Dear Boobs,

It’s been four years since you’ve been gone !!! Four. Fecking. Years!! They say time flies when you are having fun…..or NOT!

Personally, I think that time just flies. I’m flabbergasted that it’s actually that long ago, because so often, it feels like it was just yesterday.

Only the other day, I was trying on an outfit for the upcoming Christmas Poinsettia Ball, and when it came to zipping up the bodice…..Thelma and Louise were having NOTHING to do with that!! There was no budging them. Now….if it were you, my original boobs, I could possibly have smooshed and shoved, and zipped up that fecker. But no go.

T & L don’t really do that sort of thing. There’s only a small amount of smoosh, and very little shoving leeway with these two. Don’t get me wrong…..Thelma and Louise are pretty, and somewhat perky for an almost 52 year old.

But they are not you….my dear departed boobs.

So…..I had to send that outfit back, get a bigger one, have it altered, and chalk this up to another T & L experience. In the scheme of things…..it’s not bad, just another subtle reminder of how my body has changed since being diagnosed with breast cancer.

But then again, those reminders happen daily, not just with T & L, but with the aches and pains, the power surges and hot flashes, and the constant (but thankfully more distant) fear of recurrence, or worse….metastasis.

But my dearest boobs….life goes on. And despite the shite storm that blew my way four and a half years ago, my life has NEVER been better.

Someone I know, recently told me, that when he saw me for the first time in over a year…..he thought to himself…DAMN. She looks good. She must be “getting some”!  Yes….he used those EXACT words.

Now….Thelma and Louise have YET to go on their maiden voyage in that respect. They (and I ) are most certainly NOT getting “some”. More’s the pity.

But, after I stopped laughing out loud, I explained to this person, that the “glow” he was seeing was NOT generated from any “nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more”….it was the glow of HAPPINESS coming from within ME……

I will leave you with a couple of quotes (big surprise there eh!);

“Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.”  Arthur  Schopenhauer

“Grief does not change you, Hazel. It reveals you.” John  Green

The loss of you, while devastating, revealed ME. The grief allowed me to focus on who I really was. I was not the sum of you, my Boobs, OR of my long red hair. Those things were not what made me beautiful, or strong. THAT was revealed in the way I faced the grief head on, and rewrote my own story. Which, if the Gods allow, I will continue to do for a LONG time to come.

So dearest Boobs, here’s to another year.

To be continued…..

Cora Fahy, A woman surviving breast cancer

Boobambassador Blog ; irishcora.wordpress.com