The Other Side of the Forest
Updated: Aug 19
There are times in our lives when looking backward feels easier than looking ahead. Something happens that changes things. Maybe by choice. Maybe not. Either way, you find yourself standing somewhere you’ve never stood before, looking toward a future you don’t recognize.
It’s natural to want to go back to the way things were. The life you had was familiar. You knew its rhythms, who you were inside it, what you could manage and what was expected of you. Even the parts you think you could’ve done without begin to look different from a distance.
When this happens, I wonder if it’s not that we’re longing for how good life was, but rather for how recognizable it was.
Cancer can create this kind of longing.
I just want my old life back.
I have heard versions of that sentence many times. I’ve come to think it doesn't always mean for everything to be exactly as it once was.
I think sometimes it means:
I want to recognize myself again.
I want confidence in my body again.
I want to know what tomorrow might look like.
I’m tired of having to figure everything out.
There’s comfort in familiar terrain. But cancer changes the landscape. And there usually isn’t one clear map to navigate your way through it.
If you’re fortunate, you find a team who has walked the terrain before and can help offer guidance. But the direction forward is different for each person walking it.
After treatment ends, or if your cancer becomes a chronic condition, life begins asking for attention differently. The world expects you to step back into it. And you may discover that you aren’t entirely sure how.
It can feel a little like emerging from a dense forest into an open meadow.
Behind you is the terrain you’ve already traveled. Ahead of you is wide open space.
There are no arrows pointing toward the life you’re supposed to live next.
No clearly marked trail.
Perhaps you stand there looking for one.
What am I supposed to do now?
Which way am I supposed to go?
Who am I after all of this?
The questions aren’t surprising. Cancer can change your relationship with your body, your work, your relationships, your assumptions about the future, and your sense of safety in the world.
And now you’re being asked to enter uncharted terrain while you’re still discovering who you are within it. Discovery feels different when you didn’t choose to become a beginner again.
Maybe that’s why we become so preoccupied with figuring out where we’re going before we begin.
We wait for clarity.
We wait to feel motivated.
We wait until we know what matters now.
We wait to feel more like ourselves.
But what if those things aren’t waiting to meet us at the edge of the meadow?
What if we can only discover them by walking into it?
That can be difficult to do when so much of your recent experience may have reminded you of what you couldn’t control. Cancer can make you acutely aware of your body’s limits, the uncertainty of what lies ahead, and how quickly the world we know can reshape itself.
Moving into unfamiliar territory asks you to trust yourself differently.
In a way, you’ve done this before.
There was a time in your life when you didn’t expect yourself to know exactly who you were before you began engaging with the world. You tried things, met new people, and wandered toward whatever caught your attention.
Some things stayed with you. Others didn’t.
You discovered what you loved and what left you cold. You found places you belonged and others where you didn’t. You learned what interested you, challenged you, brought you pleasure, and what you never wanted to do again.
Through those experiences, you were discovering who you were.
Somewhere along the way, we change and start assuming we know ourselves well enough to know what we want. What matters. That we should have some idea where we’re going before we start moving.
Then something happens that rearranges the life we felt we knew so well. Cancer can do that. It can leave you trying to answer enormous questions from a place that’s constantly shifting:
Who am I now?
What truly matters to me?
What do I want my life to look like now?
You don’t need to have answers to those questions before you begin. Some of the answers can only be discovered by engaging with life again. Trying something. Noticing. Learning. And choosing again.
Sometimes we don’t think our way into a new life. We begin living our way into one. That can be difficult when you don’t feel ready.
At the edge of the meadow, you may find yourself waiting to feel motivated. We tend to believe that motivation comes first.
When I feel more like myself, I’ll call my friends.
When I have more energy, I’ll start going places again.
When I know what I want, I’ll make some plans.
It can work that way. Sometimes.
But it can also work in the other direction.
You accept an invitation without knowing whether you’ll enjoy yourself. You return to something you once loved—or try something you’ve never done before—without knowing what it will feel like now.
And then you pay attention.
Maybe dinner with friends feels wonderful for the first hour and exhausting by the second.
Maybe the hobby you couldn’t wait to return to doesn’t hold your attention anymore.
Maybe you sit outside with a cup of coffee and notice that, for ten minutes, you weren’t thinking about cancer.
Maybe you laugh.
Maybe you become interested in something new.
Maybe you simply discover, No. Not this. Not yet.
That matters too.
Because the purpose of taking the step isn’t to prove that you’re getting better at life again after cancer or demonstrate that you’re moving on. Stepping into the experience gives you information.
You begin to notice what still fits and what doesn’t. What you miss and what you don’t miss at all. What leaves you depleted and what gives something back. What feels meaningful enough that you might want to move toward it again.
Perhaps that’s a gentler question than asking yourself what you want to do with the rest of your life. What matters enough to me right now that I might be willing to take one step toward it?
It doesn’t have to be profound.
It doesn’t have to tell you where you’re going.
It only has to give you somewhere to begin.
So you step into the meadow. You move toward something that catches your attention. You walk for a while and discover that it isn’t what you expected. You change direction.
That's not failure.
You’ve learned something you couldn’t have known while standing at the edge.
Something else may catch your attention along the way. Something you hadn’t noticed before because you were so busy looking for a path.
You move toward that instead.
Little by little, the landscape becomes more familiar. This is how a life can begin to take shape again.
One choice gives you information for the next.
You’re not starting over.
You’re discovering.
Perhaps discovering what you’re capable of now.
We often talk about finding our way forward. Maybe there isn’t a well-worn path waiting to be found.
Sometimes we live our way into one by becoming willing to discover what we might find along the way.
You only have to be willing to take the first step.
Reflections on the inner psychological experience of living alongside cancer.
Jae L. Ross, PsyD, is a clinical psychologist who works with individuals and families whose lives have been reshaped by cancer, helping them navigate the emotional challenges of diagnosis, treatment, and beyond.
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