On looking good

I continue to feel really good lately, closer and closer to "normal" (aka "new normal"). Yesterday I was in rehearsal, sitting and listening to the conductor, and it occurred to me that I did not feel anything. No tightness, no discomfort, and certainly no pain. After a month of always being aware that something dramatic just happened on my chest, in the moment before my realization, I had effectively forgotten that I had surgery. The recognition of this brought me a considerable sense of calm.

I have been thinking since I posted my last post about how I mentioned putting on something that made me feel sexy. I had gone back and forth about whether to include that or not (TMI?), but I'm glad I did because I have realized in retrospect that that was a really big moment. So much of the struggle with breast cancer is related to body image. Girls and women seem to just inherently have body image issues, right? Thanks to a culture that presents an impossibly high standard by photoshopping people to look perfect, I know very few women who would say they like everything about their body. So it is adding insult to injury to say not only, "You have cancer," but also, "and it's going to require you to give up the body part that society has said you must have to be an attractive woman."

Personally, I have struggled with various parts of my body over the years, but that was one part that I was always pretty pleased with. I was aware that losing my breasts would be tough - of course it would. I would be incredibly naive not to recognize that. It wouldn't have been such a gut-wrenching decision if I didn't know it would affect me. But I was more worried about the practical elements, like breast feeding, filling out my clothes, looking "normal," and the ability to hug someone without feeling like two bricks are pressing down on my rib cage. I didn't know until I saw myself in the mirror that night that I was really worried I would never feel sexy again. I knew I had a man who would continue to tell me he found me sexy. I knew that he wouldn't leave me suddenly because I wasn't sexy enough. (I have been devastated to learn that not all women can say this.) And I thought I knew that I didn't really care what anyone besides my husband thought.

Turns out, seeing myself as a woman that might actually still be desirable to someone other than the man who has vowed to spend his life with me was a really big moment. Of course that is not in any way to say I want to be with any man other than my husband, don't get me wrong! But the fact that I could be "empirically attractive" (for you When Harry Met Sally fans) and even alluring was a real ego boost to a part of my ego I didn't even know needed boosting.

"I don't think it's a matter of opinion. Empirically, you are attractive." ~Harry

I think often our memories of things are skewed, but the skewed memory ends up being better or more important than the way it actually happened. When I think back to looking at myself in the mirror that night, thinking how empirically sexy I looked, I see myself clearly and everything else in the mirror blurry, and there is light all around me, and I think, "That girl? She looks like health."