Day 768: Two Years Cancer Free

Last Monday, June 4, 2012, I posted a blog about triple negative breast cancer. I did a lot of other things last Monday as well:

I went spinning at 5:30 in the morning
I had a highly productive day at work
I made it to the gym at lunch
I cooked dinner for the family
I convinced Gabe that I needed to take a walk right after dinner while he bathed the kids
I sang to my kids and read them books before bed
I mixed up a perfect Tom Collins and collapsed on the couch for a few minutes to wind down
I made love with my husband and still got to bed early since I had to wake up at 4 the next morning to get to the airport
I had trouble sleeping, as I often do; something was tugging at the back of my mind

I completely forgot that exactly two years had passed since I had three cancerous tumors removed from my body

It's a week later, and I am staring at the entry on my desk calendar for last Monday that reads "TWO YEARS!!" and wondering how the hell I skipped over that.

It's a week later, and I really wish I could go back in time and tell myself two years ago that it would be possible for cancer to be both in the foreground and the background, for it to be there and not there, for it to be on the list but so far down that other more mundane things would take precedence.

It's a week later, and I am amazed that Gabe forgot, that my mom forgot.

I mean, every year, on October 11, I find a way to mark the anniversary of my car accident. 2012 marks 28 years. I have never forgotten.

I remember important days--birthdays, death commemorations, anniversaries--even the smaller ones like first dates, engagements.

I'm astounded.

I'm thinking about this morning, when I was washing the dishes, still sweaty and hot from spinning, and I looked up and saw a note on the window above the sink, written in that slanted, lefty handwriting: "You made me smile."

It is true what they say. This too shall pass. All of this--all of those things, small and large, important and insignificant, that make up our days and our years, shall pass. It is both a blessing and a curse. These writings--on calendars, blogs, pink post-it notes left around the house--might be the only reminders that we have of what was real.

Two years pass, and it's nothing, and it's everything. And you don't even realize what has happened, but really, a lot of things have happened. It's hard to know whether to laugh or cry.

And that's it, isn't it? That's the question. Is this a tragedy or a comedy?

Or a mystery?