I know this post is late — the anniversary of my diagnosis (or what I call my “rebirthday”) is February 5th — but I’ve been a bit introspective lately, so it’s taken me a while to gather my thoughts.
I reread my post last year on my rebirthday. I had just moved to San Francisco, my reconstruction was just recently completed, and I had a lust for life that sometimes felt like trying to drink water from a firehose. And just as how my life at that time was vastly different from the prior year, this year’s rebirthday was also very much different from last year’s.
Since this New Year, I have spent a fair amount of time looking inward and evaluating my life in a more critical way. I’m not sure what has caused this shift in perspective, but I find myself feeling the need to make decisions for the long term, which requires more planning and honest evaluation and less of a “fly by the seat of my pants” / “throw caution to the wind” strategy. I feel like the honeymoon phase of my relationship with my new body is coming to an end, and now I need to figure out the answers to some hard questions that I’ve been able to avoid asking while I was in treatment, recovery, and post-recovery celebration.
Some of these “hard” questions include the following:
1. When am I going to have my ovaries removed?
2. How am I going to get back on a path of financial health?
3. Am I making decisions that will help me find an appropriate partner?
I’m not sure what the answers are to any of these questions, but I’m hopeful that my continued introspective thought and analysis will yield some specific (and good) answers soon. For now, my general plan is to have my ovaries out by the time I’m 40, I recently met with a financial planner, and I’m going to go to my friends’ Second Annual Pimp Your Friends Valentine’s Party tonight. It will be interesting to see how my life continues to unfold and develop this year. I just hope I don’t lose the unbridled enjoyment of life that I have built a name for since my diagnosis.
For today’s soundtrack, I leave you with one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite artists: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QsXa7BOf78. I don’t believe I’ve chosen any Jeff Buckley songs for my soundtrack until now, which I find amusing, because I believe Grace is one of the best albums of all time. The tone of the songs on Grace tracks well with my present introspective mood.
