Immediately following two years of treatment for stage three breast cancer, I was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. When those closest to me asked how I felt, the most accurate word I could find was uncomfortable.

In one moment, my world shifted. My expectations and identity were erased, yet despite the diagnosis, life continued forward. In the beginning, I spent a significant amount of time with my uncomfortable thoughts about how my life would be a series of unfinished pieces. I was a suburban mother with pre-school and elementary-aged girls. Supporting the goals of my children and ensuring they grow into well-adjusted young women was pretty much my purpose. With this new diagnosis, I wondered how I could walk with them halfway to adulthood and then hope their goals would carry them on without me? How could I invest my life into something I would never see to completion? On the other hand, if I didn’t chase the dreams of my children, how should I invest this finite amount of time? As the questions swirled, I sat uncomfortably quiet, waiting to understand how to walk an alternative life path separate from but directly parallel to the norm.

In those first years of metastatic life, I also had to learn to live in a body I couldn’t trust. New medications made strange aches and pains come and go. Scans made me feel like the medical community was looking deep within me to expose lies growing under the shadow of my flesh. Each new pain and scan triggered thoughts that added and subtracted years of life in my head:
“Five years means Audrey will be nine years old. Is that old enough for her to remember me?
And Alyssa, she will be thirteen. Surely, she will be able to help around the house and make it easier for the family by the time she is thirteen.
But what if I don’t get five years? What will happen then?
What should I do to make it easier for them in five years?
How do I explain this? How much do they truly want to know?
How much does anyone honestly want to know?”

Uncomfortable showed up in every setting. It was there as I sat with friends, not talking about cancer yet feeling the presence of the unspoken conversation suck the air out of our relationship. It showed up in our marriage when I tried to discuss the future, and my husband tried to remain in the present. Uncomfortable defined my relationship with others and my relationship with myself. Deep within me, I had a true identity that had not disappeared. But I did not know how this hidden identity was supposed to show up when people looked at me like I was a ticking time bomb. This season of living with metastatic disease was defined by how I wrestled with my insecurities and questions.

Then, after five years, the cancer mutated and grew, and the challenges of cancering became less abstract and much more flesh and bone. The questions around my identity and future were privileges of someone new to the journey. By this point, I knew who my friends were and who they weren’t. I knew what my voice sounded like while I was bald and how I sounded when I “looked good.” Now it was time to learn what uncomfortable felt like in my body. I learned how not knowing when I might have a good day or a bad day could make every day feel good or bad, depending on my expectations. I adjusted to constant energy crashes and uncontrollable diarrhea, which added an entirely new definition to uncomfortable.

Now, as I approach 10 consecutive years of treatments (including my two years of stage three treatments), I find myself more uncomfortable than ever. I thought this milestone would be full of celebration. A decade of treatment, a decade of life! Ten years was more than impossible in the beginning, and yet here I stand. However, as the cancerversary draws near, I am haunted by the question, “What do I dare dream of after this?”

The metastatic experience is not stagnant. When the doctor told me I would die of cancer, those words did not stop me from waking up the next morning. Each day brought me choices and opportunities. I have grown and changed, faced my fears, and healed from scars. I have laughed and cried, traveled, won awards, fulfilled dreams, and remained a suburban mom of three. Even though my physical strength, which used to allow me to serve others, has slipped away, I am confident that those I love know I love them, and I am always looking for new ways to bring good into the world. One way I continue to bring good into the world is to find a new perspective that gives me hope and strength despite each difficult season.

As I pursued a mindset shift, I realized these ten years of discomfort have taught me that comfort is not a value by which I want to define my life.

It takes nine months of being uncomfortable before a mother holds her child. It takes severe discipline and discomfort to climb Half Dome in Yosemite and witness the majestic views. It takes hundreds of uncomfortably bad paintings before something beautiful emerges. It takes hours of uncomfortable conversations to truly understand a person. It takes many awkward and uncomfortable mishaps to travel to a different country and engage in a new culture. It takes a toddler many uncomfortable bumps and bruises before she is steady on her feet and can run to the playground.

To be uncomfortable is to be alive. Its presence is a sign of growth, reminding us that to make mistakes, to fall down, and to feel weak is part of being human. I did not know these years of learning to change and searching for meaning were one long tutorial. However, living uncomfortably has taken my stereotypically busy life and reshaped it into a rhythm that feels more like poetry. I cannot rush through the day. I must stop at the end of every thought and reflect on its meaning before moving forward. I cannot rush through my tasks; I often must stop for naps or long rests. I cannot drop one daughter off at ball practice to pick another up from drama practice without appreciating the privilege of providing these opportunities to my girls. I cannot watch the sun go down without celebrating the colors.

The fruit of an uncomfortable decade of cancering is the ability to wait in hopeful expectation for the next beautiful moment. It has given me the time to capture each unexpected burst of creativity and to receive undeserved acts of love. A cancer diagnosis erased my comfortable life, the one I did not fully appreciate. Now, living as a metastatic breast cancer survivor, I live uncomfortably, but this uncomfortable life has increased my capacity to live.