I share my anniversary of a cancer diagnosis with Valentine’s Day. You become a cancer survivor on the day of your diagnosis, or so says the American Cancer Society, and so it is at this point two years I have been a cancer survivor. I have now been through this whole anniversary process twice now and I am still uncertain how I am supposed to respond. I know I’m not alone in that because many survivors have trouble with anniversaries.

Last year, it was the fear of recurrence that haunted me most. My first anniversary of diagnosis was filled with worry and dread. It took me several days to be able to sleep well at night. As I find myself at my second anniversary, the thought of recurrence is now starting to weaken, and though I am far from confident, I feel like my odds of having beaten advanced stage Hodgkin’s Disease are improving bit by bit as each day passes. The prospect of relapse, while still there, isn’t quite as enormous as it was last year.

This year, it is something else. For many years, cancer was a death sentence. Society really hasn’t caught up to the fact that cancer is not necessarily a final sentence. I say that because there really aren’t many tools in place to help survivors cope with the large mental, social, financial, and physical encumbrances cancer places on them as they try to pick up the pieces and move on with the rest of their lives.

It is that burden that weighs heavily on my mind lately. I thought I was doing well approaching my second anniversary, but I was very mistaken. I woke up in a dreadful, bitter mood today. I am a pretty easy going person and it is unusual to find me in such a mood. But yes, cancer survivors have bad days too. I think people automatically assume that having had cancer you’re always living life to its top, living like there is no tomorrow, not wasting a drop of life on negative emotions. It is not that way. It cannot be that way if you are going to go on and live life. For example, although I’m more serene now then prior to cancer, I still get impatient with small inconveniences just like everyone else. Cancer doesn’t suddenly ennoble you for the rest of your life.

Instinctively knowing I needed time alone and not wishing to inflict my gloom upon others, I laced up my shoes and hit the road alone, even though it was snowing lightly, to try and discover the origin of what was bothering me so much that it would put me in such a gloomy and petulant humor.

I puzzle through my problems on the run. Personal, professional … the solution to all complexities in life may be found on the run.

I started to sift through the last few days, and realized quickly that all the Valentine’s Day stuff lately has been bothering me. It is this constant in my face reminder that people are celebrating a day of tremendous misery for me. February 14th is not a joyful day to celebrate romance, at least not anymore for me. Happy Valentine’s Day? What’s there to be happy about?

I had turned into an unadulterated, bona fide, dyed in the wool Valentine’s Day grinch. And just to be clear, it isn’t because my shoes are too tight or that my head isn’t screwed on just right. (Some might question the latter, though.)

I think there is some justification for my feelings. In many ways, cancer destroyed my life. It isn’t just that I can’t run as fast. I mention burdens that survivors have to carry. They are heavy. I’m fearful for the future. I can’t plan anything. The reason I haven’t run a marathon post-cancer is because I can’t commit to anything that requires thinking more than about a month or so ahead of time.

Every day life is also just much harder as a cancer survivor. Take something like finding a job -- already not a simple task in this economy. How do you deal in your late 20s with the fact that since you graduated from law school you haven’t really had any long term positions because you‘ve been sick? How do you explain why you have a large gap in your employment? Do you lie? Do you tell the truth? What do you say? And would you even really want to work for someone who wouldn’t hire you because you had cancer?

And personal life is harder too. Friends have gone; many I no longer can identify with or I just find that we drift apart because they do not understand me now. Part of the problem is I don’t think people quite understand how I cannot just pick up and move on as though this never happened. Cancer changed me and I jump between the extremes of wanting to pretend like it never happened and needing people to at least acknowledge the horror of my experience and appreciate that I cannot be the same.

Then there are the bills. They just keep coming, just like the snow continues coming. I swear -- there are four certainties in life: death, taxes, snow, and medical bills. I’ve pretty much decided that I’m going to call up and offer to settle up with the Cleveland Clinic by offering my first-born son. (I’m only half joking.)

I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that really the genuine cause for my unpleasant mood boiled down to I was feeling sorry for myself.

Fortunately, I find it difficult to stay in a bad mood when running. Something about the rhythm or the endorphins just seems to shake the gloom away.

As I ran along, my irritable mood gradually softened and diminished until it was altogether spent, lost under the therapeutic hammering of a thousand cadenced foot strikes. For all the distressing and stressful elements cancer has brought into my life, on the other hand, I am still alive. And if that is not something worth celebrating, then what is?

For all the challenging aspects that have come with being a cancer survivor, there are so many favorable things that have happened in the two years that have passed since I was diagnosed. And the good outnumbers the bad. Some of the good things are so simple -- like being alive and able to appreciate the beauty of a butterfly, the cheery cry of a cardinal, that feeling of gliding along at the end of a good run. Others are personal accomplishments -- writing a winning motion for a grateful client, triumphing in my age group at a local race (albeit an extremely tiny race for that rare and amazing feat to come to pass), getting a photograph published.

Out running, having identified my trouble and arrived at a resolution, my mood changed from anger to actually feeling good. Running brings clarity, at least to me. Life may be harder, certainly, but life is there.

I am alive. To live and to love. And even to sometimes complain.

Happy Valentine’s Day.