Chapter One
My breasts are sore. Scarred. Non existent. Three weeks ago I had a choice. Leave caverns where my breasts used to be, bow tied with a delicious dual scar. Or, have implants filled placed in the twin gorges on my chest. These choices are both brave, and I had to make one.
What is resilience? I am really sick of hearing my friends and loved ones telling me. Gosh, Cristy! You are so resilient! What does that even mean? And honestly, are you really looking at me? Or are you looking at the façade I put forth to make it easier not only for you....but for myself too. I don't have to deal with your empathy and you don't have to deal with my tragedy. We are quite the pair.
It's about 3:30pm on a rainy Sunday afternoon. I am sitting crouched, typing at my computer. I decided that my "recovery time" should be spent doing things that I wouldn't normally do due to my chaotic days spent managing a cosmetic counter. Bright lipstick with a smile is a standard in my world. Changing women's lives, making them feel beautiful.
There's coverage on CNN about a missing Malaysian plane. 232 people on board and it just plane disappeared. Get it, plane?
I'm not very funny. But I think I am.
I guess I should have introduced myself. "Hi. I'm Cristy. I'm 35, and I don't know what I want to be when I grow up."
My nutty brain keeps talking to me. Telling me that I am not good enough. That I am not smart enough to make political statements like my boyfriend. Oh, and did I mention that I survived cancer?
Sure did. Stage 3 uterine cancer. Found on accident. While I am as sterile as surgical tools, I am very lucky. I am alive. They saved me. So why don't I have hope? A renewed sense of life? A positive outlook?
I don't know that I had it then either.
Honestly.
Do you pity me? Do you have the same pity for me that I have have for myself? I take a self pity bath nightly. There are lots of bubbles in this tub, a lifetime of self indulgence.
The reality is, this self pity/loathing started long before the cancer. It started somewhere in middle america. It started with a child who wanted to be an actress. She enjoyed singing and acting because it gave her an opportunity to escape her reality. Her reality wasn't as bad as it could have been, but she was unaware at the time.
Cristy was adopted. So was her brother, Danny. They were brought to their home at ages 2 and 3. Cristy was the older of the two and the apple of her mother's eye. Petite with pale skin and golden brown curly hair, Cristy was the exact opposite of her recently married and brought to the midwest Mexican mother.
Alma, her mother, couldn't have children. Or maybe it was her father Tom, that was incapable. The details are blurry but this religious couple decided to reach out and provide for two children in need.
The details of her time spent in a foster home, and her birth parents, was a blur. But Cristy certainly did not make it easy for her new mother to love her. On the way home from the adoption agency, Alma, Tom, Cristy and Danny (her brother) stopped at a Burger King. It was 1982. Danny was in a stroller. Cristy was standing on the table. She had one of those golden crowns on her head and colored the menu frantically until the food came.
My breasts are sore. Scarred. Non existent. Three weeks ago I had a choice. Leave caverns where my breasts used to be, bow tied with a delicious dual scar. Or, have implants filled placed in the twin gorges on my chest. These choices are both brave, and I had to make one.
What is resilience? I am really sick of hearing my friends and loved ones telling me. Gosh, Cristy! You are so resilient! What does that even mean? And honestly, are you really looking at me? Or are you looking at the façade I put forth to make it easier not only for you....but for myself too. I don't have to deal with your empathy and you don't have to deal with my tragedy. We are quite the pair.
It's about 3:30pm on a rainy Sunday afternoon. I am sitting crouched, typing at my computer. I decided that my "recovery time" should be spent doing things that I wouldn't normally do due to my chaotic days spent managing a cosmetic counter. Bright lipstick with a smile is a standard in my world. Changing women's lives, making them feel beautiful.
There's coverage on CNN about a missing Malaysian plane. 232 people on board and it just plane disappeared. Get it, plane?
I'm not very funny. But I think I am.
I guess I should have introduced myself. "Hi. I'm Cristy. I'm 35, and I don't know what I want to be when I grow up."
My nutty brain keeps talking to me. Telling me that I am not good enough. That I am not smart enough to make political statements like my boyfriend. Oh, and did I mention that I survived cancer?
Sure did. Stage 3 uterine cancer. Found on accident. While I am as sterile as surgical tools, I am very lucky. I am alive. They saved me. So why don't I have hope? A renewed sense of life? A positive outlook?
I don't know that I had it then either.
Honestly.
Do you pity me? Do you have the same pity for me that I have have for myself? I take a self pity bath nightly. There are lots of bubbles in this tub, a lifetime of self indulgence.
The reality is, this self pity/loathing started long before the cancer. It started somewhere in middle america. It started with a child who wanted to be an actress. She enjoyed singing and acting because it gave her an opportunity to escape her reality. Her reality wasn't as bad as it could have been, but she was unaware at the time.
Cristy was adopted. So was her brother, Danny. They were brought to their home at ages 2 and 3. Cristy was the older of the two and the apple of her mother's eye. Petite with pale skin and golden brown curly hair, Cristy was the exact opposite of her recently married and brought to the midwest Mexican mother.
Alma, her mother, couldn't have children. Or maybe it was her father Tom, that was incapable. The details are blurry but this religious couple decided to reach out and provide for two children in need.
The details of her time spent in a foster home, and her birth parents, was a blur. But Cristy certainly did not make it easy for her new mother to love her. On the way home from the adoption agency, Alma, Tom, Cristy and Danny (her brother) stopped at a Burger King. It was 1982. Danny was in a stroller. Cristy was standing on the table. She had one of those golden crowns on her head and colored the menu frantically until the food came.