I started reading novels again this summer. Real novels. Long ones. The kind I used to read.

I did not read novels during active treatment. I tried, in the first few months. The attention was not there. The vocabulary of fiction sat in a different part of my brain than the vocabulary I was using. I could not move between them.

By month four, I stopped trying. I read short articles. I read other cancer moms' blogs. I read the hospital portal. I read the back of medication labels. I did not read novels.

This summer, almost four years later, I picked up a novel on my nightstand. I read it for an hour. I read it again the next night. I finished it in a week.

I am writing about this because the small return of novel-reading was one of the first times, in years, that I noticed the version of me that exists outside of cancer mom-ing was still in there.

What I had been

Before my son's diagnosis, I had a life that was not just being a mom. I had a job I liked. I had a small circle of friends I saw regularly. I had hobbies I gave time to. I had a bookshelf with a stack of novels in progress. I had opinions about restaurants. I had a Spotify playlist of songs I had discovered that month.

I had, I think, a self that was not entirely about who I was caring for.

When the diagnosis came, that self was packed away with surprising speed. The job kept going, in a quieter form. The friends mostly stayed close, in a more functional form. The hobbies fell away. The novels stopped. The opinions about restaurants did not seem to matter. The Spotify playlist did not get updated.

I became a cancer mom. The transformation happened in days. Nobody asked me to do it. The situation required it. I went along.

What being just a cancer mom did to me

I want to be careful here. Being a cancer mom is not a small or shameful identity. The work of cancer mom-ing has been some of the most important work of my life. I am proud of who I became inside it.

But I want to write honestly. Being only a cancer mom, for years on end, took something. I lost some of the parts of me that were not about my son's medical care. The parts that were not about vigilance. The parts that liked things for the sake of liking them.

I had become very useful and very narrow. The usefulness mattered. The narrowness was a cost.

What is returning, slowly

Now that we are off active treatment, the parts of me that I packed away are coming back. Slowly. In small uncertain steps.

The novels

Reading fiction is back. I have read four novels this summer. I have started a list of ones I want to read next. The list itself is a small declaration. I am a person who has a list of novels to read.

Music

I am discovering new music again. Updating playlists. Sharing songs with friends. The Spotify algorithm has noticed I am back.

Food I like

I am cooking food again. Not just feeding my family. Choosing recipes. Trying things. Last week I made a complicated pasta dish from a cookbook that has been on my shelf for years.

Going out, occasionally

My husband and I went on an actual date last month. We sat at a restaurant. We did not check our phones. We talked about things that had nothing to do with the kids or the hospital. We came home and went to bed feeling a little bit like ourselves.

A small writing practice

I am writing more. Not blog posts. Small journal entries. A few minutes most mornings. The version of me that wrote in a journal before kids is back. Slowly. Quietly.

Friendships outside of cancer

I am reconnecting with a few friends who have nothing to do with the cancer world. Friends from college. Friends from a job I had ten years ago. These friendships are not better than my cancer mom friendships. They are different. They remind me of versions of myself I had forgotten.

What I have learned about the return

The return is uneven

Some weeks, I feel like myself again. Some weeks, I am still mostly cancer mom. The proportion shifts. The return is not linear.

Both selves are real

The cancer mom version of me and the pre-cancer version of me are both real. I am not choosing between them. I am letting them both exist. The version of me that emerges over time will, I think, be both. A cancer mom who also reads novels and updates her Spotify playlist.

The return takes patience

I cannot force the pre-cancer version of me to come back faster. She comes back on her own timeline. She came back to the bookshelf first. The dating, the cooking, the music followed. The order is not what I would have predicted.

A note for the cancer mom reading this in active treatment

If you are a cancer mom in active treatment and you have lost track of the version of you that existed before, you have not lost her. She is packed away. She is patient. She will be there when you come back for her.

You do not have to reach for her now. The current work is the current work. The cancer mom-ing is enough.

A note for the cancer mom reading this off treatment

If you are off treatment and the pre-cancer version of you feels far away, she is closer than you think. Small things bring her back. A novel. A playlist. A cookbook. A friend from before. Pick one. Start there. The rest follows.

Dina
Mom of Max | Founder, Maxwell’s Toy Shoppe
Childhood Cancer Advocate 💛

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