I'm not sure what to do. Every so often, Ryan will say something about how there will be so many guys in college for me to date. While that may be true, the fact is I don't want to date them. I would like to be with him. And to be honest, whenever he tells me that I'm going to find someone within the first semester, it hurts me. It makes me feel like there's no chance of 'us' happening, and it hurts me, and it scares me. I know I'm just exposing myself to more potential heartbreak by hanging out with him, by cuddling with him, and hell, by having sleepovers with him. But I can't help it.

Every time he talks about the people I'll supposedly date, it feels like he's pushing me away, like he's trying to get me to get over him. But then he'll go around and do something like call me lovely (which he's done) or hug me goodbye and ever-so-softly kiss my neck (which he did like two days ago), and it'll feel like he wants me, like he wants to be with me.

So I don't know what to do. I do know that I don't want to date some random guy I meet at college. But I just don't know what to do about Ryan. Should I talk to him about it? But it seems like whenever I have talked to him about it, it's just set us back even further. So should I just leave it alone until he brings it up? But that could be a while. Like months, or more likely, years. So I just don't know.


-M.

Oh fudgecakes, it's happened again.

For some reason I've been having random panic attacks and I have no idea why. And I'm feeling depressed again. I don't know why. But this sucks. Argh.


-M.

I wrote an essay for a 'children of breast cancer survivors' scholarship. Here it is:


When my mother first got breast cancer, I was in eighth grade. I was devastated, but I wasn’t surprised. A couple weeks before we found out, she had said that she found a lump, and that the doctors were going to find out if she had cancer or not. I didn’t say anything, but I knew it wasn’t going to be good. The first couple of months were hard; my mom had to have seven surgeries just in that first year alone (including a bilateral mastectomy), and just by looking at her, you could tell she was in pain. Even through the pain and the fear, I knew she was going to survive. Knowing her, I knew that there was no way that she wouldn’t survive. She’s always been tough; she even went to work during chemotherapy and radiation.
After she was done her treatments and breast reconstruction, there was a noticeable change in her attitude. She was more spontaneous, taking random trips to other states and sometimes Canada. She was also somewhat more frivolous with money, and would buy clothing and gadgets that she wouldn’t have thought to buy before. When I asked her about her new behavior, she said that having cancer put everything in perspective, and she wanted to experience more.
This caused a shift in my mental processes. I began to focus more on enjoying life, rather than just getting through it. I began seriously thinking about what I wanted to do with my life, and how to do it quickly and effectively. After a while, I decided that I wanted to be a therapist, so I started taking classes in high school that would better prepare me for that career. I also joined the International Baccalaureate Program at Old Mill High School, which, with its prestigious reputation, would help me even more with my eventual goal of graduate school. My mother’s cancer was always an underlying factor to everything I did; it was a dark motivator to help me achieve, because with my mother’s cancer came the knowledge that I was at risk. I felt, and still feel, that if I died and haven’t lived my life to its true potential, then that was a life that was wasted.
When my mother’s cancer came back, I was truly shocked. I really hadn’t expected it to come back, and when she said she felt a lump in her neck, I thought it was simply a swollen lymph node. When my father got a call from my mother while he and I were in New York, and he told me that she had cancer, I didn’t know what to do except cry. I was frightened, more frightened than I was when she first had cancer back in 2004, and I was angry. I had prayed to God for five years straight that her cancer wouldn’t come back, and being raised Christian, I believed with all my heart that it would work. When I heard that it had come back and that my prayers didn’t work, I was furious that my efforts were useless, and that God hadn’t been listening.
So now we’re coping the best we can. My mother’s almost done with chemotherapy, and we have plans for a vacation in the Caribbean this year and Scotland and Ireland next year. My mother wants to have a big vacation every year, as almost a reward for surviving. I’ll be going to school in the fall; my plans for a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology are still in effect. If there’s one thing my mother’s cancer taught me, it’s that you should live life as best as you can, because you only get one chance.


It seems a bit choppy to me, but my mom said it was good, so I guess I'll just leave it. It's not supposed to be a paper for school, just an essay for money, so it doesn't have to be spectacular or anything. But yeah. My mom has worried that I'm dealing with the whole cancer thing a little TOO well, but it's just a serious case of denial. I think this essay was a way to communicate how I felt about the whole thing, and to come to terms with it.


-M.