Erin Hazelton - Photos and Interview

"We’ve been here for about five years. Before we moved back to New York, we’d been living about twenty-five minutes from Geneva, Switzerland, near the French border. I found our current place online. My husband was going to New York for work and I told him to have a look. After he saw it he said I wouldn’t like it, that 'it was too dark' and fixtures weren’t 'up to my standards.' But I know my husband well—he is more functional, while I’m more about form. The place had potential, it just needed a coat of paint. Okay, lots of coats of paint, some wallpaper, new lighting fixtures, carpets, curtains, and our furniture, but I knew it could be perfect for us, even before I visited. When I did visit, I saw what my husband saw: dark, shiny, red-tinged ‘90s 'cherry-stained' wood everywhere, and I feel like almost every wall had the same faux-candle sconce implanted into it. It was very ‘90s. Bad ‘90s."

"The house was built in 1897, but it was renovated, as I may have mentioned, in the late nineties. Still, some of the original details, like the fireplaces, remain. The house itself is Classic Revival and my husband and I are more 'downtown loft.' We started out in a loft in Soho, and much of our furniture is from that loft. In our current space, the furniture really helped 'clean' the space and make it more modern. That said, we also brought pieces we bought specifically for our place near Geneva. That stuff is more 1940s and '50s Italian design—think Carlo Mollino. The busier wallpapers pair well with those pieces. Our dining room is covered in a green Fornasetti malachite print, and the kids’ area is all bookshelf print. I feel like the papers make the house feel more like a home, and less like a gallery. So, our aesthetic is basically a melange of the places we’ve lived."

"Take your time. Furniture and decor should last a long time. If you invest in good pieces, they’ll last. It took me years to find a chandelier to go over our BDDW dining room table. Five years later, when we moved into this place, that chandelier wasn’t enough to fill that room. But that chandelier didn’t work anywhere else, and I wasn’t going to get rid of it, so I just bought her a twin sister. Now we have two of them hanging side-by-side."

"We’ve had these sofas since we got married! They’ve lived a long life—eleven years, two kids, four moves, crossing the Atlantic twice! The living room has a sort of minimal, but lived-in, feel. My husband would like for the credenza and table to have nothing on them, but we’re a family, we need photos and trinkets and toys in our lives, so I’ve put photos everywhere, and have gotten used to Lego sculptures heavily populating that area."

"Mostly just the painting and papering. Changing the cherry-stained woodwork to white really lightened the space. We are thinking about renovating the kitchen to open up the parlor floor. I’m just not sure I’m quite ready for a project like that. One uneventful year, and then maybe I’ll tackle that."

"I love the Waterford crystal trunk. I actually inherited it from my good friend, Erin Fetherston, when she moved from New York to L.A. a few years ago. My mom is from Ireland and we used to visit the Waterford crystal factory as kids. I used to make fun of my mom and all her precious Waterford, but now I have almost as much as she does! Almost."

"I like that you used the word 'try' in asking this question. I try to keep their stuff corralled, but every room is definitely a playroom. The kids fill our house like water, getting into every corner. I’m an organizational neat freak. Every utensil, pot, pan, and plate in the kitchen has an allocated space, and each toy has a home. If something isn’t in its place when I’m looking for it, I get accusatory: 'Who moved it!?' The kids know where their toys live, which is mostly in their rooms and in the drawers and bins behind the sofa in the living room, but I seem to be the only one who actually puts things back where they belong. Their stuff migrates to windowsills, the dining room table, the kitchen counter, our bedroom, the stairs…everywhere. It’s sometimes annoying that having children means losing control of your house, but, let’s face it, when you find hilarious drawings or stuffed animals shoved into Barbie clothes, or a handmade baseball stadium—or your house!—built out of Lego when you are cleaning up? You can’t pay for that kind of entertainment, or that feeling of pride! I’m just glad we have space for them to move around in and play. It’s a major gift living in New York City."

"I love the diversity, the culture, the opportunities to experience so much, and living near Central Park. Favorite spots include The Webster and the Moda Operandi Mansion—I can walk right across the park and be there. FD Gallery for jewelry. It’s always nice to take a spin around Bergdorfs. And, I won’t lie, I love Century 21. There is a small(er) one a few blocks from our place. I’m Irish, I’m all about hunting for a deal! Food-wise, our neighborhood go-to is The Leopard at des Artistes. The best food and atmosphere. I also like Clean Market on the UES for a quick healthy lunch or snack, and ABCV for a proper veggie meal. My friend Pietro’s place, Pietro Nolita, is also a favorite. It’s all pink, and all delicious. For special dinners, Majorelle is my absolute favorite. Super chic. I like getting dressed up, and you get dressed up to go to Majorelle. Also for Indochine, which is another staple. But for Indochine it’s downtown dressed-up. It’s edgier, less fancy. Honestly, New York is fun. Especially if you like to get dressed up."

"Maybe London? I love L.A., and have some of my closest friends there, but it’s too far from Europe and my husband and I both have family ties there."

"Watching my children evolve each day. They give me so much hope for what the future holds."

Erin wears a Gentry Portofino dress.

"Extremism in our culture. It baffles me that people forgo reason, research, and a deeper understanding in order to allow themselves to adhere to a message they’ve been told is right, but don’t dive in to the origins and 'whys' of that dogma themselves. Power makes me nervous. It’s a fickle thing."

"Henry Walker—Henry because it’s a strong name, and we didn’t think it was that popular. Ha! Walker because it’s my grandmother’s maiden name. Emmanuelle Inès—Emmanuelle because it’s beautiful and uncommon. And it has a ton of potential nicknames. I have a short name and always wanted a nickname. Inès simply because we liked the sound of it. We knew our kids would be spending time in France and Switzerland, so we wanted to give them names that would work both here and there. Though I’m not sure Emmanuelle 'works' in the U.S., but people catch on."

"Henry is ten and into building crazy contraptions out of Legos, science, baseball, basketball, and asking questions I can’t answer without Google. Emmanuelle is eight and into ballet, being a 'kid actor' (not going to happen), and 'Hazelville,' a world she’s created for her stuffed animals, which mainly exists under her bed, but extends to townships under her dresser and bedside table. There is a whole hierarchy: The king and the queen are a bunny and a cat. Everyone has rank and is related. It cracks me up. She’s also into reading about strong women: Maria Tallchief, Catherine the Great, Marie Curie, Princess Diana. There is a good series of books called Who Was… they are mini-biographies and both kids love them."

"Yes. I think so. There was a moment in high school and early college when I said I didn’t think I wanted to have children, but I think I said it more for affect. I had a list of kid names running since I was six or seven. Yeah. I always wanted kids."

"The first eighteen weeks with Henry were horrific. I lost ten pounds in one week at one point, and I’m pretty skinny to begin with. Then it was pretty good. I discovered yoga while pregnant with him, and started practicing regularly. It gave me tons of energy and elevated my mood. With Emmanuelle I was also sick, but knew what to expect. I was sick longer with her, but to a lesser degree. But I had a rough time delivering her. She was nine pounds, eleven ounces! Broke her collarbone on the way out, then I ended up hemorrhaging. It was a disaster. I’m just glad I was in a hospital. It happened over an hour after I’d given birth to her. My husband had left to get our son to bring him to meet the baby and I was alone in the room. I had no idea what was happening to me. I rang the nurse, but she kept telling me it was just afterbirth contractions, my uterus shrinking, but I was like, 'No! It feels the same as when I was in labor! Worse!' She totally wrote it off and gave me Tylenol. She actually had the balls to say, 'If you’d had an epidural, this wouldn’t be happening.' WTF? When she came back to check on me, sure the Tylenol had kicked in, I told her I couldn’t see her, that the walls were wavy, and she finally pulled back the bed sheets to have a look at me. She started screaming 'Code Purple!' and suddenly a bunch of white coats descended upon me and started pushing my stomach. Then, boom, I was out. I got an IUD put in six weeks after she was born. That was enough!"

"I was a freelance fashion writer when I had my kids. I still covered shows in Paris and New York when I was pregnant with Henry and after I had him, but when I was newly pregnant with Emmanuelle, running to the tents in high heels, not able to eat, one of those heels caught the curb, right in front of a bunch of photographers and bloggers, and I bit it. I called my editor, and was like, 'One, I’m pregnant, and two, I’m done!' I covered a few more shows that week, but that was it. Haven’t written a show review since. After that week, I stayed at home with my son, then my son and daughter, worked on a novel that will never see the light of day (it’s really not good), moved overseas, started a blog, which has, sadly, since been erased from the interweb—or was the victim of a lapse in payment to some server or something. Then I ended up going to graduate school. So, to answer your question, I took a very long maternity leave!"

"No! I don’t like being told what to do. I think every kid is different and their mother knows best. You have to adapt to each kid. If ever I run into an issue, I Google the crap out of it, get conflicting information, try to decipher what’s best, ask my mom, or call the pediatrician—usually in that order."

"Every mother I know is an icon. Obviously, my mom, who gave up her life to move in with us this past year, when things got crazy. But more on that later. I have my favorite West Coast moms: Erin Fetherston, Kimberly van der Beek, and Roanne Adams. They are all more chill than I am. Erin and Kimberly are kind of 'holistic-hippie-zen' moms. I get a lot of alternative healing ideas from them, tons of healthy recipes—however, their zen abilities are beyond my capabilities. Kimberly has five kids running around, and always welcomes everyone—and their offspring—to their place. She’s just, like, scooping up one kid, smoothing the head of another, handing out a couple bulbs of fennel that her kids will eat like apples, chatting with everyone, glazing asparagus in one pan, opening the oven to shake a tray of Brussels sprouts she has roasting, simultaneously asking if we’ve heard about this new vaccination law California is talking about passing. It’s insane! And she actually looks like she is floating as she’s maneuvering! Erin Fetherston, who I’ve known for ages, well before either of us had kids, introduced me to Kimberly. We laugh so hard when we are there together; life now is so far from the 'fashion' environment that Erin and I met each other in. That said, Erin, who recently had a second child, is definitely the embodiment of a 'zen mama'—with every blond hair in place, never losing her cool, even when both kids are crying, the doorbell ringing, and she’s got someone on the phone trying to problem solve for a project she’s working on. I think it’s healthy for me to be around those two. I lose my cool way too easily! Roanne Adams, another N.Y.-to-L.A. transplant, is one more. That woman is running a bi-coastal creative agency that she started herself, renovating a house, and juggling her two little munchkins—and also always up for hosting friends, going to friends’ places, kids in tow, and always seems completely chill. I know we are all older now, have reshuffled what’s important to us, understand that the stress we used to self-inflict is counterproductive, but I also think that L.A.’s more laid-back lifestyle has something to do with it. The more time I spend there, I realize it’s more than the weather—these women have community, other friends with children who are still active in their own creative realms. There is more space and less pressure. People seem more supportive of each other. There seems to be less of that 'competitive fear' I feel here in New York. Women are more willing to help their peers. We need that. Mothers especially. Life balance is fragile. It’s easier when we have hands to hold and to help guide us."

"Suburban, with summers in Ireland. My mom stayed home with us until I was in third or fourth grade, then she went back to work—as a nurse—three days a week, but was home by 3:30 p.m. those days. She lives for taking care of others. She is also very traditional. You did things a certain way and that was that. No other way. The bar was set high, which could be tough. But, still, she was always incredibly affectionate and loving. We are very close. My dad was your typical, hard-working ‘80s dad: nice hair, shaved with an electric razor to ensure visible stubble, tanned in the summer, had a car phone that filled the armrest between the two front seats. He was very disciplined, training for marathons all the time. He did Boston in 2 hours 45 minutes! My dad loves music, introduced me to the Rolling Stones and classic rock. He also expected a lot from us. My parents were strict, but loving."

"Oh man…loving, but strict? I try to be a fun mom, but also lay down the law when the law needs laying. I snuggle my kids, kiss their faces, tell them I love them five hundred and fifty times a day, but I’m not so snuggly that I let the kids sleep in our bed. The only time they’re allowed to sleep with me is if my husband is away, then each kid one gets one night. I’m a light sleeper, and I’m mean when I’m tired, so it’s for everyone’s benefit. I’m strict in that I use a strong voice when I need to and have a no-whining policy—which is often broken. I believe in giving kids boundaries. We all need boundaries. Boundaries help provide a sense of safety. We know we are safe inside those borders and that we must proceed with caution when operating outside of them. That’s how it is in real life."

"How could it not? 2018 woke me up in so many ways. I want my children to be better equipped than I was. I want them to understand the world more holistically and less categorically. I want my son to respect and feel empathy toward women, but I’m afraid that what he sees in the news, and on the street, is already impacting his perception of 'normal.' I want my daughter to depend on herself and her abilities and to not always seek the approval and permission of others. More than anything, I hope I can help them understand the meaning of hypocrisy and help them to not behave sanctimoniously."

"Breathe, and absorb each moment. It is overwhelming and blisteringly beautiful. I’ve gotten to the point where I look back at photos from those early days with my kids and find myself crying because I can’t go back to enjoy it more. I wish I could slow down the old me, the girl who was rushing around trying to do it all, trying to keep up appearances, have a perfect home, keep her kids on a schedule, please everyone else and make the whole thing look like it was all a breeze. I wish I could just smack my face and say, 'Smell their fluffy little heads a bit longer, you psycho!' Life comes in intervals. That first year is messy, just let it be! You can regain control later. Ha! No you can’t…but if you learn to enjoy life in the midst of chaos? You’ll be miles ahead of the rest of us."

"Sadly no. That gift was taken from me when I was treated for cancer. I chose not to freeze eggs. I already have two healthy children, I didn’t want to delay treatment any longer than I already had."

Erin wears a vintage Jean Varon dress.

"I was diagnosed with breast cancer January 31st, 2018. I had felt a small, soft, non-scary bump in my breast for almost a year. Then one under my arm for about four months before I went to see my doctor. I was thirty-seven. I had no family or friends who’d had cancer. I didn’t think it was in the realm of possibility for me."

"Stunning. My OB/GYN called me at 6:30 a.m. the morning after my biopsy and delivered the news. I had to then get up and be 'normal,' getting my kids ready and off to school. Aside from roaring into my pillow when she told me, and being certain the lab had made a mistake, I don’t remember much. I think your brain renders you numb so you don’t immediately go off the deep end."

"Henry was nine and Emmanuelle was seven. We waited a few weeks before telling them, and consulted with a psychologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering before explaining the situation. We sat down at the dining room table, had our first official 'family meeting.' We told them that I was sick, but that I would be okay. I told them I had cancer, but that there were all kinds of cancer, and I had a small one, 'Like a little grape,' that could be treated. We were going to be in for a tough year, but then it would be over and life would continues as before. They asked a lot of questions. My son wanted to know how they would treat me and if any of the medicines I’d be taking would 'change me.' It was awful. I told him I’d have chemotherapy first, and he said, 'Oh, I know what chemotherapy is. It’s blue energy they inject in your veins so it can kill the bad cells. I think Marie Curie discovered it. Polonium.' I think he was mixing chemotherapy and radiation therapy, but if you could have seen the way my husband and I looked at each other? It was amazing that he knew that. I also think this knowledge he had, knowing that there was already this 'blue energy' that could save me, really helped him to feel less scared. By the way, the book he’d read that gave him this insight is called Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World, by Rachel Ignotofsky—I definitely recommend it. My daughter asked if I’d look different, and I had to tell her my hair was going to fall out. This was when she absolutely lost it. It’s hard to go back to that day. I’m crying as I type this, thinking of their faces, my daughter sobbing, my son’s silent tears. Awful."

"Chemotherapy and what it would do to my body. Its potential long-term effects. And the fact I have to take endocrine therapy for ten years post-treatment."

Erin wears a vintage Geoffrey Beene dress.

"I was incredibly fortunate that my mother was able to come live with us for several months. She helped with the kids, took me to and from chemo, made sure everything was healing properly after surgery. Because of her, my children’s lives went on as normally as possible. With chemo, I was sick, then better, sick, then better, but slowly getting weaker, more tired, and increasingly hairless. I took each day as it came and dealt with each side effect as I had to, when I had to, and nothing more. You learn to finally say 'no' to whatever and whoever overwhelms you during the process. You learn to quiet the noise in your head by eliminating whatever and whoever is causing additional stress. I didn’t want a lot of people I’m not close to calling me, asking me questions, telling me about their great aunt who died of breast cancer or how they once had surgery and how they knew how difficult it is to 'recover.' People mean well, but not everyone gets it. I had to protect myself a bit. I took my Instagram off private, told everyone, at once, what was happening to me, that I did not like sympathy, so don’t even think about giving me any, and that served as my buffer. Personal, but impersonal. It gave me support in the form of words, but also the distance I needed to be able to focus on getting myself through each day without having to speak ad nauseam about what I was going through. One day at a time. That is the only way to get through it."

"I’m all clear. My cancer was hormone-receptor positive, so I am both lucky and unlucky that I am able to take a pill that blocks estrogen from feeding any rogue cells that may have survived treatment. Lucky, because these pills greatly decrease my chances of recurrence, unlucky, because they essentially put me into medically-induced menopause. Which, I’m sure you can imagine, takes a toll. All-in-all, I’m great. The side effects I have are tolerable and my energy is getting closer to how it used to be each day. I think one of my fears at the beginning was that I was going to look physically different after this whole thing. And while chemo takes a toll, surgery leaves a mark, and radiation burns, the body is incredibly resilient. I’m a year and a half older, have a scar in my armpit and one under my breast, my hair is short, but that’s it. I am the same. But wiser. I’ve been given a second chance at life. I am able to enjoy the things I used to take for granted. Instead of focusing on what I don’t have, I now focus on what I do, and I try to make the most of all that I have. I’m not as hard on myself. Life is a lot easier to live once it’s nearly been taken from you."

"I’m a writer. Formerly a fashion and beauty writer, but now I write fiction and personal essays."

"I grew up in two small towns outside of Boston, then I went to NYU. I was a business major at Stern for the first year and a half, then I switched to Art History, with a minor in Genetics. I was all over the place. I started writing for magazines in college, then The Boston Globe and a website called Fashion Wire Daily when I graduated. I covered New York Fashion Week for British Vogue—I was freelance, so I pitched to whoever gave me an ear. For a few years some of my FWD articles were syndicated by Yahoo! News, which I didn’t realize. I once had a friend in Hong Kong email me saying: 'I saw your by-line in The China Daily!' Yep. Didn’t get paid for that one. (Insert unamused emoji face.) Freelance writing is a tough business. Then, a couple of years ago, I went to graduate school at Columbia, in the MFA Writing Program. I guess I’d forgotten that writing is a tough business. Honestly, it was fantastic going back to school at thirty five, having two kids, and a (tiny) bit of life experience behind me. More than anything, I had an intense desire to learn and I got so much more out of those two years than I would have had I gone right after college. I just finished a draft of a novel that came from my thesis, and I’m working on another manuscript that has to do with my experience with cancer."

"It completely informed it. I bent my life around my kids, and as soon as they were in school full time, I went to school full time."

Erin wears a vintage top, Ellery jeans and Lanvin necklace.

"Yes! The best. My parents are in Connecticut and come whenever we need them for overnight stays, or when I’m trying to get over a major life hurdle. I’m also completely in love with our two babysitters, Micah and Elyse. They are in their twenties, and are so intelligent, responsible, and dynamic. I’ve seen them grow over these past few years. They are like big sisters to my kids and true friends to me. I have a great support system."

"If I had the answer to this, I’d be famous. I became a mother relatively young, beat myself up for giving up my career to be a stay-at-home mom, and had a tough time navigating the growing pains that inevitably followed getting married at twenty-seven and having two kids by thirty. That is young in New York City. My identity shifted quickly, we moved around a lot, and, for many reasons, I felt like my spouse didn’t get me, and neither did my friends. The vast majority of my friends were still unmarried, ferociously focused on reaching the next rung of their their career ladder, and were years away from having children of their own. It was a tough few years for me. I isolated and kept a lot in during that time, but when it came out, it sounded like I was complaining, which is annoying. I wanted my friends to understand the difficulties of motherhood, but they had no point of reference. I wanted them to understand the nuances of my marriage, but, again, that’s basically impossible. Now I see what I was really getting at: I had gotten lost in being 'the mother' and 'the wife,' and that is why I was so frustrated. As women, we are expected to be so many things, and those are two enormous labels that can bury us if we aren’t quite ready to wear them. Everyone has at least three balls in the air at all times, but if you can find someone with at least two balls that are similar to the ones you’ve got flying around, then you might be able to connect, help each other with technique, and when you drop all your balls, that person will confirm that it’s okay, let you cry, and make you laugh at how ridiculous life is. It’s all about not letting yourself take it all on alone. Life is weird, awful and awesome. Know that the awful parts will eventually pass and you’ll be more awesome for getting through those moments."

"I was brought up Catholic, so there is nothing I don’t have guilt about! Going back to school as a full-time student for two years...then getting cancer? Yeah, there is some 'guilt' about that. My two kids had a long, tough stretch where their mother was quite occupied. I thought it was just going to be the two years of grad school, so I was super-focused, had babysitters around the clock, then I was going to be more 'hands on' again, except the universe had other plans for me. I know, in the long run, my children will be stronger for making it through these past few years, but I do wish they’d had more time to just be kids and not deal with some of the big stuff they’ve had to. They are still so little. It was a lot. I think the way I combat the 'guilt' feelings is by telling myself that them seeing me draw upon strength I didn’t know I had during a vital moment will lead to them realizing, when they encounter something truly difficult, that they also have those reserves within themselves."

"It is probably the most important thing to me. I am far from perfect and admitting that is one of the healthiest things I can do for my children. I let them see my flaws, see me laugh at them, attempt to fix them, and know that they do not define me. I get to choose what defines me. No one else. That said, in this era of Instagram and social media, we are being fed all this faux-perfection. Reality is no longer reality, which terrifies me. I try to point this out whenever I can: Real/Not Real. There are a lot of 'bad' role models in this world. People who value the wrong things. I’m trying to protect my kids from that right now, but I know, at some point, when they get their own phone, it will be up to them to navigate the world without me. Hopefully by surrounding our kids with the many women and men my husband and I are friends with, people who are walking through life in an admirable way, our kids will be able to decipher who they should look up to, and who is full of hot air."

"Like I mentioned earlier, I love getting dressed up. I like to be a little sexy sometimes, and more lady-like at other times. I dress for my mood and the kind of energy I want to put out into the world at that particular moment."

"Nope! Just like getting cancer, I don’t let certain things define me. Sure, when I had sticky-fingered little kids I didn’t wear my nicest things while on mom duty, but I still busted out my best finery every time I went out without them."

"I like a good pair of jeans. Re/Done Levi's fit me well, and Khaite. I wear a lot of vintage. I feel like I was meant for the 1960s and ‘70s. That said, I’m sartorially promiscuous: I’ll wear anything that fits me properly if I feel good in it. I don’t like to be ridiculously trendy. I hate homogeny. It’s not interesting. People need to have their own style, and not follow everyone else like trendy sheep."

"I’ve tried to clean up my routine. During chemo I exclusively used organic, 100 percent shea butter everywhere, nose to toes. And Suntegrity 5-in-1 Natural Moisturizing Face Sunscreen on my face. Now I’ve diversified: I uses Marie Veronique Vitamins C + E + Ferulic Serum in the morning, with Augustinus Bader The Cream, and then the Suntegrity. I’m all about moisturizing now. I used to be scared of it, but after having chemotherapy, I know what dry skin looks like and it ain’t good! At night I just started using Alastin Skincare Restorative Skin Complex and their eye cream under the Augustinus Bader cream. I know the Alastin isn’t all natural, but I read up on it before buying, and the science is compelling, and, honestly, it seems to be working—my little lines are softer. Oh, and I wash my face with Royal Fern Phytoactive Cleansing Balm and a Face Halo sponge. Both are great. The sponges seem to dissolve mascara. Just hold it to your eye for few seconds and done. I also use Alchimie Forever Advanced Retinol Serum once a week, on its own, no other serums or moisturizer that night. It’s strong and you want it to be! No diluting its magic. I also love Alchimie’s Kantic Mask, and Susanne Kaufmann’s Moisturizing Mask and her Foot Cream—also her facials! They have them at NYDG Integral Health and Wellness in New York. It starts with a foot soak and ends with you wanting to immediately schedule the next one. All natural, too. For makeup, I like the RMS range and Tata Harper’s Volumizing Lip and Cheek Tint. I like Westman Atelier Face Trace in Biscuit for all my highlighting needs. I put a little Abathi Kaylana Rare Oil on my cheekbones night and day. It really makes you have a glow."

"I’m a runner. I was all about milage pre-cancer, now I’m also into conditioning and strengthening my interior muscles. Lots of elastic bands and light weights. I’m not as strong—yet!—as I was over a year ago, but I’m okay with that. I no longer beat myself up, pushing through sets or sprints. I’ve learned that self-care is about actually taking care of yourself, listening to what your body needs. It doesn’t need to involve pain. I wish I meditated more. I need to. That is one of the first things you are told when you are diagnosed with cancer: LEARN TO MEDITATE! I was good at making myself do it during treatment, but now I just do it for a few minutes before I fall asleep, and if I ever feel my cortisol levels rising. It’s a fundamental tool—it keeps me from going mental!"

"Every once in a while I go away on my own. About a month after I finished treatment, I went to Ireland for three weeks. My husband and kids came for the last week, so I had two weeks on my own. I needed some distance from my experience to exhale and collect myself. Cancer changes you. And it should. It hands you a valuable new perspective, one that people usually only get with age. I needed to absorb everything so that I could move forward. I was incredibly lucky to have been able to take that time for myself and have the opportunity to examine all that happened to me. Otherwise, I go for walks in the park with or without a girlfriend. I procrasti-bake when the kids are at school and I can’t write. There is something about baking while listening to back-to-back podcasts that helps me to re-center. I have a podcast on whenever I can: running, traveling, doing the dishes, in the bath. I'm always learning! I love true crime serials, The New Yorker Fiction Podcast, Inquiring Minds, TED Radio Hour, almost everything from Wondry and The Australian. I pick and choose health and wellness topics. There are a lot of quacks out there. Some people are really good at talking, but I still like hard evidence. Wow. That went off-topic."

"Get. Book. Published. I’d also love to start a column about getting a second chance at life, the things I’ve learned, and how I aim to continue moving forward."

For more on Erin, her family, and for a look back at her journey, follow her on Instagram.

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Erin Hazelton on Life After Breast Cancer

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