How to Let Cancer Win

I have allowed cancer to win.

I have stayed in a career that I dislike in order to maximize my income, and for the health insurance.

I have no partner and no close friends.

Yesterday my physician asked if I wanted to freeze my eggs.

I’m 36.

I was 28 when I was diagnosed.

I have never been in a position to seriously ask myself if I want children, to look into the eyes of a man I love and wonder what those potential children might look like.

I have never looked into the eyes of a man I love because there has been no love.

I tried online dating, and the men are rude, crude, and often married.

I tried to go back to school for a career I know I would love, but I could not afford the sole university that admitted me.

I tried to create a new life for myself  by moving away.

With new doctors came new opinions that pulled me into an elevated and endless loop of testing.

I was young and now I am grey, with nothing meaningful to show for all that time that has gone away.

Cancer has won because I do not live, but exist.