9 months later...
A lot can happen in 9 months. For instance, you can get pregnant and 9 months later have a baby, and wow how your whole life changes forever. The pregnancy is a process and the delivery is a whole nother process and then you are a mom. You have labored to bring this new life into the world and life is never the same again....it is better.
This is what I was thinking about on my walk this evening. About what all can happen in 9 months. 9 months is on my mind because my diagnosis was 9 months ago. This got me thinking about the whole 9 month process of pregnancy, labor, birth....new life.
I've been underground the past few months, just hunkered down and surviving real life. Not living double or nothing for sure. Just nestled in a quiet place. Living day to day. Knowing there was still more I needed to process but not wanting to go through the process. Knowing that to go forward I had to go back.
It was time to return to the place where I first churned the news around in my heart. To make that same drive and walk that same shore with that same pier and same ocean that churned along side me. It was time to put on that same bathing suit just to see how it would all feel. It was time to be brave again. It was time to labor and to birth what needed birthing....me.
See those foamy feet in the picture above? Those are my feet last weekend back on that same beach I was on when I got the news 9 months ago, that infamous birthday trip with my twin Susie...dear Susie who kept me sane that weekend. My left boob still had the radiologist's initials from the biopsy the day before. Which I have to admit was a little weird. An inked on "BH" showing just above the edge of my bathing suit.
Last weekend I went alone. I didn't even have any initials on my new boobs. I processed and labored....I rested and recovered. When I left I wasn't sure I had birthed the newly purposed me, but I could see a life at 9 months later that looks brighter than it did a month ago. Life that looks more like a "double or nothing" kind of life at least on the inside and that's where it matters. I know life will never be the same again...it will be better.
These were the thoughts I was pondering as I finished my walk.... all this 9 month labor and birth analogy... when I saw a neighbor driving home. I don't know even know his name. I just know which house he lives in and that he drives a white truck. We always share a friendly wave when I walk past his house or he drives past me. This evening however he slowed down, stuck his head out the window and called out, "Hello there happy person!". I laughed out loud and gave him a hello back, glad that I had a happy person look on my face.
Maybe my birthing happened right then and there. Happy person. Why yes, that's me....9 months later.