Scratched floor.

Michael and I have some beautiful wood floors in our new house in a couple of the bedrooms upstairs. When we first moved in, we just dumped the furniture in roughly the right spot, but once we settled in a bit, we thought more carefully about arrangement. Most of this happened right before our Rochester wedding, when we had a couple people staying with us and their rooms needed to be set up - and when we were tried, stressed, and rushed. When we went to move a dresser, I thought I could just shove it along the floor rather than wait for Michael to put on shoes and help me lift it. After I'd shoved it about two feet, I discovered that I was putting a good sized gash in the beautiful wood floors.

(This is not actually our floor - we covered up our scratch with a bed.)

I do stupid stuff like that all the time. Physically destructive mistakes that I desperately wish to take back after they happened. Knowing I can't undo it, I just play the event over in my head again and again, hoping for a different outcome that never comes. Stupid mistakes that result in scratched CDs, ripped clothing, various broken items - in the scheme of things, pretty small and inconsequential destruction, but even though I try to tell myself that, their happening nags at me.

Sometimes I feel that way when I look in the mirror and see my one fake breast. Not that it looks bad - I am regularly told by folks in the plastic surgeon office that it is "perfect," as perfect as a reconstructed breast can be. Still I get that feeling like I made a careless mistake and now there is a big gash in the beautiful wood floor, except instead of an irreparable gash in the floor of my new house, there is an irreparable gash in my breast.

It's hardly fair to even say, because again, the fake breast looks good, for a fake breast. Nor is it the result of a mistake - I know it was the right decision to get rid of that breast. But maybe the reason this has been on my mind lately is because removing the next breast is not as obvious as the decision to remove the left. Yes, I know it is the right decision, and I know this is the time when it makes the most sense to do it - financially, emotionally, practically. But I guess there is a part of me that is afraid I will see myself in the mirror after this surgery and get that same sick feeling I get when I replay the incident that resulted in a scratched wood floor: I did this thing, I can't take it back, I can't undo it, and I will never be the same again.

Lots of people have been asking me how I am doing. 33 hours before my second (and last) mastectomy in four months, I'm doing all right. I'm fine with having surgery. I'm fine with enduring the recovery. The new reality that will result from said surgery, however, is something with which I have not completely come to grips. Obviously. Sort of like I'm mildly in denial, and I will just wake up on Tuesday around lunchtime and not have any more boobs.

I guess I'm okay with that. This is as much as I can swallow at once.