Careful what you wish for ’cause you just might get it. Most of us have heard that before, but have you ever really thought about what it means? In my case, I wished for the worst. And wouldn’t you know it—after fantasizing about accidents and illnesses and the attention that would accompany such tragedy, I discovered the one thing that could give me a second chance in life was, ironically, the very thing that threatened to eradicate any third, fourth, or fifth chances I might need.

Would you wish for cancer? I wouldn’t think so. Why would anyone? But I did. And at the risk of sounding cliché, I couldn’t help it. I was profoundly depressed after a breakup, and when you’re depressed all sorts of irrational thoughts run through your mind. About a year after the breakup, when I thought I was feeling better, all the crying started again. It felt like everything I thought I had known about my future was an illusion and the 10 years we had spent together were for naught. I didn’t know who I was supposed to be on my own; I had always been his girlfriend. I felt completely alone and it didn’t help that I was living two time zones away from family and my roots. After college, I had followed him across the country and we lived together like husband and wife. We even had pseudo-children together, two adorable dogs. Everything seemed to be the way it should be, except that we weren’t married and he was never home and, even back then, I cried a lot.

As far as everyone else knew, I was healthy, wealthy, and wise. Too bad none of those things were actually true. Wealthy? I was making good money, but I was also carrying around quite a bit of debt and it didn’t help that I was throwing money away to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who asked for it. At the time I thought I was wise, but thinking so is a pretty good indication that you’re not quite there yet. But healthy—well, I was the picture of health. I ran, went to the gym, played basketball, danced, and had a healthy diet. Physically, I was in good shape. Mentally, I was a mess.

I finally started seeing a therapist, though, and I felt better when I talked to her. But at night, when I was home alone, I felt so empty. It wasn’t just that something was missing; a lot of things were missing. I think I believed that falling in love again would fix everything.

Even a year later, I couldn’t believe how things had turned out. There must have been a reason we broke up. Why hadn’t we ever gotten married, or engaged at least? Ten years we were together, and it all just came undone. It was unbelievable. I cried for hours, lying limp and immobile in my bed while the tears rolled on endlessly.

I wondered what it would be like if something bad happened to me. Who would be there for me? I pictured all the people in my life paying attention to me and expressing their concern. I imagined feeling special. I wanted to be special. I fantasized about unpleasant happenings, horrible nightmarish things. The types of things you normally hope never happen: car accidents, unexpected illnesses, freak accidents, and even mental breakdowns. These fantasies developed into more specific scenarios as I visualized the destructive details of getting into a car accident or being hit by a car while out running. Sometimes I imagined having a mental breakdown while at work and my boss subsequently checking me into the hospital, which was more than a little ironic since I was working in the mental health field at the time.

Of course, in all these fantasies I was only temporarily injured or ill and always fully recovered. I didn’t really want to be hit by a car. I didn’t really want to be sick either, but I thought about it so much that I narrowed it down to being sick with cancer. I didn’t know what type of cancer, but it had to be cancer. When you think about it, it’s really quite silly to be so sad that you wish you had something as serious as cancer. But having cancer would mean forgetting about my broken heart. Having cancer would mean being tough, standing strong and fighting with everything I had. Beating cancer would be proof that I was someone, that I was special, and that it was okay to care about myself.

And then I got cancer, breast cancer to be exact. My ex-boyfriend was over. I can’t remember why exactly, but I was feeling sad and I couldn’t stop crying. His generous gesture to console me became self-serving when the hands that were gently rubbing my back made their way around to the front where they didn’t belong. It made me angry, but my anger quickly turned to panic when he felt it. And then I felt it. It was a tiny lump in my lower breast about the size of a pea and it felt as hard as a rock, like a small pebble had gotten lodged in my breast. The fantasy had become reality.

I think I knew it from the moment I felt the lump. Something deep down told me this was serious. But of course everyone else, including the doctors, said there was nothing to worry about. Although I felt alone in my fear, I certainly wasn’t alone with all those doctors, nurses, and medical students staring at my bare breasts during a series of humiliating procedures and exams.

And if the embarrassment of exposing yourself in front of large groups of medical students younger than you isn’t enough, try having a five-year breast cancer survivor tell you it’s not that bad because, unlike her, you have small breasts and there won’t be much to miss. How’s that for reassuring? It certainly didn’t make me feel any better. Already self-conscious about my small breasts, and now dealing with this much more serious problem, the last thing I needed was for some stranger to diminish the significance of what I was about to undergo.

But I got over that woman’s comment after a day or two. I had other things to worry about, things like biopsies, surgery, radiation, medication, mammograms, ultrasounds, MRIs, and more biopsies. It was an exciting time. No, really. Not exciting in the sense that this was something I had looked forward to, but I had become a bit of a celebrity among the doctors at the University of California, San Diego, where I was being treated. Most of their other breast cancer patients were post-menopausal, so I, being so young, was something of a phenomenon for them. Interestingly, the medication they put me on actually induced menopause so, for a time, I at least had that in common with my more mature breast cancer counterparts.

Despite the stress of all the appointments and the various treatments, I think a part of me enjoyed the attention. I was constantly being introduced to doctors who were familiar with my case, having heard about it during the hospital’s regular case review sessions. And, of course, when you’re visiting both the hospital and the cancer center regularly, everyone begins to recognize and acknowledge you. I was beginning to feel special.

Once my appointments became more spread out and I no longer had to go to the hospital for a daily dose of radiation, things began to quiet down. The one-year anniversary of the beginning of this cancer stuff was soon approaching and I hadn’t suffered a relapse, so I decided to celebrate with a trip to Italy. I had always dreamed of traveling there to explore that side of my heritage. Many bumps in the road threatened to ruin my trip before I even had a chance to go, but they were largely due to my propensity for self-sabotage, which had become habitual over the years.

Luckily I managed to get my act together and enjoyed an exhilarating four-week-long adventure. I loved Italy. It was the first time I’d ever traveled overseas and I did it alone—something else to be proud of. It also marked a turning point in how I approached life. I was footloose and fancy free. Remarkably, I met people from around the world while staying in the small village of Altamura. Many of them left an indelible impression on me, but one person in particular unintentionally opened my eyes—and my heart. Interestingly, this was not someone I had developed a close friendship with. In fact, we had both bonded with many of the same people, but not with each other. He was also almost 10 years younger than me. The one connection we did have was that we were both of Italian descent, although neither of us was born or raised there.

One afternoon, when everyone else was lounging, the two of us struck up a conversation that evolved into a long philosophical discussion about the purpose of life. It was the longest conversation we had shared. Despite the leg-up I had in terms of life experience, I found myself looking up to him. So it would have been easy to be impressed with his perspective and ultimately to agree with it. Yet something came over me, almost enveloping me in awareness, and I knew he was wrong. My young friend felt there was nothing beyond this life: no God, no heaven, no forever-after, nothing. He believed we are all here simply to make ourselves happy and to do what we want. His explanation was extremely articulate and impressive. It sounded good, but it didn’t feel good, and the more I thought about it, the more I knew it wasn’t enough. If the only purpose in life is to be happy, without obligation to anything or anyone else, then I say that’s a very lonely life in the long run. We’re social creatures, and not simply so we can use one another as a means to our own happiness. I believe there’s much more to it than that.

Coming to that understanding made me realize I had been fighting my Christian upbringing for far too long. I wanted to believe in God, but I don’t think I really did at the time. I so deeply resented the way my parents had force-fed me my religion—at least that’s the way I saw it—that I ignored the message they were trying to impart. I struggled to reconcile what I wanted to believe with what I actually believed. In my heart I wanted God to be true, but it just didn’t seem logical to believe in God. That is precisely where I was missing the point. And something about that conversation in Italy made everything as clear as the sky on a sunny day.

I could go on, but I’m no preacher. I don’t even attend church regularly. But that doesn’t mean I can’t believe in God. Now for a lot of folks, this is no major revelation. They already believe God exists and might not be impressed just because I finally decided to accept it.

But that’s not why I’m sharing this story with you. There are more than 6.5 billion people in the world today and most of the time we pass right by one another without much thought. We are so good at noticing the differences amongst ourselves that we readily forget about the common thread that ties us all together, our humanity. I think my friend had it right on some level. We are all seeking happiness in our lives, although the things we covet are not always the things that can foster peace within our souls. I’m quite certain a good majority of the 6.5 billion of us roaming the planet struggle with some level of internal pain or angst. I write to say that it is possible to have peace in your heart, and when you have that, you begin to have happiness.

Looking back at my life before cancer, I can now understand that I wasn’t very happy, but I didn’t know it. Having a life-threatening illness prompted me to assess the person I had become and it wasn’t the person I wanted to be. I felt all alone in the world, which is why the attention of having cancer seemed appealing. But I didn’t need cancer to be somebody special; I was already special, if for no other reason than because God allowed me to be here in this life. Although, who knows? Maybe I did need the cancer to finally understand that I can choose to have happiness instead of only wishing for it. So why did I have to get cancer? Only God knows for sure. I just know that it was a miracle.