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Retreat Yourself Adventure 2024: The recap

Jessica sits on a rock in the middle of a hike on the Gros Morne Approach Trail. She is wearing a green shirt and has a cross-body bag in front of her. You can see a view of ocean and forest in the background. By Jessica Mees

I finally have some thoughts I want to share about my YACC Retreat Yourself Adventure experience.

It’s interesting, because I was only gone for five nights but it’s taken me equally as long to even begin to unpack the emotions since being home, and I think I will be continuing to process them all for months to come.

I think people assume that I’m an extrovert and extremely social, and that actually isn’t fully true. I have pretty bad social anxiety and often self doubt, so I was extremely nervous to face my fears regarding group activities with strangers.

It completely shocked me how quickly I warmed up to the other survivors and supports/leaders. If you knew me in college, you know that I used to be social, outgoing, loud, and comfortable in any situation, but I lost that part of me along the way even before cancer due to a shit ton of trauma, both medically and otherwise. To my surprise, that version of me came back within 24 hours of meeting everyone.

I have never experienced a group of strangers feeling like family so quickly and I think I’m forever going to be linked to each and every one of them in some way.

It felt so good to laugh so hard I couldn’t breathe, cry without the shame and guilt, and love myself for exactly who I am in this moment.

We talked a lot about our cancer journeys, but it was the first time in 18 months that I felt like someone who was much more than my cancer, that my cancer didn’t define me, and I was still valuable in many other ways.

Going forward, I hope I’ll remember that it’s okay to feel joy and laugh even when everything is chaos around you, that people who care about you don’t see you as a burden, and that exactly who I am is perfect and the people who don’t appreciate the raw version of me have no place in my life.

For those of you who helped make this trip possible, I’ve put a little private something in the mail for each and every one of you. I am so incredibly grateful. I didn’t realize how isolated I was truly feeling before this.

Thank you everyone who was on the trip and made me feel valued and worthy of taking up space. I love you all very much.

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