Prompt #2 was look through my photographs and choose one to write about. This is the photo I chose:
That was me about 4 weeks ago, on the morning of my first surgery for breast cancer. I say first, because I found out that a second surgery was needed a couple weeks after the first one, and that was not an easy prospect to face. In this photo, I was positive, and just ready to move forward. Who doesn't want to get past something like breast cancer and move forward? Being positive was easier with that first surgery. The second surgery was more difficult, because negative thoughts began to creep in and take over my brain.
It was hard to overcome those negative thoughts. I am not a negative person by nature, and won't whine and bitch about what was going through my mind. I won't give a lot of advice about the experience either. There have been tons of articles written about breast cancer and survival, etc. Sooner or later I will write a more personal post about my experience, so that maybe someone else who is diagnosed with breast cancer and starts combing the internet for information, will come across my little post and have a few questions answered. But that time isn't now. I am not ready to dig that deep into my thoughts.
So I will focus on the photo of me. Sans makeup, it shows me smiling, which is something I do most of the time. I have had a mostly good life, a magical life, with just a few life bumps along the way. Until this year, when I seem to be traveling a mostly bumpy road. Since January I have had to deal with things that are new and difficult for me to comprehend and work through. I have gotten past some, and some are still happening. I've decided that the best thing to do to get through a year like this year is to just take one day, one step at a time. To look forward too far is to sabotage where I am right now. And to look backward with regret is a waste of energy, because nothing will change, and again, it sabotages where my life is in the present. It prevents me from working through what I am dealing with at this moment in time.
So I will drag out my copy of A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle one more time, and thumb through it, and regain some insight into my mood and way of thinking, which lately has been self defeating. I will do this because I am that positive person my dad had a big influence on. I have that strength in me, waiting to be tapped into. I will do it because I am a get it done type of person, and not possessed of a victim mentality.
I will continue to depend on my family, reconnect with old friends, make new friends, stay connected with my sisters (who were the first best friends I ever had), and find joy through my art and photography. I will tap into the strength inside me to overcome and deal with anything and everything, and it will show in my face.
My face, my eyes. An open window to my soul.
...life isn't always good, but it is always real... cat
i am @jonesbabie on twitter
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