I am rounding the bend of what I initially dubbed, very cynically and exhaustedly, my “surgical vacation.” Little did I know what this time would entail and the recovery process it has held. I still, most days, feel uncomfortable and have trouble sleeping. The expanders that are finished expanding are heavily anchored to my chest for a few more months before implants and I can’t get comfortable laying down in a bed. I hesitate to say I may need to go back to the recliner… In the midst of the struggles I am grateful to be free of cancer. I radically minimized my risk of ever having to experience it again, and I am alive. (However, the survivor’s guilt is ever present and the fact I had cancer I still have yet to swallow.) I plan to return to work in 5 days. I’m anxious, eager and mostly ready to go back. I can’t fall into the same patterns, I’m remaining aware, of over work, over functioning, and burning out. This has been my break to reflect, be honest, and strengthen my mind and spirit. The body is coming along each day.
I’ve always had a complicated relationship with my body, as I believe many women do. I developed large breasts around my senior year of high school (a late “bloomer” if you will) and have tried to minimize them ever since. I love to run. I love to play contact sports. On the varsity track team in high school, I ran relay and cross country and my sophomore year I transitioned to varsity soccer. I played AYSO soccer for several years before that. When my breasts grew, what seemed like overnight, my frustration and lament grew. They just seemed more in the way than anything. While girls my age were proud and wearing clothes carrying around their cleavage with pride, I tried to hide mine and pray for them to go away just as fast as they came. My vast involvement in the conservative Baptist/Evangelical church at that time didn’t help either. Purity culture was at its height and it seemed the problems with sexually active and/or lustful boys were all women’s fault. I was constantly hearing my body was bad and it not only caused me to sin but others without me even participating. This instilled deep shame, even greater disgust with my body, and confusion in my adolescent self. At that time, my love and reverence for God was most important to me and fear of being “bad,” being seen as bad and causing others to sin by just being in the world made the way I am, began my questioning of a loving God creating me in God’s image, this way.
When my body began to change from a lanky boyish figure to a more curvy feminine figure, I became extremely self-conscious. I watched movies like “Now and Then” and identified closely with Christina Ricci’s character when she went through puberty. I also identified with “The Little Giants” Becky O’Shae, “Miss Congeniality” Gracie, “My Girl” Vada Sultenfuss, and Kristy from the Babysitter’s Club. I was disappointed and mortified when I grew boobs, and I did everything I could to conceal them (from banding, oversized tops, large sweatshirts and jackets, and minimized bras). I stopped running and playing sports because of back pain; even my “over the shoulder boulder holders,” I affectionately call my bras, would be stretched out very quickly. I was buying non-flattering, larger straps to keep them controlled and at bay. Maybe I mentioned before in a post, my reframe for breast cancer was that I would finally be able to take care of these boulders and have it covered by insurance. Honestly, cancer was not my hope in doing it, it came as a shock. Finding good in horrible things is something I do well. However, I’ve learned to let it be messy, ugly and complicated before I wrap it up and tie a pretty bow around it. That’s where the growth, healing and beauty lies also. In the wake of my surgery, I held a goodbye of sorts for my breasts. I thanked them for what they have given me in my life and bid them farewell. I had never thought I’d experience grief over their loss but they were a part of me. A part of me that was taken, cut off.
This continual journey of grief, embracing mid-life, and life review has just begun in many ways. Maybe one day I’ll get more into my awkward, tomboy teen years but I’ve digressed enough for now. Obviously “growing boobs” again has had me reflective. Also, spending this incredibly sacred time with my daughter. She has been inseparable from me when she is home and we’ve had some really great conversations and experiences together. She even spoke of us growing our boobies together and had pride that I was flat like her after my mastectomies. I had a goal before going back to work of creating a fun space for her in the bottom of her closet, kind of like Lane Kim’s closet from Gilmore Girls. I was able to clean out her toy closet over two days and keep the more “mature” items she wanted. Organizing is one of my love languages, order that is, and so I set out feeling better and free of drains to accomplish this feat. After I had bought twinkling lights and items in pink, I remembered we had a conversation about her liking non gender specific colors and so I told her she could change it because I didn’t want her to feel she had to have pink or “girl” colors. She named being ok with it for now and loves her space full of Sanrio posters and her favorite things. She later named how thankful she was I said she didn’t have to have pink, she could have whatever. She identifies with being a girl, a tomboy, she says, like her mom. We’ve had conversations around gender identity and being who you are and proud of yourself the way God created you. I have dear friends who never had the safety nor words to express their identities and I’m grateful my daughter knows this safety and knowledge of other people outside of a gender specific world. We love all of our God’s creation and we welcome all to our table and home.
So, I completed her space. She loves it. She kept all the things she loves and currently plays with. She invited me in one night to do my embroidery while she read and played her favorite game of Toca Life World (much like the Sims of my generation I think). I am grateful for the relationship we have. Though we but heads at times, we love each other deeply and she knows she can always come to me. With anything.
The Journey Home 