For most of my life, I lived like a lot of people do. Someday I’d lose the weight. Someday I’d take the trip. Someday I’d become the person I wanted to be.

Then on July 20, 2020, someday disappeared. I was told I had a brain tumor. In an instant, all those things I’d been saving for later suddenly had an expiration date.

The funny thing is, cancer didn’t teach me how to live. It taught me to quit waiting to live. There’s a difference.

If this really was my last day, what could I do today that would make me glad that’s how I spent it?

At first, surviving wasn’t about bucket lists. It wasn’t about dancing or travel. Some days it was grieving everything I thought I was going to lose. Some days it was just getting through treatment. Just taking the next step.

Because it was COVID, Facebook became my lifeline. I wrote almost everything down. Looking back now, I don’t have to rely on memory. I can actually watch something change in me—not years later, but within the first month.

I wasn’t pretending everything was going to be okay. I knew I had a rare cancer. I knew not everyone survived the standard treatment. I knew that even if treatment worked, there was a real chance the cancer could come back. If the standard treatment failed, there weren’t many options left. None of that was lost on me.

This wasn’t toxic positivity. It was a decision. If I couldn’t control how long I lived, I could still choose how I lived today.

As I write this, my eyes fill with tears. Not because I had cancer. Not because I feel sorry for myself. They’re happy tears.

I cry because of one decision. I decided that if I couldn’t control how long I had left, I could control how I lived the time I was given.

That one decision gave me six years I didn’t just survive—I have truly lived. They have been the richest, fullest, most unforgettable years of my life.