Learning to relax and live in the ‘now’ after cancer. It’s harder than it seems!

This is my post cancer dream. Which might not look anything like yours. But that doesn’t matter. The most important thing after cancer is learning to live in the ‘now’

Being a cancer survivor has taught me so much about life. Gratitude. Priorities. Embracing the now. Choosing positivity, even on the days when it feels like the harder option. Cancer strips everything back to what really matters, and in that stripping back, there is clarity. There is love. There is perspective.

But it also means a lifetime of uncertainty.

It doesn’t matter what kind of cancer you have, or have had, it’s impossible to completely forget. Even when treatment is long finished, the mental and physical effects live on. Scars fade, hair grows back, appointments become less frequent — but the experience embeds itself in you. In your body. In your thoughts. In the way you plan (or don’t plan) for the future.

Whether we like it or not, and no matter how much we embrace survivorship, we are still cancer patients for life.

That might sound dramatic to someone who hasn’t walked this path. But if you’re reading this as a fellow survivor, you’ll understand. The follow-up scans. The unexplained ache that sends your mind spiralling. The dates etched into your memory — diagnosis day, surgery day, last chemo. The quiet calculations in the background of your mind: How long has it been? What are the odds? What if?

Survivorship is beautiful. And it is heavy.

Recently, I have been craving getting away from it all. Nature. Solitude. Slowing down. I keep saying, “I just want a simple life.” Not in a dramatic, sell-everything-and-move-off-grid way. Just simple in my nervous system. Simple in my thoughts. Simple in my body.

But no matter how hard I try, there always seems to be something slightly complicated and stressful going on. Kids. Work. Parents. Money. The everyday logistics of modern life. Nothing unusual. Nothing impossible to resolve. And yet sometimes it just feels relentless.

Cancer survivorship can feel overwhelming. In fact, many cancer survivors say that the ‘after cancer’ is harder than during

When you’ve lived through cancer, your tolerance for unnecessary stress changes. The small stuff can feel bigger, because you know what big actually is. You know what it is to sit in a hospital room and wait for life-changing news. You know what it is to face your own mortality. After that, school emails and work deadlines can feel absurd — and yet they still demand your energy.

I seem to have forgotten how to relax.

And I know I’m not alone in that. So many survivors live in a low-level state of hypervigilance. Our bodies have been through trauma. Our minds have been trained to scan for danger. Even in calm moments, there can be a quiet hum of “what if” beneath the surface.

So this weekend, I did something intentional. I switched off my phone. I escaped the crowds in my home town. I took the kids off grid, with lovely friends I’ve known for years. Other outdoorsy mamas, who just get it. Women who understand that behind the laughter and the capability, there’s a shared fragility. A shared awareness of how quickly life can change.

No toys. No screens. Just simple pleasures. Sunshine. Muddy boots. Marshmallows over a fire. Time.

I love living like this. Waking up in the mountains to fresh air and birdsong. Feeling the cold grass under my feet. Watching the light shift across the hills. It makes me feel like me — not the patient, not the survivor, not the one with a medical history. Just me.

The kids are at their happiest and most peaceful when they don’t have structure, but they have my time. When the day isn’t carved up into slots and schedules. When boredom turns into imagination. When they climb trees and build dens and come back rosy-cheeked and proud.

And I notice something else: I breathe differently. My shoulders drop. My thoughts slow. The relentless mental to-do list quietens.

Nature doesn’t cure cancer trauma. But it softens it.

There is something profoundly regulating about stepping away from noise and remembering that we are small in a vast, beautiful world. That seasons change. That storms pass. That life continues in cycles, whether we are rushing or resting.

I really hope that these moments are the memories and feelings that stay with my children forever. Not the hospital visits. Not the tired days. Not the times when anxiety crept in and made me distracted.

I hope they remember sunshine. Laughter. A mum who showed up. A mum who tried to live fully, even with fear in her back pocket.

Because these moments will stay with me forever.

There is no rule book for how to live your life after cancer. I am often plagued with doubt about my choices and whether I’m making the best ones - which is entirely normal!

And yet, here is the part we don’t always say out loud: I wish I didn’t have to worry about how long “forever” is.

That’s the undercurrent of survivorship. The gratitude is real. The joy is real. The love is amplified beyond measure. But the uncertainty never completely disappears. It can be quiet for months, then flare up after a routine check-up or a friend’s diagnosis or an unexplained symptom.

Honestly, fuck cancer, for tainting my magic moments. For intruding, uninvited, into sunsets and birthdays and mountain mornings. For making “forever” feel fragile.

And at the same time — here’s the complicated truth — cancer has made those moments sharper. Brighter. More sacred. I notice them in a way I might not have before. I don’t take them for granted.

As much as my life is amazing, it just never quite goes away, does it?

But maybe the goal isn’t to make it go away. Maybe it’s to build a life so full, so grounded, so intentionally simple in the ways that matter, that the fear doesn’t get the final word.

We are survivors. We carry uncertainty. We carry scars. We carry perspective.

And we also carry sunshine, mountain air, sticky marshmallow fingers, and the fierce determination to be here — fully — for as long as forever allows.

All I want is a simple life after cancer!