The Wisdom of Breast Cancer: Romance, Limerence & Liberation
THE LOVERS
The old VHS tape crackled on the screen, and there I was. Four years old, walking through the lounge room in a white dress and tiara, holding flowers while my family sang "Here Comes the Bride."
"What the fuck is happening here?!" I asked Dad.
He shrugged and replied laughing, "All you wanted for your birthday was a wedding, so that’s what we did."
I was shocked by this, but also very much not… Like many girls and young women, I spent most of my life steadily — and to varying degrees over time — obsessed with the idea that my soulmate was out there. At one point, I even called him my “Twin Flame”… we don’t mention the war. This stranger was as earnestly and desperately trying to find me as I was them. We were going through the tumultuous, soul-crushing highs and lows of spiritual and personal growth and evolution. We were getting into Divine Alignment babyyy! Finally reuniting in this lifetime after being violently separated in lives gone by, destined to be returned to one another after slaying our personal dragons.
I had fully embodied the truth that I had this one person coming into my life who would be my best friend, ultimate companion, co-parent, lover, business partner and confidant. Basically, he would fulfil the roles of an entire community, and do it with incredible levels of self-awareness, patience, kindness and wit. We would marry, have some babies, and build a passive house on acreage somewhere totally off grid in the mountains — but with a view of the water. He would hunt and fish. I’d churn butter with a baby on my chest, pick apples from our orchard in a sundress, and have ecstatic sex in the filtered afternoon sunlight on crisp sheets — that definitely didn’t have baby spew or man sweat on them. You get the picture. It was a dream that sustained me as a coping mechanism for as long as I could remember.
The ever-elusive one day… one day.
The problem being, evidently, that I was and am very much alive today. During this time, especially if I had a particularly engaging object of affection, there was absolutely no one manning the lighthouse. I was out at sea, searching for my man. Completely abandoning myself for long stretches of time with no one home to take care of me. I have learned that romantic obsession can be a seductive, socially sanctioned form of self-neglect. I’m quite sure that this neglect contributed not only to me developing breast cancer, but also to ignoring it for as long as I did.
And when the object of our unbridled devotion is not only encouraged, but actively pushed by the dominant culture, it becomes even harder to break free. Being chosen by a man and fulfilling our nurturing and maternal roles becomes the measuring stick of our worth and success as women. When our peers start enthusiastically partnering up and spawning out of nowhere, finding our truth in all the noise feels nearly impossible.
THE MOON
I briefly worked as a wedding stylist last year and almost had this work as one of the core offerings in the new business I was building. Thankfully, I got this work just as I was going through the diagnostic process of the breast cancer. In the immediacy of my mortality right in my face—I was suddenly thrust underneath the psyche's version of the 'big light.' Stripped down to the truest internal threads, and less and less of them were leading me down the aisle. Let alone enthusiastically helping other women down one without telling them to run.
It was around this time that I first heard "Labour" by Paris Paloma. The cacophony of female voices, full of righteous emotion, anger. It came up on my TikTok and my response was immediate and visceral. I sobbed hard and with my whole body, screamed loudly in the car—the great purge had begun. In those words, I could hear my ancestors' cries. My own. It sent shivers down my spine, igniting something in me. It is both a prayer and a battle cry. I could sense the pain I was feeling was well beyond just my own. As women, I desire more anthems like this. Woven by other women connected to their fiercest truth. Rising up in our bodies in a ritual catharsis through tight throats and clenched jaws.
THE TOWER
Do not get me wrong, it is a destabilising process. To feel the foundation you've built your entire existence up to this point cracking and crumbling beneath you. Every decision I had made was geared toward the ultimate goal—finding a man, getting married and finally having a family.
I yearned to be a mother and a wife. I would cry from the depths of my heart, longing. I didn't realise for so long that those cries were for a love no man could provide. I finally understand that now. I want to go back and burn all the journals with her and just hold her and nurture her the way that she needed. Hours and hours of my best writing, tied up in delusional love stories about men who ranged from outright hating me, using me for sex or soothing, to not even knowing I existed. Written by the dregs at the bottom of a bottle of Pinot Noir and the roach of a joint.
I realise more and more that I have had a deeply romantic life, because I have made it so. I guess I too have objectified men and made them somewhat of a prop in my quest to create the perfect love scene. The music, the candles, the flirting… the heady mix of wine, weed and a whole lot of confusion. I see how I would access my own bliss and creative channel through the conjuring of eros, oxytocin, love, depth, and devotion. A short-cut connection to a sense of divinity through romantic love with men. It had become my charging dock, a grounding plate, and it remained in the background always just humming along. Waiting for the next opportunity to align with the man of my dreams. THE ONE.
Before I de-centred men (and eventually patriarchy) from literally being the central point of my reality, every decision made in the interest of being seen as attractive, worthy and desirable to men. Of potentially being somewhere that 'my type' would frequent. Always trying to find myself somewhere he could be. Waiting for permission, support to start my life and shine with someone backing me at all times. Instead of feeling like a weak child, going up against a system I must have instinctively known at that time could easily crush my spirit.
THREE OF SWORDS
I thought I had found it once. I was 27, happily living solo in the rainforest and recovering from back-to-back, cult-like spiritual environments. I went for a night of partying in the city to let my hair down with my best friend. I ended up getting into a relationship with a man I met that night, a musician. He was beautiful and we were in love. I thought I would marry him and have babies. So blinded by this desire I neglected to consider the true compatibility. I became a shell of myself as I collapsed into servitude and the overriding of my boundaries.
It was a shock, this was not the script.
But I had to have the dream, so I clung on. Somehow, our lives and hopes and lifestyles would miraculously align. One day I will feel like I have a partner. It was a devastating loss when we broke up. A similar cracking of the illusion. Each layer more crystalline than the last. All of them life-changing and powerful. This one really showed me the truth of partnership with men a lot of the time.
Photo by Sunder Muthukumaran on Unsplash
THE DEVIL
Since living the nightmare of unequal household and emotional labour in the relationships I did have, I grew to truly understand how much patriarchy thrives on the unpaid labour of women. How little many men realise how entitled they truly feel to our time, labour and energy. While we were being told we could be anything as teenage girls growing up in a new era, boys weren't receiving the update. And thus, especially as women have gained more and more freedom to choose and independence. One of patriarchy's key objectives must be to keep us interested in the product of marriage, and in the marketing of romance.
Women are reporting from the frontlines of dating that this chivalry and romance is now simply completely absent, or wrapped up in a nuclear version of love bombing before the inevitable switch-up. The problem is that women are increasingly clued into this behaviour and the warning signs, making them far more cautious so this strategy will start working even less.
When it does though, men who display antisocial behaviour, who are misogynists to their core, who otherwise wouldn't be chosen by a woman in a more lucid state, get a chance at partnership under patriarchy without having to fundamentally evolve. They can pretend for a few months, do a few romantic things, and benefit from siphoning every bit of life force, joy and radiance from that woman. While she withers, crushed by the ever-growing burden of responsibility.
Meanwhile, they gain the social standing of marriage, the longer lifespan, the career benefits… the list goes on.
In the interests of being balanced, I obviously recognise there are GREAT men, amazing partners and blissed-out, loved-up, fully expressed women who are married. What I speak to is my experience, and the experiences of many women I know. I have spent a lot of time researching my special interest, and if that is your experience I can tell you conclusively: you are the fortunate minority.
I genuinely believe if patriarchy had stayed out of our business (and homes), many women would be alone and thriving in their fields, some partnered, some not. Far more men would feel free enough in their expression, emotions and purpose, and I believe we would see much more sexual, creative and emotional fluidity from them too. Under matriarchy, everyone contributes to the flow of love, relating, raising children and sharing the load of life in ways that come naturally to them—regardless of what genitals they were or weren't born with.
I write not from this idealistic reality (that I believe is possible eventually), but instead meeting reality where it's at and moving from there. We live and breathe within the binary currently. I just hope these dismantling conversations are contributing to those harmful binaries dissolving. It's always on my mind, especially when I think about having children now—would they ever get to see this? Or is it just another dream?
TEN OF SWORDS
I woke up from the most visceral dream the other night and in it I did have a daughter. I was desperately screaming at her: "PLEASE IGNORE BOYS!! FOCUS ON YOUR ART, YOUR LIFE, HAPPINESS, FAMILY, FRIENDS, YOUR HEALTH AND YOUR FUTURE!!!" It was the kind of dream where you can feel how hard you're screaming but the words won't come out. The grief in my chest even asleep was absolutely crushing. I woke up crying and knew that it was me.
The younger version who couldn't say no, who hadn't yet learned boundaries or that she even had worth, let alone how to embody it. Who didn't understand her neurodivergence and how to be supported in that with healthier special interests, and with a grasp of the darker sides of human nature. How to protect herself in this world as a woman. How to centre herself in order to be less self-centred, how to express her heart with strength and assuredness. How to ask for what she needed. How to be disliked and misunderstood.
For much of my life, I saw marriage as a portal to that protection. The soothing balm to a chaotic upbringing and a profound lack of attunement. To a sense of stability, structure, and care. I now understand that what I was often craving wasn't just love, companionship and romance—it was accommodation too. Safety. A regulated nervous system. Help with the day-to-day overwhelm of life. I wanted someone to make space for my difference, my slowness, my sensitivity. I thought that was love. Finally, I would have someone who would understand me and love me unconditionally. I have since found obviously, that person is me.
It wasn’t marriage I was craving, but home.
JUSTICE
The more inner reparenting I did, the closer I got to this deeper truth. The more healing the different parts and ages and wounds received, the sharper the clarity about where my desire for a man really came from. Where my longing for all of it had really been programmed, and how to start to update the DOS. It was like a spell had been broken, and all the emotional clarity and feminist education came flooding into my internal and external algorithm. I obviously had the scaffolding—from years of inner work and relationships ranging from fine to toxic to outright abusive—to handle this utter disillusion.
The grief came first. I remember wailing from the depths of my bones on the floor of the shower where I was housesitting. Raw and unprotected by the fantasy, the yearning to be seen. To be chosen, to be loved, and to finally feel like I have a place in this world. Alone in my sobriety, fresh out of a second surgery in 6 weeks and in the midst of the most challenging health decisions of my life. I faced the pain in my heart. I let the screams of the women before me move through my body and shook it all out. The absolute devastation of years of self-neglect poured out, as hot water and tears rushed over the fresh scars on my breasts, belly, and womb.
From this, my identity has shifted violently. No longer motivated by the quest for love and living in the illusion that someone was going to eventually come and save me. I have embraced my queerness and love for women, in all ways. Unpacked the internalised misogyny that comes with a panicked allegiance to our saviours and captors, alongside the self-hate that makes it challenging to completely love another women. As well as the gaping mother and sister wounds simmering beneath it all. Everything got kind of snowballed up into one big healing crescendo.
I believe fully that I would never have been able to completely heal my relationship with women, including forgiving the ones in my family, and myself. Without unpacking the way patriarchy and these larger dominant systemic issues infiltrate even our most intimate unions, sacred bonds and connections.
Even with God.
THE HIEROPHANT
I was wired to seek God through men, like many of us. The masculine, Christ, God as “he” the almighty ruler. I mean we can talk for days about marriage, patriarchy, religion, the Goddess, and I might sometime. It is impossible to discuss one part of this without snagging on the many, many other aspects as we know. I thought the feeling of joy, light and union with men was the only way I could see the face of God in my life. My only pathway there. I now walk thousands of pathways every day, hand in hand with everything that is.
So in this process I became an electrician for my spirit. Rewiring old belief systems and plugging back into my own divinity and life force. To feel beauty for myself. To receive the love of the Mother. To become her. This fracture, I know, kept me small, in a maiden-like energy and disconnected from the full scope and power I have inside of me as a woman. No longer believing salvation, expansion and love come on the other side of being chosen, worthy. I instantly have it all.
The more I experienced the love, empathy, protection and nurturing of women, the absolute salvation of close girlfriends (the girls = cis, femme, trans, NB and otherwise). The kind who will fly across the country, yap for hours on the phone, witness each other in all of it without judgement or control and absolutely live for the successes and evolution of one another. And simultaneously, freedom from the prison of distraction that is men and modern dating. The shackles were off, I went feral.
The pendulum swung, and I became a raging misandrist for a good eight months. Saying to friends "I am purging rage boo, I will 100% tell you to dump him." It was the most helpful, life-altering and necessary portal to walk through. I also didn't want my heart to stay in such a place of hate, so I am glad I can see the other side now. My inner lover girl is coming back online. But without the delusion. Anchored finally to HER, and to me.
It was a blessing to have the space to grieve and rage and meet this deeply embedded trauma with my ancestors, hand in hand. To wail for all the time, life force, joy and creativity that had been harvested by these dominant institutions that support the subjugation, abuse and murder of women—for generations. The years of my precious life, all 35 of them, focused outside, to the elusive and ever-changing "him." My ticket to social inclusion, permission to start my life and finally reach my potential — but only with the support of a man by my side.
Something this deeply embedded in both my own system and the wider culture makes it incredibly disorienting to turn around and start swimming in another direction. This emancipation has taken a long time, and a lot of deep release as well as joyful reverence.
THE LOVERS : PART II
In the vacuum left by dying romance, something more honest is emerging. No longer striving to be chosen, I am choosing myself, my friends, other women and ways of living that centre joy, sovereignty, and truth. I am so excited by my life now in ways I could never have been when so much of my future and choice were tied up in an invisible web controlled by the ever-present man in my head. I am free to follow the thread of my desire. Right into a shared property with other women living in co-creation with each other, animals and the land.
That future feels like profound romance to me now. I am not closed to partnership with anyone, it just comes with a lot more reasonable T&Cs.
Love is not dead, but the fantasy that once sold it to us is. And in its place, we're building something far more true. Romance was the bait. Marriage was the trap. But now the fantasy is fading, and in its absence, women are remembering what they always knew: real love does not require submission. Instead of waiting to be chosen, we are finally choosing ourselves.
** In the interests of digital transparency, I was assisted by AI in the construction of this article with grammar and punctuation. All writing is original.
