I really don’t sit around thinking about mastectomy all day.
I really don’t though it may seem like it from some of these posts. It’s been 3.5 years since my original
mastectomy. Come on Sally, you say, move on! But six surgeries later, writing a blog,
and then being surrounded by awesomeness in people and things, and also having
friends going through a similar road, well, it sort of just comes up. Or other
times, like now. I come across something and it puts me back into the moment.
“It’s ok to have a meltdown,
just don’t unpack and live there.”
TobyMac
Hum. I mean ok, Toby, you sort of just opened up my mind
here for a moment. You are actually saying it is OK to have a meltdown. You are
giving us permission to be impacted and to feel. Are you saying I don’t have to hold it all
together and plant the smile on my face? Are you saying I don’t have to be “perfect
Sally” and be the poster child for enduring chaos? You are….well you are going
against a lot of what this societal life has taught me. And guess what? I love
you for it!
When is the last time you allowed yourself to grieve? And when is the last time you let someone else know you were grieving? I don’t
mean pass-me-a–tissue so I can dab the corner of my eye, but rather a get-out-of-the-way
because Blubbering-Snotting-Sobbing-Sally needs not a moment, but rather a few
hours, kind of grieve?. Or when was the
last time you were so angry that it propelled you forward into positive motion?
Too often our angry drags us down into a place of negative outcomes. But when
have you allowed yourself a therapeutic angry moment that produces forward
motion for change? For can there not be healing that comes out of a few moments
spent in Meltdown? We live in a society where we are constantly being measured
against….well against absolutely everything. We are praised for holding our
heads up high and conquering life. We have facebook pages celebrating our
perfection and our ability to make life not only “easy”, but the envy of the
faces looking in. We publish and post our story book days of our awesomeness
all captured in one photo with all 2.5 kids (or cats!) smiling joyously under
the perfectly aligned sunbeam, a husband refreshed from his most recent golf
game, and ourselves plucked straight from the makeup table and designer closet and now huddled together after family devotion
earlier that morning posing in our “perfection”. Don’t get me wrong, these things are great and
surely those moments really do exists at times, and oh what a joy it is when
that all comes together. But I would guess the majority of life is a little
more down-to-earth trying to get little Charlie to sit still for just 3 seconds,
hoping husband Paul is relaxed enough to
even want to be around us, all while trying to convince myself simply to get out
of bed after an exhausted work week while juggling life at home. We inhabit a
world expecting perfection and we subscribe to the theory that as long as you
keep a smile on your face and positive thinking intact while presenting an “I can
do it, and I can do it well!” mentality, well then you excel.
I have two childhood friends, who happen to be sisters, who
unknowingly help keep my gut in check. Both excel at allowing their life online
to be what it really is. A whole lot of joy and a whole lot of frustration all
mixed into a 24 hour day. They have no qualms about positing a picture of
disheveled hair, faces covered in flour as they try to squeeze in baking a cake
needed for a school function all while
realizing they forgot Little Scotty an hour ago in the carpool line. They each
give themselves permission to be real in a world of very real moments where we
are expected to be everything someone else told us to be. Well, you know what?
Real is something I really crave. And real is something that makes me love them
more for being genuine. It’s also something that gives me permission to be
disheveled Sally putting one foot in front of another.
So as I came across these words above tonight in my reading,
I felt empowered to be real. I do this well in a lot of ways, but I’m also
guilty of making sure I am setting the example of “get through life before life
gets to you” mentality. I think back to days during mastectomy where it was
really hard. I mean REALLY hard. And I wonder why I kept so many of those
hidden. I wonder if there was this underlying expectation of myself to be “good
at mastectomy”, “good at life”, “perfect without teetering”. Sure, I was
transparent, maybe even more so than most, particularly as I did it on social
media. But I painted only some of the story, a carefully selected some, not
only to your eyes here but also to my inner circle of friends who walked beside
me. By painting a half-baked perspective of my story, I also cultivated in you a
half-baked expectation of what mastectomy could bring. There are so many stories I have not told,
some of which might have done some good by showing someone else it’s ok to
grieve. It’s ok to not be ok. It’s ok to not have it all together. It’s ok to hold your head high on the days you
can, and hold your head down on the days you can’t. Even in turmoil, we feel
the need to “live up to” everyone else no matter what life throws our way.
Well, I for one am tired of living a life of comparisons. I want to live in an
environment where it is ok to simply be where you are. The good, the bad, the
meltdown. For this is where God can truly shine. There is where He equips you
and others to bring yourself back up.
I’m not saying we need to cover the world and our social
media pages or personal conversations with
our struggles, I’m saying we need to give ourselves permission to be ok or when
needed, to not be ok. We need to be ok to post a picture of chaos and to open
our “perfect lives” to the imperfect world it really is. We see courageous
battles played out at every turn celebrating heads held high, but we rarely see
the real candid heart-retching moments we hide underneath. We need to learn to embrace and celebrating enduring
( and then triumphing) over the hard moments. We must find people in our life who
can go through the trenches with us, work to remove the stigma of imperfection,
and create an environment to be exactly what we are, where we are, and how we
are when going through this life. Give yourself and those in your inner circle
permission to have the meltdown, and then let the inner circle of friends do
what God created them to do… help pick us back up. It’s time to get real! It’s
time to not be perfect. It’s time to be whatever you need to be while
navigating your journey. Just remember, you don’t have to unpack and live
there, but know it is ok to visit there while you heal.
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