It’s been a year since I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

I realised my cancer anniversary was coming up last week, wondered if I should do something to commemorate it and then promptly forgot about it until this morning. It was two days ago and it slipped past as if Thursday was just a normal day. I woke up, walked the dog, worked, worked out and had dinner with The Boy at home like it was an ordinary day.

Which I find strange, because the date June 2 is burned into my brain. When people asked me when I was diagnosed I don’t hesitate on the number even though I have to stop for a second when someone asks me my age.

So I assumed I’d wake up on Thursday and I’d feel something.

I guess it’s not like a birthday where you anticipate it. Birthday’s are joyous celebrations full of presents, booze, fabulous dinners and more presents. I want to celebrate birthdays. But cancer anniversaries aren’t necessarily positive milestones. They’re often commiserated rather than celebrated.

Yet  I need to acknowledge it because it’s been a fucker of a year and I choose to celebrate where I am right now. The ground I’m standing on is not as solid as it was before cancer ripped through my life, but it’s safer than it was a year ago.

My diagnosis felt like the tornado that swept up Dorothy and Toto and transported them to a strange place where everything was terrifyingly unfamiliar and they had not choice but to set off on a course that was not of their choosing in order to get back home.

I didn’t want to do any of it. My yellow brick road was fraught with pain, danger and loss. When I thought about what lay ahead of me it all seemed too hard, too scary, too much.

And yet, here I am. Which is definitely something to celebrate.