You can call me

June 8, 2015 //

You can call me a “survivor”. If I am alive, I consider myself to be surviving. I hope this is true for a long long time. I know that for many, it is not.

You can call me a “warrior” but I’m not fighting anyone. I am a pacifist, after all. War is a battle fought between peoples.

You can call me, “victorious” over cancer. The best I can be at this point is “no evidence of disease”. That is a gray area, to be sure. A victory is not the same as, “no evidence of defeat”.

You can describe cancer with other human metaphors, a thief, a rapist, a robber. To me, it is a disease, a natural disaster that works from the inside. It is a disease that is very good at reproduction. It is not sentient. It has no will, just a way.

Words are powerful. Cancer is more powerful than words.

But people have a will, people have a way, science. People have compassion and drive to help others.

When there is a cure for breast cancer, you can call me anything you please. Because the only words that will matter are, “Thank you.”

Tags Breast Cancer, language

Categories Breast cancer

New

June 1, 2015 //

May was not a good month for me. It was a roller coaster ride of anxiety and trying to keep myself centered. I often didn’t feel like myself and there was a spell during which I was tearing up on a daily basis.

Yesterday I looked at my calendar and saw that it was the end of the month. I thought, “May, don’t let the door hit your butt on the way out.”

The weekend was actually pretty good. Hubby and I took two long walks during which we made a lot of progress on our family game plan. I always feel so much better connected and less isolated when problem solve together. I like us very much as a team.

This morning I woke up and felt so much more relaxed. I was actually eager to take on my work week even though I had to work over the weekend to catch up on report writing.

I was reapplying my lipstick this morning using my cell phone camera in “selfie” mode as a mirror. I thought, “Hey, I look well rested, happy, and relaxed.” So I snapped a photo.

Today is a new day in a new month. Summer starts in three weeks. We are getting little birds coming to our new deck fountain. Yesterday, a hummingbird took a bath in it. I am looking forward to more close encounters!

Tags coping with stress, Optimism

Categories Uncategorized

Shame and Honor

May 31, 2015 //

As a mother of an almost 17 year old girl, I try to keep my mouth shut when it comes to what she chooses to wear. What girls and women “should” wear. Yikes, what a thorny question. As a feminist, I hate the way clothing is so sexualized even for young girls. I remember seeing a two year-old wearing a sundress with darts sewn in at her chest, as if she had breasts. Maybe it’s a small thing but seriously, why would a clothing manufacturer make the extra effort involved to do this? On the other hand, I understand that for teens, dressing in different ways is an important part of identity development and part of that development is sexual. As a feminist, I hate the way girls are shamed by adults and peers about what they wear because it is “distracting” to boys or is “slutty” or “whorish”.

Another thing I keep my mouth shut about is her weight. Yes, it is true that 1/3 of adults are obese, that she eats an unhealthy diet, and that she no longer exercises regularly. However, there are so many messages to girls and women about what they should way and how they should look that it is nearly impossible to have a conversation about weight. I admit that up until a few years ago, I would nudge the scheduling of my annual physical by a couple of months every year so that I could lose weight in time for the appointment and not get “THE TALK” from my internist. And honestly, she gives “THE TALK” in the best way possible. But I still dreaded stepping on the scale. And for the record, I never managed to lose weight during those couple of months between my scheduled and rescheduled appointments.

As I’ve written many times before, I have struggled to maintain healthy weight since my teen years. Although I am not a person who people typically think of as overweight, my BMI has entered into the obese range twice in my life, once in my late 30’s and the second time in my mid forties. Each time, I lost 40 pounds. When my weight was either declining or in the healthy weight zone, I typically felt good about my body. When I was not, I had some pretty horrible things things that I told myself every day, like a tic. And when I was at a healthy weight, I still had a habit of comparing my weight to the people around me, even people I encountered while walking down the sidewalk.

As I wrote in the post, The Skin I’m In, the tic stopped after I’d done a lot of work on my body image, a natural thing to work on after breast cancer surgeries. At the time, I was at a healthy weight. I told my psychologist that I was concerned that if I were to gain weight again, that the tic, the tape in my head that told me “you’re fat” and other messages would come back. She told me that it might not come back.

By March of this year, I had gained back 25 of the 40 pounds I had lost between May and October of 2012. This was also, incidentally, at the time I went to The Second Chance Prom with my husband. We had a wonderful time. As I looked at the photos of myself from that day, I thought, “Yes, I’m overweight but I look beautiful.”

I realized that although a substantial amount of weight had returned, the tape in my head had not come back. I intended to write about this in my blog. Then I found that it was really difficult to write about. I was ashamed of how badly I had judged myself. I was also too ashamed to admit that I thought I was beautiful. Women are only supposed to say that about their young selves, after all.

Shame is a powerful emotion and it results from a sense of having violated society’s rules. One reason women and girls have a lot of body shame is because we have failed to achieve perfection. We also fail to stay young. But another one of society’s rules is that women and girls are to be dissatisfied with their bodies.

What a trap. What a no-win situation, if winning is defined as having a healthy body image.

A couple of months ago, I started following Weightwatchers again. It was the first time I’ve gotten myself back on an eating program without “hitting bottom”, that is, being motivated by shame and disgust in myself. I started referring to Weightwatchers as “wise-minded eating”. I do watch my weight to reduce chance of cancer recurrence since my cancer was highly estrogen and progesterone responsive and adipose tissue (basically body fat) has glandular function and produces female hormones. Also, a healthy diet is just good fuel for my body. I feel better when I eat well. I am also losing weight at a slow, but steady pace. My motivation, instead of eliminating shame is instead, seeking health.

One of the antonyms for shame is honor. I like that.

I honor my body for getting me this far in life. I will continue to do my best to treat it well.

Tags Body image, Breast Cancer, shame, weight loss

Categories Breast cancer

The Story

May 28, 2015 //

Many years ago, I was working on a research study evaluating the efficacy of bullying prevention program for elementary schools. To do this kind of research, schools must be recruited for participation. I was placed in charge of the task of contacting schools and districts as well as making presentations onsite. If memory serves, I made over 50 presentations. (In perhaps another post, I will write more about this. I enjoy public speaking but this was a very high pressure situation. Basically, I threw up about 2o minutes before nearly every presentation though I think I did a good to excellent job with everyone. Looks can be deceiving. A person can be funny, informative, and relaxed, and still have thrown up 20 minutes earlier. You just never know about another person’s life, just by looking.)

One of the presentations was to all elementary principals in a particular school district. After I was completed, there was a bit of time for one on one conversations. There was one principal who made a bee-line for me. She gave me the kind of handshake that starts as a firm “how do you do” and turns quickly in a seemingly never ending grip. Meanwhile she was earnestly telling me about her school. My co-worker, Truc, was also there. Truc observed this action intently; Truc is an excellent observer as well as being very funny. Later Truc said, ‘Elizabeth, she was saying, “Please, Elizabeth you must help our school. You ARE THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN HELP US!”‘

School principals have very demanding jobs with a lot of rushing around. That principal had a story to tell me and she was going to hold onto me until she had a chance to finish and could see that I understood.

Back in days as a researcher, that kind of poignant social interaction was rare. In my clinical life in private practice, especially as a psychologist with a specialty in diagnostic assessment, it is a frequent occurrence.

Everyone has a story, a life story. Families in need, need to tell their story. Some of them do not know where to start. Some of them don’t know how to stop. Both of those extremes keep me on my toes. In particular, parents and their teen children who engage in self-harmful and life threatening behaviors carry an incredible urgency in their stories. This is not my treatment specialty but within my diagnostic specialty, suicidality is much more prevalent than in the general population, especially for girls. So I encounter this situation with some frequency and help families secure appropriate services, which unfortunately, are in short supply.

Parents of suicidal teens are some of the most isolated people you will ever meet. They have a story that they are afraid to tell for fear of being judged harshly, among other reasons. Given the way that many people judge teens and their parents, it is a realistic fear, unfortunately. Sometimes we see another person’s tragic situation and blame them for it. To believe that they have control over it makes us feel safe.

I have heard many stories from parents, so many in fact, that I can tell you one that story is based on many.

I am incredibly alone. My house is full of people and each of us are shell shocked and alone. The loneliest moments are when we are yelling at each other.

I have met many many healthcare providers. I have gotten anywhere between 10 and 50 minutes to tell my story. There is so much to say, much more than I ever thought there would be to say in my life, ever.

You are a stranger to me but I need to tell my story. I will trust you with my helplessness. I will trust you with my failures as a person and as a parent. I will trust you with my shame at times for the unspoken regrets I have about ever choosing to be a parent. Bringing this child into the world has been painful and ungratifying but I will try to move try to move Heaven and Earth to save him.

I will trust you the best that I can. Sometimes I may not do a very good job. Three seconds later, I may do a good job again. My emotional life is like that; it is lived three seconds at a time, either dealing with, waiting for, or trying to ward off the next crisis.

I will do this because it is my job, to put myself second when my child is sick, so very sick that she may take herself from this world before she really even knows who she is, where she is, or the things that can heal with maturity.

Please help us.

We want a different story to tell.

Tags adolescent suicidality, May Mental Health Month, Mental Illness, parenting a child with mental illness

Categories Family, Parenting

You make me feel like dancing

May 27, 2015 //

I watched the Oscar winning film, Man on Wire, a couple of years back. It is a documentary about Philippe Petit’s high wire stunts, in particular, his 1974 high wire act between the tops of the former Twin Towers in New York City. It is a mesmerizing film.

Mssr. Petit’s balance was AMAZING. It wasn’t exactly as if he were walking on solid ground, but it was about as solid as one could possibly be under the circumstances.

I frequently find myself in very stressful circumstances. Sometimes, I am able to keep my balance and walk as if the ground is as solid as it could possibly be. Unlike Philippe Petit, I have not sought out these dangers. He had to have constructed a very different reality to justify his actions. I thought of his friends and family and how painful it would be to be a part of his life. Then I figured that anyone who could actually tolerate being with him must share in at least a bit of his acrobatic justifications. I don’t remember if this topic was addressed in the film but in my imagination I see his wife indoctrinate, I mean, explain to their young son (in English with poor French accent because this is my imagination), “Aaah, your Papa cannot stay on the ground. For him, it is a death. When he dies, he want to be…ALIVE.”

But I digress…

I find myself lately flailing a bit, having a hard time keeping my balance. When I flail, it is not pretty. Sometimes, I fall on my ass and stay there until the pain and embarrassment subside. At other times, it is more like a tap dance on a small stage. I shuffle, I step. I keep testing the ground for firmness, trying to find the right place for right now. It all seems very much on display. I can continue to struggle to find my footing even while I am experiencing a positive situation. It’s the ups and the downs that get me. If something positive happens after a negative, I sometimes find myself doing a little dance routine, “Hey friends and family, who I have depressed and worried with my tales of woe, look at me! Look at me! I am having THE BEST time. Ta da!!!!!! I was good, right? Isn’t this great?”

Sometimes the level of observation I do is incredibly helpful. At other times, it enhances my self-consciousness and minimizes any chance of ease I have in the moment. This is a long-winded way of saying that I sometimes think too much.

I’m not quite sure how to get out of this mode. I know that it is fear based. (The nightmares I had over the weekend were a tip off. See, I am a professional. 😉 ) I am feeling the urge to apologize to people but when I really think about what I could have possibly done to hurt anyone it is that I have been flailing and awkward. I haven’t really done anything and I know from years as a frequent flailer that the best way to increase the awkwardness that flailing creates is to apologize. If my awkwardness was all internal, my apologizing just confuses other people. They don’t know what the Hell I am talking about. And then I end up trying to explain myself and as the words come out of my mouth I realize that I am flailing in circles. Alternatively, the other person provides reassurance that I have not been awkward and flailing or that my awkward tap dance was completely understanding. This kind of reassurance can be a drug to us reassurance-seeking types and actually reinforce anxiety. The better course is to move on and keep going.

Eventually, I regain my footing.

Tags anxiety, coping with uncertainty, stress management, unpredictability

Categories Uncategorized

Days and Nights

May 25, 2015 //

I had a wonderful three day weekend with my family at the beach. That is, during the day. Saturday and Sunday nights were full of nightmares. As I mentioned yesterday, three years ago yesterday, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had a wonderful day yesterday, during the day. Last night I dreamed that I had a scan and that there was evidence of a recurrence. I spoke with a radiologist on my dream phone. I can’t remember quite what he said, but I recognized it immediately as a segue to bad news. I told him, “You are saying that to tell me that my cancer has come back!” He admitted that he had. Healthcare professionals, for the record, I am also a deliverer of bad news. I know your tricks, especially when it is dream and my unconsciousness is writing the story.

In the dream, my husband looked at a written report and in a tone that communicated a lack of sufficient concern, he said, “It says here that it is an 18 meter mass.”

I grabbed the paper and saw that it said that it was a .18 meter mass. “Oh my God, John! It’s a .18 meter mass, not an 18 meter mass! That means it is a 1.8 centimeter mass NOT 18 METERS!”

(Dream mind does not always move the decimal point correctly, I admit. I also think dream mind perfectly illustrated the most stupid of the stupid marital disagreements, the one that MISSES THE POINT. I have DREAM CANCER GOD DAMMIT! Stop fighting with your husband. Neither one of you know how to treat DREAM CANCER!)

People, you get it. My brain is working crap out. Mom, if you are reading along, my brain needs to work crap out. I am doing my very best to keep the crap to a minimum. It is easier during the day time. I had a wonderful day yesterday and a wonderful today. I have less control over the worlds that my brain creates in my dreams.

This year was easier than last year. Perhaps next year will be easier than this year. Healing is a process that is approximately linear over time. But it has its fits and starts.

This morning, John and I took a walk on our own. That time together, along with the sweet historic buildings, and the beautiful farmland, did much to quell the nightmares.

I wish I did not still have them, but I do.

I am, in sum, a pretty happy person. It has been awhile since I let the fears in my nightmares ruin my waking hours. I didn’t do that today, either.

Living with the uncertainty of life, the horrible, the traumatic, all of the things that I have experienced thus far, for me, is not about pushing it out of my mind. I can’t! My mind does not work that way. If I can’t notice both the good and the bad, I can’t help people as a psychologist. I can just spout platitudes that are not true and do not honor the hardship that many people experience.

And if I don’t notice and validate the good and bad in my own life, I can’t live with the kind of truth that gives me a sense of purpose and integrity.

I need to notice and remember in my life. But I’m living, too.

And pretty darned well if you get right down to it.

My selection of a Boho Chic outfit thumbs its nose at nightmares!

The gentle farmland is decidedly not nightmarish.

Even pink, in its original form, is not scary to this breast cancer survivor.

Tags Breast Cancer, cancer anniversaries, mindfulness, survivorship

Categories Breast cancer, Feelings, Mindfulness

May 24, 2015 //

Yes, I know that I already posted that today is the third anniversary of my breast cancer diagnosis. But I wrote that post yesterday to mark the day, just in case I didn’t feel like writing. But it is now the real day, my family is still sleeping, and I have more to say.

I slept solidly last night and woke up well rested. However, I had nightmare upon nightmare. They basically boiled down to losing everyone and everything in horrible ways. I was uninvited to one of my very best friends weddings FOR NO REASON except that it was suddenly decided that I was a bad person. My daughter, in a moment of anger, made a false report of child abuse against me. She then realized the horror of what she had done when my psychology license was suspended but in nightmare land, the wheels of motion could not be turned back. There was also a weird little dream where I walked into Costco (nightmare!) and the store layout had been totally changed (nightmare times two!) I was then instructed by a woman at the makeup counter to use red lip liner on both my lips and along my eye lid. The last little dream may have had something to do with my daughter’s contraction of pink eye last week. The brain does weird weird things, let me tell you.

Not everyone is impacted by anniversaries of bad events the way that I am. And it’s not like I am sitting with a calendar, marking the days so that I remember. I have one of those brains that is very good at marking the passage of time. This is often a very handy brain feature. I am a good planner, for example. My good friend, Gina, died over 15 years ago, suddenly, a few months after giving birth to her son. It happened in August. Although enough time has passed that I don’t remember the exact date or the exact number of years, I still often have a mournful feeling in my body near the date of her death. August is also the month of my mastectomy and another very bad day in my life. On August 8, 2013, I found myself at work suddenly crying uncontrollably, after which I realized that it was the first anniversary of my mastectomy.

August 2014 was hard because we were on vacation and I found myself extremely anxious being away from home. My psychologist suggested that we avoid taking vacations during the anniversary times of bad events. I went back and forth about going away this weekend, Memorial Day Weekend, because of its overlap with my diagnosis date. (Yes, people, I not only got my cancer diagnosis right before a three day weekend but before one perfect for making war metaphors.) I actually made a number of reservations in the last few months and then cancelled them. When my husband was gone for 10 days, earlier in this month, I decided that anniversary or not, I needed to get away for my own sanity so I made reservations that could not be cancelled without a huge financial penalty.

On Friday, we made the drive to the rental house. We left at 3:00 pm and I expected given the fact that it was a holiday weekend that it would take at least 2 1/2 hours to get there to allow for an extra hour of traffic. Our first surprise was that my daughter, who finds car trips to be incredibly stressful, was actually pleasant on the drive. Our second surprise is that the trip only took two hours. When we walked into the house, my husband, seeing the gorgeous view out the back of the house, to which is attached with a wraparound deck, exclaimed, “This is the best place you have every gotten for us, hands down.”

Yesterday, we had a wonderful day. My daughter was in a good mood, the best I have seen for months. She SPENT TIME WITH US. She actually sat down at the dining table to eat lunch and invited my husband to join her. She played on the beach despite the availability of Internet! Sometimes, when I have a wonderful day, it can actually be a bit dysregulating, especially if it comes after a particularly stressful time, as this vacation has. Although it’s mostly good, this is the time when I’m most likely to get emotionally sloppy with my friends. “You are the BEST FRIEND IN THE UNIVERSE!!!” It’s not like I’m not sincere but you know, there’s a time and a place for everything and sometimes I act drunk on emotion. Good thing my people love me and are understanding.

Today may be a hard day. Today may be a wonderful today. Today may be both hard and wonderful. I may even get bored. I am hoping that today will be a celebration.

The view from the rental house at low tide.

The view of the house from the beach. The decks are amazing. I want to have a seafood party at this house!

Scene from historic La Conner, WA, taken with the watercolor setting on my camera. I decided that might look nicer on a gray morning.

Tags Breast Cancer, La Conner, Puget Sound, survivorship, travel

Categories Breast cancer

Today

May 24, 2015 //

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. Today I am exactly 49 1/2 years old. Today is a new day. Three years ago today, at about 10:00 am, I was told that I had an approximately 1 centimeter tumor, invasive ductal carcinoma, in my right breast. I was about as surprised as I could be. I had only a limited idea of how my life would change. Today is today. I am spending it in rural Washington, on the beach. Yesterday was a wonderful day, much better than I expected. Today, I may be in the mood to write, I may not. (I wrote this post yesterday.) I am hoping that today is a good day. I try to be grateful for each day. I mostly succeed.

The view from the rental house in La Conner, WA. Can you believe this?

Deception Pass
Anacortes, WA

Old warehouse in La Conner. The exterior was dilapidated. What a surprise to see this beautiful ceiling. Also, we probably should not have been in this building.

I look at poppies all of the time and very closely. This one held a whole new universe.

My best food photo from tonight’s dinner. In all, I made salmon, salad, oysters, and these clams.

Tags cancer anniversaries, gratitude, mindfulness, nature photography, Northern Washington

Categories Breast cancer, Mindfulness

The Small Things

May 20, 2015 //

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been having a particularly hard time with parenting challenges. I am also working a lot, back to full time hours for the next few months. I am taking off for a number of trips this summer as well as time to entertain out-of-town guests. When I don’t work, I don’t get paid. So on the weeks that I am working, I am putting in extra hours. I am also working extra because for reasons I cannot yet determine, after 12 years of private practice, I am having a particularly hard time collecting balances from the families with whom I work. If I don’t get paid, I don’t get paid.

I may have mentioned about a thousand times that I am not currently popular with my teenaged daughter. I can tell myself over and over and even from a point of authority as a child/adolescent psychologist, that to a certain extent, this is normative of mother/teen daughter relationships. But I can also tell you, normative or not, it is a source of great pain in my life. A mama is built to be happy when her girl is happy. Mine is not only frequently unhappy, but often unhappy with me. I have forged a way in my life to be happy, nonetheless, but I have to tell you, it requires a LOT of effort.

This morning, I was feeling overwhelmed with my workload. This is an extremely busy week. Part of that business is related to our going away for the long weekend to a house on the beach. I am very much looking forward to it. I thought to myself, “I’m too busy to walk today.” Then I thought, “I’ll just take a 30 minute long walk. That was my original walking goal, anyway.”

I put on my walking clothes and ventured out into a foggy Seattle morning. I included the local coffee shop, Bird on a Wire, in my walk, I do this when I need an extra boost. The people that work there are always so nice to me and the coffee is a special treat. Angel was the barista today. He is in his mid-twenties and he lives up to his name. Angel customarily introduces people to each other in the coffee shop. He has brought John and me a glass of water when he thought the coffee line was really long and we might need a little refreshment. Angel is also really funny and he actually took his nephew, whom he frequently babysits, to see my daughter’s choir performance!

This morning, I saw that Angel was taking extra care with my latte. He added extra art.

As he handed the coffee to me, he explained, “You are the butterfly and your husband and daughter are the hearts. You are apart from them but looking on to make sure they are well.” Then he laughed. He had made up a little story.

I said, “Angel, I think you know my family better than you realize. My daughter prefers her dad. I know this may change.”

Angel looked sincerely sad for me. I know he likes John and me a lot. We like him, too.

Little moments can mean a lot. Little kindnesses can go a long way when I stop to notice them.

I’m glad that I noticed today because I really needed it.

Thank you, Angel.

P.S. I ended up walking 4 1/2 miles.

Tags gratitude, kindness, mindfulness, Parenting

Categories Family, Parenting

A rat’s ass

May 18, 2015 //

A rat’s ass is tiny, miniscule. And yet so many of us are disgusted and alarmed by the presence of one, along with the rest of the rodent body, in our homes. My Great Aunt Blanche, about whom several non-fiction works could be written and read, though regarded as fiction due to the unbelievable content, was a widow for nearly sixty years.

In her nineties, she had a not so secret admirer, an 80-something recent widower, who left flowers on her front porch. Aunt Blanche had been through a great deal in her life, poverty, World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam, caring for her dear husband who was bedridden for the last eleven years of their marriage, and being a widow by age 48, just a bit younger than I am today.

Aunt Blanche was tough, made excellent baked goods, and carried all of her precious and semi-precious gemstone jewelry in her purse “so they won’t get stolen”. She was incredibly funny and had a way with words. Sometimes her words meandered to the hateful, unfortunately when she spoke of “The JEWS” and “The BLACKS”. My mother would break the tension of these moments with her seditious humor. “Blanchie, where is Turner from?” (“Turner” was Blanche’s husband’s last name.) “Jiminy! I don’t know”, Auntie would reply. Without missing a beat, Mom replied, out of hearing range of Auntie, “Is it from Ike and Tina?”

Auntie lived to be 105. She lived in her own home until age 103. She looooved gardening and she loved animals, including her little dog, Popcorn. However, one day, she walked into the bathroom of her home and saw not the ass, but the head of a rat peeping out of the toilet bowl! She quickly closed the lid and called the police!

A young police officer knocked on the door. He appeared competent and the kind of manly man an elderly woman who avidly reads bodice-ripping romance novels, expects when she encounters a sewer rat. He worked swiftly and purposely by coaxing the rat into a cage using his most authoritarian baby voice!

If I’d seen that rat’s head coming out of my toilet, I will not lie, I would have given a rat’s head and a rat’s ass about it even though, really, what could one little rat do in all likelihood?

These day I find myself caring less and less about the “rat’s asses” of life, the things that produce real and palpable alarm but are really not that much of a threat. I have marks on my body that show, and I’m not talking about my cancer scars. I have a burst of spider and varicose veins on my right shin. It started out as a result of an injury I had at age 18 and grew over time, especially during pregnancy. Being a woman in a long line of generations of women with extensive, bulgy, and painful varicose veins, I told myself that I would have them “lasered” when I was done having children.

I am 49 years old. I am done bearing children. That network of spider and varicose veins is still abloom on my leg. I stopped caring enough a few years back to wear tights or long pants to cover it. I would be oblivious until some kid would point to it and say, “What is that???” I run warm with all of this middle aged hot flash stuff and I’d rather be vein-y than overheated. I saw a photo of myself with my mom on Mother’s Day. I could see the veins on my leg and I thought, “I don’t give a rat’s ass. Mom and I look happy together.”

I have another non-cancer related scar. Remember when you picked at your pimples when you were a teen and your mom told you that you would cause scars? I thought I had sailed through that time with clear skin, despite the picking. Then at age 37, it happened. I gave myself an acne scar, a small red dot, right above my right eyebrow. I have put concealer on it for years. Remember when I had my make up done professionally for prom? The make up artist put nothing extra over that blemish. She treated it like the rest of my face. As if it belonged there. I no longer cover it up. I no longer give a rat’s ass.

There are so many things that we apologize for. For having a voice that is not the same as everyone else’s, for existing, for “making” people uncomfortable with our cancer, for our perceived lack of perfection.

I am getting more and more comfortable with myself as I get older. I like this very much. Do I berate myself for not giving a rat’s ass sooner? No, because wherever I was in the past is the place I was at the time. And who knows where I will be in the future?