How do you know who you really are?
For class.
Redefining Me
“I have to ask,” John says.
I’m pushing aside a mass of empty bottles from the counter as he hovers a few feet behind me. It’s December, but the winter chill has been chased far away from the kitchen by the oven as a third pizza bakes… and by the many bodies squeezed into our tiny townhouse. We’re here to celebrate Christmas, a new year, and the soft fuzz of new hair that’s currently hidden under my cloth cap.
“I have to ask,” he says again, and the repetition catches my attention, making me look up from the bottles and the food. “Are they real? Did they-” he hesitates, one hand gesturing to his own chest. “-You know.”
“Jesus, John!” his girlfriend butts in, smacking him on the arm. “Don’t ask things like that!”
But I’m laughing. Maybe because, embarrassing as it is, there’s pride too. “It’s okay,” I say. “It’s all real. I’m just me.”
~~~
It’s 4pm on a Monday, almost eight months earlier, when I get the call from the doctor’s office. I’ve been expecting this all weekend, but for some reason I still let it buzz a few more times, staring at the caller ID, before I finally pick up.
“Hello?”
“This is Dr. Daly’s office calling. May I please speak with Jennifer Justice?”
“Speaking.”
“Jennifer, we’ve got the results from your biopsy and Dr. Daly would like to discuss them with you. Is there any chance you could be here by 4:30 today?”
A look at the clock is all it takes for me to be irritable. “I’m forty five minutes away. Can’t you just tell me over the phone?”
“I’m sorry. I’m not able to do that. The doctor needs to speak with you personally.”
For a second, the silence stretches uncomfortably between us before I give in. “Alright. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”
“We’ll be here,” she says, and I don’t let myself wonder why they’re willing to wait on me now, so late in the day. I don’t call my mom and ask her to meet me. I don’t text my best friend. I just drive, steaming about the pile of grading I’ve just left behind. It’s easier.
When I do get there, fifteen minutes before they’re meant to close, I’m shuffled into a small room where I sit on the padded exam table, feet dangling. It’s not a long wait. There’s a short knock before the door swings open and Dr. Daly’s eyes meet mine, more serious than I’ve seen him in the twelve years I’ve been visiting him, and I know.
My eyes are already stinging as he crosses the room to sit across from me. “I don’t want to hear this, do I?” I ask.
“Jennifer,” he says, taking my hands in his. They’re large and warm and easier to look at than his eyes. “I’m so sorry.” It’s the first time I let myself cry.
~~~
Four words. Four small words and I was suddenly in foreign territory, unable to find my way back. There were more words of course; invasive ductal carcinoma, grade III, indeterminate stage, chemotherapy. Cold, clinical words that I repeated back and memorized automatically. Those words didn’t matter. Not to me. All that mattered was that I was 24 and I had breast cancer.
The rest of that day is blurred. Too upset to drive, I remember the secretary fiddling with her keys until my mom could come and pick me up. I remember the phone calls - dad, brothers, best friend - though I don’t remember what I said. I think there was a lot of silence, really, because what was there to say? I knew, of course, that this meant things would change. For the next several months, my life would be a montage of hospital visits, flimsy paper gowns, prescription bottles and tests. So many tests. But, as it truly sank in, as I realized that this was really happening, I made a decision. I might have cancer… but I refused to become the cancer patient.
The battle had two fronts. While the doctors fought for my health, I fought for my life. The doctors removed the tumor. I stayed up late playing Rockband with my boyfriend and eating Chinese takeout. The doctors did bone density scans and blood tests. I flew to Washington DC to watch fireworks over the Lincoln Memorial. My hair began to fall out - my friends held a photo shoot, and then we celebrated with a girls’ night out when I shaved my head and put on a wig. When the strain of chemo became too much and my boyfriend and I went our separate ways, I went out swing dancing and visited museums. I stood up in a friend’s wedding. I ran a three-month-long, after school writing program for my middle schoolers. I wrote a novel. And when December came, bringing the end of chemo with it, I threw a party.
I made it. I won. And I had never stopped being me. I was never more excited to go back to school than I was at the end of that break.
It was the second day of school when my principal called me into his office. Leaning back in his chair, hands clasped over his belly, he wore a careful frown as he looked at me without ever really meeting my eyes. “I’m sorry, Jen. But it’s out of my hands. We needed to make changes to the schedule for next year and the school board’s decided. There won’t be Reading Workshop next year.”
That was it. I’d survived cancer and chemo only to be felled by a schedule change.
I didn’t stop fighting. After so long, I don’t think I actually could. I assistant directed the musical. I edited my students’ books. I talked to parents. I talked to students. And I wrote a letter of protest to the board. I pointed out my achievements, my dedication, my good evaluations. Then, on June 3, after the last of my students had packed themselves onto the buses, I packed up my classroom… 8 boxes, in all. Even with my tiny Hyundai, it only took one trip to bring it all home.
I was done. Finished. Cured. But it was now, when I should have been well beyond its reach, that the cancer took its toll. With treatments done and the school decided, there was nothing left to fight. So I stopped. I stopped writing, reading, eating, exercising, going out, talking, cleaning, caring. I stopped being me.
~~~
It’s July before I realize how completely I’ve ceased to exist. Sitting on the couch, laptop beginning to scorch my legs through the thin denim of my jeans, I’m refreshing the same 3 pages I’ve been looking at all day when my roommate comes downstairs to join me.
“Hey!” she says, stopping at the foot of the stairs. “Where’d you go, yesterday? I missed you.”
I look up from the computer, confused. “Go?”
“Yeah. I was home nearly all day, but you weren’t here.”
“I-” I stop, searching my mind for some hint of memory. Why hadn’t I been around? “I don’t remember.”
“…You don’t remember?”
I laugh. It isn’t funny, but it seems like the easiest way to hide the uneasiness I suddenly feel. “Not even a little. I- I seriously don’t know.”
Later, I realize why. The reason I don’t remember where I was is because I wasn’t anywhere. Yesterday, I didn’t even leave my room. And even being home, Mandie had never known I was there.
It scares me. Before, I’d defined myself in a lot of ways - teacher, writer, friend, roommate - and somehow, in the aftermath, I let it all slip away. I’ve become something unrecognizable... and I don’t like it. I need to get back to myself and I need to do it now. Only, a year later, I’m no longer sure what I’m even trying to get back to.
I start with little things. Going to a movie with friends. Throwing a pizza in the oven. Doing ten pushups. Reading a chapter in a book. They’re baby steps, but each one takes me a little bit closer, until I can tackle the bigger problems that I’ve been letting overwhelm me. I sort through my mail, hunting down the left over hospital bills that have been sitting, neglected, in piles around my room. I get an oil change for my car. I make doctors’ appointments. And I apply.
I apply for jobs…but as the summer progresses, I’m realizing that if I’m going to get back on my feet, I need a change. Not in careers. I love teaching. I can’t imagine doing anything else. But still, I need something different before I can dive back in. So even as I send out my resume to district after district, I’m slowly putting together the application for grad school. It’s not a hard application, but I procrastinate all the same. It’s late in the summer, I still haven’t taken the GRE, and I’m not sure about taking a year off. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that this- this is what I really want.
~~~
We’re near campus, supposedly for Jenny to point out parking spots I’ll be able to use when classes start next week, but instead we’ve found ourselves at Barnes & Noble - Jenny with a book of ridiculous letters and me with a mocha. I’m wishing I’d brought my text books with me. The reading for graduate classes is a level above what I’d been used to during my undergraduate and I know I could use the extra time. But, for now, it’s nice just to be here with a friend.
“So, are you excited?” she asks me, flipping pages in search of something worth sharing.
I fidget with the cardboard sleeve around my cup, listening to the soft scrape of paper against paper as it shifts. “I’m not sure. I mean, yes. I am.” It’s hard, putting it into words, but I try anyway. “This isn’t where I thought I would be, you know? No one thinks about being twenty five and starting over.”
Picking up my cup, I take a drink. It’s still hot, almost too hot, but there’s something comforting in the sweet warmth. “But it’s good, too. I can do this and figure out where I go from here.” Because I haven’t quite figured out who I am, now. I don’t know how this semester will go or what my new normal will be. But if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that I’m living now. I’m getting there. And, at this moment, that’s plenty.
Redefining Me
“I have to ask,” John says.
I’m pushing aside a mass of empty bottles from the counter as he hovers a few feet behind me. It’s December, but the winter chill has been chased far away from the kitchen by the oven as a third pizza bakes… and by the many bodies squeezed into our tiny townhouse. We’re here to celebrate Christmas, a new year, and the soft fuzz of new hair that’s currently hidden under my cloth cap.
“I have to ask,” he says again, and the repetition catches my attention, making me look up from the bottles and the food. “Are they real? Did they-” he hesitates, one hand gesturing to his own chest. “-You know.”
“Jesus, John!” his girlfriend butts in, smacking him on the arm. “Don’t ask things like that!”
But I’m laughing. Maybe because, embarrassing as it is, there’s pride too. “It’s okay,” I say. “It’s all real. I’m just me.”
~~~
It’s 4pm on a Monday, almost eight months earlier, when I get the call from the doctor’s office. I’ve been expecting this all weekend, but for some reason I still let it buzz a few more times, staring at the caller ID, before I finally pick up.
“Hello?”
“This is Dr. Daly’s office calling. May I please speak with Jennifer Justice?”
“Speaking.”
“Jennifer, we’ve got the results from your biopsy and Dr. Daly would like to discuss them with you. Is there any chance you could be here by 4:30 today?”
A look at the clock is all it takes for me to be irritable. “I’m forty five minutes away. Can’t you just tell me over the phone?”
“I’m sorry. I’m not able to do that. The doctor needs to speak with you personally.”
For a second, the silence stretches uncomfortably between us before I give in. “Alright. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”
“We’ll be here,” she says, and I don’t let myself wonder why they’re willing to wait on me now, so late in the day. I don’t call my mom and ask her to meet me. I don’t text my best friend. I just drive, steaming about the pile of grading I’ve just left behind. It’s easier.
When I do get there, fifteen minutes before they’re meant to close, I’m shuffled into a small room where I sit on the padded exam table, feet dangling. It’s not a long wait. There’s a short knock before the door swings open and Dr. Daly’s eyes meet mine, more serious than I’ve seen him in the twelve years I’ve been visiting him, and I know.
My eyes are already stinging as he crosses the room to sit across from me. “I don’t want to hear this, do I?” I ask.
“Jennifer,” he says, taking my hands in his. They’re large and warm and easier to look at than his eyes. “I’m so sorry.” It’s the first time I let myself cry.
~~~
Four words. Four small words and I was suddenly in foreign territory, unable to find my way back. There were more words of course; invasive ductal carcinoma, grade III, indeterminate stage, chemotherapy. Cold, clinical words that I repeated back and memorized automatically. Those words didn’t matter. Not to me. All that mattered was that I was 24 and I had breast cancer.
The rest of that day is blurred. Too upset to drive, I remember the secretary fiddling with her keys until my mom could come and pick me up. I remember the phone calls - dad, brothers, best friend - though I don’t remember what I said. I think there was a lot of silence, really, because what was there to say? I knew, of course, that this meant things would change. For the next several months, my life would be a montage of hospital visits, flimsy paper gowns, prescription bottles and tests. So many tests. But, as it truly sank in, as I realized that this was really happening, I made a decision. I might have cancer… but I refused to become the cancer patient.
The battle had two fronts. While the doctors fought for my health, I fought for my life. The doctors removed the tumor. I stayed up late playing Rockband with my boyfriend and eating Chinese takeout. The doctors did bone density scans and blood tests. I flew to Washington DC to watch fireworks over the Lincoln Memorial. My hair began to fall out - my friends held a photo shoot, and then we celebrated with a girls’ night out when I shaved my head and put on a wig. When the strain of chemo became too much and my boyfriend and I went our separate ways, I went out swing dancing and visited museums. I stood up in a friend’s wedding. I ran a three-month-long, after school writing program for my middle schoolers. I wrote a novel. And when December came, bringing the end of chemo with it, I threw a party.
I made it. I won. And I had never stopped being me. I was never more excited to go back to school than I was at the end of that break.
It was the second day of school when my principal called me into his office. Leaning back in his chair, hands clasped over his belly, he wore a careful frown as he looked at me without ever really meeting my eyes. “I’m sorry, Jen. But it’s out of my hands. We needed to make changes to the schedule for next year and the school board’s decided. There won’t be Reading Workshop next year.”
That was it. I’d survived cancer and chemo only to be felled by a schedule change.
I didn’t stop fighting. After so long, I don’t think I actually could. I assistant directed the musical. I edited my students’ books. I talked to parents. I talked to students. And I wrote a letter of protest to the board. I pointed out my achievements, my dedication, my good evaluations. Then, on June 3, after the last of my students had packed themselves onto the buses, I packed up my classroom… 8 boxes, in all. Even with my tiny Hyundai, it only took one trip to bring it all home.
I was done. Finished. Cured. But it was now, when I should have been well beyond its reach, that the cancer took its toll. With treatments done and the school decided, there was nothing left to fight. So I stopped. I stopped writing, reading, eating, exercising, going out, talking, cleaning, caring. I stopped being me.
~~~
It’s July before I realize how completely I’ve ceased to exist. Sitting on the couch, laptop beginning to scorch my legs through the thin denim of my jeans, I’m refreshing the same 3 pages I’ve been looking at all day when my roommate comes downstairs to join me.
“Hey!” she says, stopping at the foot of the stairs. “Where’d you go, yesterday? I missed you.”
I look up from the computer, confused. “Go?”
“Yeah. I was home nearly all day, but you weren’t here.”
“I-” I stop, searching my mind for some hint of memory. Why hadn’t I been around? “I don’t remember.”
“…You don’t remember?”
I laugh. It isn’t funny, but it seems like the easiest way to hide the uneasiness I suddenly feel. “Not even a little. I- I seriously don’t know.”
Later, I realize why. The reason I don’t remember where I was is because I wasn’t anywhere. Yesterday, I didn’t even leave my room. And even being home, Mandie had never known I was there.
It scares me. Before, I’d defined myself in a lot of ways - teacher, writer, friend, roommate - and somehow, in the aftermath, I let it all slip away. I’ve become something unrecognizable... and I don’t like it. I need to get back to myself and I need to do it now. Only, a year later, I’m no longer sure what I’m even trying to get back to.
I start with little things. Going to a movie with friends. Throwing a pizza in the oven. Doing ten pushups. Reading a chapter in a book. They’re baby steps, but each one takes me a little bit closer, until I can tackle the bigger problems that I’ve been letting overwhelm me. I sort through my mail, hunting down the left over hospital bills that have been sitting, neglected, in piles around my room. I get an oil change for my car. I make doctors’ appointments. And I apply.
I apply for jobs…but as the summer progresses, I’m realizing that if I’m going to get back on my feet, I need a change. Not in careers. I love teaching. I can’t imagine doing anything else. But still, I need something different before I can dive back in. So even as I send out my resume to district after district, I’m slowly putting together the application for grad school. It’s not a hard application, but I procrastinate all the same. It’s late in the summer, I still haven’t taken the GRE, and I’m not sure about taking a year off. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that this- this is what I really want.
~~~
We’re near campus, supposedly for Jenny to point out parking spots I’ll be able to use when classes start next week, but instead we’ve found ourselves at Barnes & Noble - Jenny with a book of ridiculous letters and me with a mocha. I’m wishing I’d brought my text books with me. The reading for graduate classes is a level above what I’d been used to during my undergraduate and I know I could use the extra time. But, for now, it’s nice just to be here with a friend.
“So, are you excited?” she asks me, flipping pages in search of something worth sharing.
I fidget with the cardboard sleeve around my cup, listening to the soft scrape of paper against paper as it shifts. “I’m not sure. I mean, yes. I am.” It’s hard, putting it into words, but I try anyway. “This isn’t where I thought I would be, you know? No one thinks about being twenty five and starting over.”
Picking up my cup, I take a drink. It’s still hot, almost too hot, but there’s something comforting in the sweet warmth. “But it’s good, too. I can do this and figure out where I go from here.” Because I haven’t quite figured out who I am, now. I don’t know how this semester will go or what my new normal will be. But if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that I’m living now. I’m getting there. And, at this moment, that’s plenty.