Onward and boobward

No, I'll never get tired of the titty puns.

I'm feeling quite chestally perky lately. Maybe it's because I'm a bra owner again. Maybe I'm actually kind of pleased with how les girls look in les sweaters. It all has a way of lulling a girl into thinking this was all an elaborate ruse to begin life again in a new way.

Problem is, despite the high, I still feel like I have a shitload of work to do. Sometimes I feel like I haven't made any lasting changes at all. Like I'm some cancer survivor hack going through the motions but still doing the same garbage I did before.

I read something yesterday that said people have a much easier time relating to a cancer patient than a cancer survivor. To see the obvious sick, the treatments we've all seen movies about, the medical merry-go-round. It's all familiar, even if you can't actually know what it's like to lose your eyelashes or get a gazillion IVs until it happens to you. But understanding what it's like to be in recovery or remission, no matter how temporary, leaves most feeling a bit blank. If I had a buck for every "aren't you glad to be getting back to normal again?!" I'd have gold-plated nipples.

I understand, though. It's like telling someone who's parent died, "well, he/she was old, it was her time" or telling someone with any disease, "My mother/aunt/neighbour/babysitter died from that!" We're all looking for the right words to say in awkward moments. We're all a little alien when it comes to truly relating to each other.

So this survivor thing is interesting. I think about death a lot. Woody Allen a lot. But I also think about the loveliness of life more. I speak my mind more. I'm both less and more patient with everything. But I still get nervous about stupid shit. I still curse slow drivers. I still get ticked when I can't get 10 minutes to read the paper, write a blog, file my nails, or do all those other things women without children can lord over me. I still feel paralyzed in my job sometimes. I still wonder what it's like to nurse baby zebras back to life on a wildlife ranch in Tanzania rather than actually do it. I'm not bucket-listing it all over the place.

And that makes me think I have a shitload more work to do. But 2012 is right around the corner, and although I don't know if I'm going to live through that year (be it cancer or beer truck accident), I do know I'm more than likely to make it to December 31. So I'll make a few more plans and ride this perky wave a little longer.