I like to start April by reflecting on the day I was first diagnosed, which I always remember—my cancerversary. It’s a significant date, especially since it lands on April Fool’s Day. This year is particularly meaningful; it’s been ten years since that moment. A whole decade has gone by. When I think about this period, I often ask myself, ‘Has it really been that long?’ Then, a small, ordinary event reminds me just how extensive ten years can be.

Recently, I was packing for a trip, and my family’s rolling suitcase was on the floor in my room. While packing, I suddenly remembered a suitcase nearly identical to the one on the floor, which had been in the same spot almost ten years ago.

In April 2016, I returned home for treatment, using a borrowed suitcase. I left Chicago abruptly, hurriedly shoving belongings into a dumpster outside my apartment. My goal was to vacate my room quickly, gather essential items, and go home to my family for treatment. After my orchiectomy, the doctors advised me not to lift heavy objects—though that was far from my mind. With just days to start chemotherapy, I focused on clearing out my room, discarding some items and leaving others outside for passersby. The only things I brought back to Maine were my friend’s rolling suitcase and a backpack I had traveled with many times before. In a few days, my life changed drastically—from living in Chicago to returning to Maine for an uncertain period – from a grad student to a cancer patient.

Once home, I chose not to fully unpack. I unzipped the front flap and propped it against the wall. I told myself that by doing this, staying in this state of not fully arriving, my cancer treatment would be swift and easy, allowing me to return to my life in Chicago. It felt like a hotel stay—being here but not completely. When I did laundry, I put the clothes back in the suitcase, and my toiletries remained there as well. Everything was packed away. I was neatly contained within it. My life, shattered though it was, was secured in this borrowed bag.
It wasn’t mine. That’s another reason I enjoyed seeing it sitting there, its lid open and leaning against my wall—visible when I woke up, went to bed, or left my room early in the morning for treatment and came back later in the afternoon, exhausted, drugged, nauseated, and broken. It belonged to my dear friend. To her, it was simply a container for holding items during moves or transit, moving between points A and B. For me, it always represented point A. I was holding myself there, never fully reaching point B, choosing not to arrive, staying in transit to avoid confronting illness and mortality.
Now, ten years later, as I prepared for a trip, I pause with a bundle of clothing in my arms and see the suitcase, its lid open and leaning against the wall, waiting—a receptacle, nothing more than a container for transporting things.

I have arrived fully here.

I returned the suitcase to her. On one trip, during one visit, I filled it with various things—not only personal items for my journey, but also things for her and her family, keepsakes from Maine, pieces that held me when I left. Gifts.

Still, I prefer my rucksack. I’d rather carry everything on my back, with stuff loaded from the bottom up, making it awkward and frustratingly bulky – perfectly cumbersome, delightfully minimal.

Pericles, an ancient Greek politician and general during Athens’ so-called “golden age,” remarked that “Time is the wisest counselor of all.”

What wisdom has a decade given me? Over 10 years, have I absorbed the kernels of understanding and the tiny trinkets of knowledge tucked away in the crevices and pockets of that suitcase I eventually unpacked? I am not sure.

Some nights, I wake and stare at the corner of my room where the suitcase sat in April 2016. It’s a strange feeling to be awake, staring into the darkness. In that foggy moment, before full awareness hits, I try to determine whether I’m back in 2016, looking out at the night, afraid I have unpacked and accepted the exhausting 8 hours a day, 5 days a week of cancer treatment, or whether I’m in 2026, searching for a bag that isn’t there, probing the darkness as if out of gratitude for being present, healed, and safe.

Consciousness arrives. There is no suitcase. I am neither coming nor going, and right now, that’s okay. Is this wisdom?