This is a frustrating week. Poor thing, it can’t help it. I’m trying to give it a little space, stay out of its way, let it go about its business… but I’m stuck with it from beginning to end. I’m having internet troubles at home, and there’s a small knitting problem that has to be worked out—things that will pass, I’m sure.

Part of the problem is that this week has a lot to live up to. It has history, baggage, importance. Five years ago this week I had the surgery that was the beginning of months and months of cancer treatment. At the time, in the moments of that week, I just let go and let the current take me. I put myself in the hands of Dr. Pearl, and of the people who would care for me, and I was glad to let them be in charge.

Time passed, weeks and more weeks, and I got better. One week, early on, I learned I needed chemotherapy. Another week, it was that radiation was necessary, too. There was the week in September when I had to postpone the first chemo, and the week in February when I learned that seven rounds hadn’t been enough and I’d have to keep going. The week in April, when I was finally done, went by in a fog of fatigue and weakness. The first week that I had enough hair to go out without a scarf came in August.

After that the weeks stopped being so distinct. I settled into my new life—work, healing, living. Months began to mark the milestones, like the month that I went from seeing Dr. Pearl every other month to every three. Before I knew it, a year had passed, then two, three. Busy years, with ups and frustrating downs, progress and setbacks.

But in all that time, that week five years ago was still the thing I could see most clearly. It still holds me. It was my starting point, and I look back at it with a mixture of  love and awe. I cherish it. I know it as the time I began to adapt to something horrible and new, and yet also as the time I began to become my true, real, best self.

So, now that I think about it, maybe what this poor frustrating week needs is a little love.