The gift of time...

I remember when I was younger and I’d hear people say things like “I’ve been friends with her for 20 years” or “That was 20 years ago” and I remember thinking…oh man, they are OLD! I couldn’t imagine being at a point in my life when I would say something like that. Old enough that I could reflect on the previous 20 years and talk about it like it was a blip in time.

Yet here I am. Celebrating 20 years from my breast cancer diagnosis - remembering that scary day when I heard the words “You have breast cancer.” On some days it feels like a distant memory, almost like it was a lifetime ago. Yet on other days, and always on my anniversary date, it feels like it was yesterday and it still evokes a sense of fear that takes me back.

There really is nothing like receiving a life changing or life threatening diagnosis like breast cancer. It creates a line in your life that forever becomes a mark in time. A mark in time that causes you to start to refer to things in a “before” or “after” type of way. I still find myself saying “that was before my diagnosis” or “that happened after I had breast cancer.” Not dissimilar from how we might all feel about the pandemic. It’s almost as if something that life changing resets time.

The past 20 years have been a gift. I remember wondering if I’d ever get here. I’d look at other women as they celebrated their 20th breast cancer anniversaries and would hope that I too would someday enjoy the wisdom that those years allowed them to gain. Their age inspired me, their wrinkles looked beautiful, and to me they represented hope. 

So as I reflect on all of the memories, milestones, victories, and losses I’ve experienced over the past 20 years I continue to land on one word that summarizes how I feel on this anniversary date - GRATEFUL. I have so much to be grateful for and much of the gratitude I feel relates to the feeling of purpose and passion that Feel Your Boobies has afforded me. Breast cancer made that possible and for that I am forever grateful. 

I am alive. 

Feel Your Boobies is alive. 

And, thanks to our campaign, there are many other women still alive doing all kinds of wonderful things in the world. 

I can think of nothing more gratifying than that.