The good news is I don’t have cancer anymore. The bad news is I don’t know how to live without it.

As a pre-teen, I enthusiastically filled pages of the diary my fabulous mom gave me with news of my happy nuclear family. At thirteen, after Mom moved out to live a lesbian life with my Girl Scout Leader, my writing slowed to a sad trickle of searching questions such as, “Why me?” Then at age fifteen I was diagnosed with cancer, Mom’s attention returned, and I asked my diary, why not me? Being ill meant that I no longer had to deal with growing apart from my mom or growing up in general. I thought my death would have the perfect tragic Hollywood ending — until I survived cancer after extensive treatments and had to learn how to live a life for which I had nothing to wear.