Do you see what I see....

I have been battling with the mirror for a while. Everyone knows what I mean, we see ourselves through this harsh image that is distorted and judgmental. I've been talking to several friends and its funny because none of us our listening to our own advice. Accepting ourselves, our bodies our life and embracing it. I have been struggling all week with these new boobs. Yes they "feel" better than the expanders, but they are not me, no way. I feel scared and tired and changed. I did not enjoy dress shopping the other day and how different I look in clothes, it was very difficult for me. I'm glad I had cookies and milk with me!  I feel like a hot ass mess, a HAM as my good friend Duke would say. I hate the way I've gained weight and can not wait to work out. I am disgusted with these scared, ripped, fake, nippless boobs! But I am alive and sitting here with my family while my phone goes off with friends and other family members worrying about how my day went. I am a breast cancer survivor and those breasts did not define or make me who I was. Yet, I know that is not what others see when they see me. I tell people all the time to look deep in that mirror and see what the world sees, I want to do that!

Yet when I look at this photo here is what I see.....
First, I want to state that when Genevieve sent this I cried ...hard. The symbolism of the blurred chest was profound. The picture as a breast cancer survivor speaks volumes and I know my warrior sisters will agree. I am a woman who is tired and scared. I am stressed and worried that my health could get worse at any moment. That at any doctors appointment, tests could come back with more bad news. I'm dreading another surgery but know that there is no other option. I am battling the beast and don't want to give in. I don't  think "Why  me?" but "This is me".  The crazy thing is this chest is not me any more, it is fake and has no feeling, yet when I look at it I feel so much. I have no feeling about how they look or what they are because they are so foreign to me. I feel pain and stress. I feel overwhelming guilt that I survived, yet power that I beat it at the same time. I see me, the same woman I was, but a woman who now looks at the world in a different light. I see the real side to breast cancer, I see my side of the journey! I am a woman who was not defined by cancer but refined by this battle!

 

This is what Tom sees......
AM, you asked me to add something here in part, I think, because you thought I would be uncomfortable with you posting this picture. I'm way past that at this point.  One thing I can say about this whole experience is that I've fallen in love with you in a way that seems more awake and urgent than ever before. When you showed me this photo, I told you it was beautiful. Yes, I see the pain and the stress. But I can also see past it and see someone that is so strong and so brave. I see someone whose beauty was not diminished by adversity, but was increased by it. It's a strange thought, but I think the sense of purpose you now have about your life was a gift that cancer never meant to give you. You will struggle through the physical changes and I believe you will arrive in a place that you can feel comfortable with yourself. It's hard for you to look in the mirror now, but it's just as hard for me to stop looking at you. xo