What is something you’re proud of?
Catherine | Tāmaki Makaurau
Catherine shares how surviving cancer as a teenager led her to embrace life more fully, reconnect with her culture through dance, and discover strength and self-love in community.
“Being diagnosed with cancer when I was seventeen and in high-school was not easy.
It’s not something that you expect to happen as a teenager, when all you’re thinking about is ball and boys and life and things like that. So it was very unexpected. It did take a huge toll. It changed the trajectory of my life that I thought it was gonna go in. But I’d say looking back now, it changed it for the better.
People talk about cancer being the hard thing, but actually for me, it was recovery and going back into life like it was before. So that’s what I’m proud of, is that I was able to come back into life, embracing what had happened, but not letting that be something that stopped me from coming back into life and thriving.
Since then, I think I’ve been able to embrace taking every day as it is. Not taking the next day for granted. You don’t know if you’re gonna be around tomorrow. And that has led me to explore so many things that I would have never thought about exploring – one being dance.
Dance got me through a very hard time where I was dealing with a lot of anxiety, a lot of depression, dealing with many things in my life. Part of that being coming back into community after treatment and dealing with how my body had changed and what I was not capable of, physically, that I was before.
Through that dance, I found a community. I found people that support me, that love me for who I am. I got to embed in my culture a lot more. A culture that often, up until I was like 18, I had rejected in the sense of, ‘oh being Indian was embarrassing’ or I didn’t want to be Indian, didn’t wanna recognise as being Indian. But now, through my dance, I am fully and 100% Indian and I love to be Indian. And it’s one of the best things about me.
During my treatment I did do a lot of focusing in on myself, reflecting on myself, realising that you’re put on this life for a purpose. That’s what I believe in, is that I’m here for a purpose, that everyone is here for a purpose – they have an intent to be here. And if I’m given a second chance at life, then it’s probably for me to recognise who I am. And it’s probably more honest to myself to live it being truly and fully myself.”
