words

matter

I HAVE FAKE BOOBS

I HAVE FAKE BOOBS

The four words to this title strike me with somewhat of a disbelief as I get further away from my final surgery three months ago and lean into my very much alive life. I joke a lot about these new additions to my body and I am struck by how easy in many ways I have become use to a perpetually different sensation in my upper half. Mostly I have physically returned to everyday alayne life. Range of motion and getting up speedily is still a little wonky, but that will come with time I imagine since muscles from my back were moved to my front. It is striking how much I rely unknowingly to my upper back muscles. The liposuction areas are still numb and there is definitely a different sensation in those areas. This is the physical. Physical in this case is nothing to yammer about. I realize this one hundred percent and I am a daily grateful human, period.

This entire experience has been a positive one. There has been life changing nuggets that I get to say without cancer cliché that have been an ironic boon to my quality of life and this has been the greatest awakening for me. My friendships have grown deeper. I have learned to release old baggage and not take it with me when I show up for relationships that have a past that maybe didn’t feel as good then, but don’t have to feel that way now. Maybe this would have all coincided with the natural process of turning fifty anyway, but I will never know. I feel different. I feel like I left the woman that I knew at fifty on the surgical table back in 2015 at my first surgery and almost three years later getting ready to turn 53, I am a different woman. A woman who I am actually really enjoying. I think that the road to fifty is a winding and hilly one. It is about discovery and an up hill climb towards the answers. It is about yearning and learning about what makes you happy and sad and pissed and deciding which ones of these you want to most identify with.

I remember like yesterday the potent nesting feeling a few weeks before I delivered my son. It was like I couldn’t clean and organize enough. This was not something planned. It was highly intuitive and the surge was a force that took over my thinking and propelled a sense of order. Every woman I know relates to this. I am sure there is an evolutionary energy to this. It is a deep rooted feeling not manufactured but cellular. We caught it early twice cancer diagnosis and concurrent surgeries to match are like having a new baby. It is the only feeling I can compare it to, but it is also the opposite. Getting ready for a grand entrance of a new life that I was not only getting ready to birth, but to be responsible for that new life was a major life overhaul. There is a sense of order and urgency in preparing for the arrival of a new baby and it is life 101. The beginning.

Moving into my fifties with the new addition of health issues has the same sense of urgency, but with a different charge. There is a blatant awareness now that life is much shorter than I thought and the wide open space that was bringing up baby feels more instead like a narrowing of time. This may read weird. I write it though with a sense of deep appreciation for its arrival. There is a visceral movement towards clean up that feels very much like nesting did back in those preparatory days of pre Michael. I clean closets, my basement, my drawers and cabinets with a vengeance. I clean my businesses and all of their closets and basements and cabinets. I reorder, I remove, I reduce. Reduce, this is one of my trifecta of words for 2018. The amount of things I have accumulated are lovingly put in a new sense of order as they await for my store I will be opening in my barn this spring. I realize that I have accumulated enough stuff to open a store and stock it with a complete inventory. This is humbling and slightly embarrassing. In addition to my word of the year REDUCE, I also have a new mantra that is slightly borrowed from Alanon. This is that today is Day 1. The past is simply the past and as I show up to the table I don’t have to bring the luggage carrying the crap that doesn’t exist anymore except in the luggage. I can bring an empty suitcase and start fresh every single day. So in addition to the magnificent word REDUCE, I will add RELEASE to the cluster of favorite themed 2018 words. Releasing the literal and the figurative allows the reduction. This is an outstanding concept for me and I feel totally on point, on purpose and with a clear as a bell direction.

It is January 11th today and 1/11/ 2018 is a great combination of numbers because 2018 adds up to 11. I like the neatness of these numbers today. They feel like a story and a clean start. I have been reordering and reorganizing my life for it seems this very moment. There is no chance of going backwards, I march forth with a strength and determination that feels volcanic, yet peaceful in the same breath. My body is the host for my fake boobs that demand notice outward if I choose to go for the form fitting shirts I used to love wearing (back when I thought I had boobs, but my friend Morgan assured me I didn’t). It is also the host for the never ending awareness that they provide as reminders to not forget my sense of power and strength that is now my daily vibe.

I am working on replacement thoughts these days too as I reduce and release. So my third and final word for 2018 is REPLACE. I replaced my old body with a new one; this is the fun part of this experience, having these reminders sassing their way into my daily routines. The replacement of language in my head though is my focus this year. I am allowing every time a negative or judgmental thought pops into my headspace, to use its trigger to be a reminder to replace the words with I AM HEALTHY AND STRONG. Replacement words to affirm goodness. It amazes me after all of the work I have done on myself in my life how many negative thoughts still find their way into my mind. Negative thoughts are indeed like a life cancer and I don’t want any more of that shit.

Through this spiral of writing today like always I have worked through and come out brighter and more open and loving. All because of my constant fake boob reminders that wake up and go to work with me every day, that have dinner and end my every evening. Usually when I am on the right path, I see a red cardinal to remind and confirm. Cardinals show up when I am teetering on the edge of something and when I see one, it always affirms my path. As I left the gym on the last frigid cold day feeling strong and bad ass, there the lovely couple was. Waiting in the tree outside the gym for a private showing. So bring on 53. I am ready.