I don’t really like crowds, cliques, groups, or labels. I’ve never been interested in being cool, hanging out with the ‘right’ people, acting a certain way, or following what everyone else does. Image and status have never impressed me. I’ve usually avoided labeling myself because I’ve thought that the minute I put a label on myself as anything other than ‘person’ I’m alienating myself from so many other people. It sounds simple, but it’s hard to pull off. I don’t mean this in a pretentious, I’m-an-individual-and-I’m-so-unique-and-special kind of way, because you know what? We’re all goddamn unique and special, every single one of us.

I’m no more special now that I have cancer, but now I’m standing in a different place. Now I’m standing with the Community of Cancer, and the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer. We’re all here, spread out over the entire world. We’re all on our own paths of angst, confusion, anger, sadness, grief, and terror, but we’re not alone; all of our paths merge. I read other people’s stories and I feel the cancer connection that we share. It’s a pretty intense feeling. I will embrace this label because my life is now forever changed. We all hope that our cancer is temporary, but the changes in our lives are forever. We will never be the same, and that’s ok. As my surgeon put it so well, “When this is over, you won’t be the same Leah, but you won’t be Cancer Leah.”

I want to make sense out of it, to try to figure it out, but there’s nothing to figure out and I have to learn to give in to this tumble. Cancer levels the playing field for all of us. It takes away any sense of control we thought we had. Cancer demolishes walls and strips away the things that keep people separated whether it’s gender, money, age, religion, sexuality, or race. Here we all are, naked in a room together. With cancer. We are now equals. There is strength in numbers, even if we are unwell. Is this what it takes for us to feel connected?