Feeling Like Myself Again (Warning: Girl Talk)

I'm not exactly sure how I got from there (this morning's prayer) to here, but . . .  this has been coming for a few days and: I feel like me again.

I have spent a small fortune on undergarments over the past couple of weeks and I've finally reached a point at which I can make myself presentable without much effort.  No one wants to talk about that?  Well, I do.  Just as I mentioned pre-surgeries that great little presents for women in my situation would be gift cards ~ all those little recovery expenses in the pharmacy and men's t-shirt department and Kindle add up ~ let me say post-surgery that there are a lot more unexpected and expensive aspects to living with a different body.

I've also had some conversation with a friend in a similar situation, some of it about accepting that the bodies we have are neither the ones we had nor the ones we thought we were promised,   (I thought my expectations were appropriately low, like: in the basement.  I see now that I should have been thinking more like down to the core of the earth.)  As a consequence, I've been wondering:  What if I develop cancer on the other side?  Would I do this again?

I think (not entirely sure, but probably 95%) the answer is, Hell, no, and get rid of this one while you're at it.  I mean, seriously: months and months of immobilizing pain and weekly doctor visits and more trips to the OR?  Was I OUT OF MY MIND?  (Quite possibly.)

Amazingly, despite the fact that I still live under a cloud of grief and am sometimes staggered by the degree of loss I have experienced:  I still have a lot of things I want to do. 

Like talk about Mary's son.  That's what emerged from my prayer this morning.  And walk on the beach.  That's what emerged from the last hour of researching vacation rentals.  (Oh, you though I was writing a sermon?  Not always . . . ).  And take pictures, zillions of pictures.

And all those things take energy, which I have utterly squandered on this whole breast cancer mess.  I don't apologize for my feelings, for the incredibly debilitating sadness of another maternal loss but ~ I am so ready to be finished.

I'm gonna go walk in the sunshine, start planning a sermon, and head home to celebrate a friend's birthday.  I'm gonna be grateful for a way early diagnosis, PO'd at the current state of medical knowledge, satisfied with the attentiveness to the technical aspects of my care, dismayed at the lack of appreciation for the affective aspects  -- and DONE.

Image:  All those pictures of women looking out of windows?  My plan is to look out of one on St. George's Island, sooner rather than later.