Oh, hey there! Did you see I’m taking The Luckiest on the road? And that Miguel is joining me? I LOVE writing, I even enjoy the editing process, but easily one of my favorite parts of publishing a book is having an excuse to travel the country and connect in person with all of you. I love hearing about your lives, and what blogs, essays, or chapters have resonated with you. It’s also true that I’ve never met a microphone I didn’t like.
Every season comes with its own challenges, especially when parenting is involved, and this one feels particularly messy: A barbie doll is thrown in with baseball cleats and sheet music, we have several different careers pulling us in opposite directions, and there are socks and snack crumbs everywhere. In so many ways this feels more like the life I envisioned when Jackson was a baby than any life I’ve imagined since. Is it possible that after a decade of detours we’re back on that once familiar life path?
I’m not sure why the fall always catches me by surprise. I see it coming, I try to mentally prepare. But every dang year it knocks me on my ass culminating in a sprint to the end-of-year holidays. This year though, I’m feeling it all a little extra. I’m just more tired. Is it because my energy is still compromised after a year of surgeries (#FuckCancer)? Am I simply out of logistical shape and I just need to stretch these planning muscles a little more? Or maybe this is a part of getting older? I know that witnessing the dismantling of American democracy is not helping. Then again, could this be a side effect of Tamoxifen…
Earlier this month, my temporary expanders, which were placed during my mastectomy in May and filled over time to my desired size, were replaced with my permanent implants. The expanders were sewn to my chest wall and as a result didn’t move, felt unnatural, and were generally uncomfortable. I was so excited to have them removed that I hadn’t thought much about the implants replacing them.
The current rhetoric is not going to simmer down on its own. There will have to be a tipping point, and I don’t want to think of how many more lives will be lost in the fall or leading up to it.
Yet, as all this happens in the background, we continue to live our lives. That dissonance alone is enough to spike my anxiety.
It is a widely known fact that I crave control in just about every aspect of my life. Though, life has LOVED reminding me how little control I actually possess. My workaround has been to focus on what I know I can control. To flip every switch and lever available to me in hopes that even if it all goes to shit, I can at least look back and say I did everything I could.
Even though *I* am not returning to school, there is still something about this time of year that feels more new year-ish than New Year’s. And this back-to-school season, I’m feeling it more than most: in just two months The Luckiest will be in your hands and next week I will undergo what I hope is my final breast reconstruction surgery. I am saying ta ta to my uncomfortable and temporary tatas (ie expanders) and hello to my more permanent ones (implants).
Not having a memory-filled home base never really bothered me before. I’ve enjoyed living all over, experiencing and getting to know different parts of the country. It’s exciting, new, and different, all of which I have a history of gravitating toward. But lately I’ve been craving something simpler, something known: a touchstone.
This week I had my final appointment with my plastic surgeon before my implant surgery. Talk about a sentence I didn’t think I would be writing a year ago. But it’s been nearly eight months since that concerning mammogram/ultrasound, and now I talk about my boobs with the same reckless abandon as I do what I had for dinner last night.
This week Anessa prayed to Santa Claus and I mulled over the arrival of AI griefbots - how was your week?
The dissonance I’m currently feeling between my warm and sticky summer, filled with popsicles and baseball, versus the suffering I’m witnessing outside my bubble is unsettling.
I’ll be the first to admit that it’s been a while since I’ve felt particularly patriotic. The passing of the administration’ sweeping domestic policy bill yesterday was like pouring acid in a gaping wound. All of which tends to make for an awkward Fourth of July.
