What Feels Alive in Me Now?

December 13, 2025

It was a quiet week, with only a few appointments as we prepare for my conditioning week and the return of my T-cells. We’ve stayed busy with work, walking around the neighborhood, and heading into Manhattan a bit more to take in the holiday lights and decorations.

I have a few appointments scheduled for next week, along with a PET scan midweek. I try to stay positive and keep my nerves in check, but the PET scan still makes me a little anxious, but we will make it through, no matter what it shows.

A few days ago, while I was in the office, my friend and co-worker Ali asked me a question I wasn’t expecting. Not “How are you feeling?” Not “How’s the treatment going?” Not any of the usual check-ins that orbit around my life these days.

He asked: “What feels alive in you right now?”

In the moment, I tossed back a quick answer, something easy, something light, something that fit into the rhythm of a hallway conversation.

But the question didn’t leave with me. It stuck. It sank. It kept resurfacing long after the office lights faded and the day moved on.

So, Ali, here’s the answer that’s been unfolding in me ever since.

What feels alive in me now is awareness.

A sharper, more vibrant awareness of everything, the way cold air hits my lungs, the way my heart speeds up when I laugh, the way my body feels on the days it cooperates and on the days it doesn’t. There’s an immediacy to life now, like someone turned up the saturation. Small sensations feel big. Ordinary moments feel magnified. I'm awake to it all, even when it’s uncomfortable.

What feels alive in me now is gratitude.

The real kind, the kind carved out of experience, not convenience. Gratitude for mornings where I wake up without pain. Gratitude for seeing my sons do their things. Gratitude for the people who reach out simply to say, “Thinking of you.” Gratitude for science, for medicine, for T-cells currently getting souped up in a lab like tiny superheroes preparing for battle.

Gratitude for the fact that, despite everything, I’m still here to feel anything at all.

Gratitude for nurses, technicians, doctors and researchers who pour their brilliance into keeping people like me going.

What feels alive in me now is fight.

Not the Hollywood version. Not the dramatic, heroic, punch-the-air fight.

But the quiet, stubborn, everyday fight.

The fight to stay present.

The fight to keep showing up to my own life.

The fight to keep my sense of humor intact when my body feels like it’s running on 12% battery.

The fight to hold onto myself, not just the patient, not just the diagnosis, but the person underneath all of it.

I fight for my days, for my voice, for my spirit…

but most of all, I fight for my family.

For the people who need me, who look to me, who believe in me.

For my boys, who are my heart walking around outside my body.

For Maria, who shows up for me every single moment of every single day.

She’s there when I’m strong and when I’m anything but. She holds the line when I can’t. She reminds me who I am when treatment tries to blur the edges. Her love fuels this fight in a way medicine never could.

This battle isn’t just mine, it’s ours. I carry that with me into every appointment, every scan, every decision. It gives the fight shape. It gives it meaning. It gives it fire.

What feels alive in me now is hope.

Hope that isn’t naive or flashy. Hope that is built from repetition, from getting up, from going to appointments, from believing in the people who dedicate their lives to healing others. Hope that is quiet but unshakeable. Hope that doesn’t pretend everything is easy, but insists that everything is possible.

Hope that shows up even when I’m exhausted. Hope that whispers instead of shouts. Hope that says, “One more mile, one more day, keep going.”

What feels alive in me now is connection.

To people, to purpose, to this strange, beautiful, difficult season of life. Every message, every visit, every hug, every kind word hits deeper than it ever did before. I feel held; by family, by friends, by coworkers, by the small community of people walking this road with me. Their care is its own lifeline.

What feels alive in me now is love.

Love I receive, love I give, love I notice in moments I once walked right past. Love that arrives through actions, through presence, through the simple fact that so many people choose to show up for me again and again.

It’s humbling.

It’s grounding.

It’s energizing in ways treatment never could be.

So, Ali, I finally have the real answer.

What feels alive in me now is everything that still matters: awareness, gratitude, fight, hope, connection, and love.

Not all of it is easy. Not all of it is pretty. But all of it is real.

Being able to feel any of it at all means that somehow, despite the chaos and the challenges, life is still moving through me.

For now, that’s enough.