world and appreciating the little things we often take for granted. It's realising that a poor essay grade is not a matter of life and death, because I have been intimately acquainted with matters of ACTUAL life and death, and essays do not feature. Cheesy as it sounds, it's a realisation of what really matters. Through the rose-tinted spectacles of hindsight I can pick out all the positives. It's surprising how quickly you can forget pain when you're not in the midst of it.

There is an aspect that people don't really talk about though, and that's the curious emptiness of recovery. If I am now forging an identity as 'cancer-survivor', it's because I previously identified as 'cancer patient'. And it's not that I let it define me, but it is by nature consuming - it steals so much of your life that there isn't room for much else. It grows in your mind and heart and spirit, the figurative companion to your literal tumours, and squashes all your other important bits to the peripheries. And then suddenly it's gone and there's this space left behind, and all the bits that used to be there are still there but some of them have been warped beyond recognition or salvation. You have to fill yourself back in.

Sometimes I don't feel like I am enough. I feel like the jigsaws I spent my time doing in hospital, almost making a full picture but missing one or two vital pieces. Recovery is a gradual reforging of pieces that will fit in those gaps, but I am learning that they don't have to be the same as before - maybe I can come up with something new that will make the whole image better than it was. Before my illness I don't think I'd have recognised the opportunity in deficiency, but I am realising that maybe the bits that didn't survive the ordeal were actually the bits that weren't really worth keeping anyway. There's space to fill, and I can fill it with whatever the hell I want, which to me seems pretty damn wonderful.