"Tears and fears and feeling proud.  To say I love you right out loud.  Dreams and schemes and circus crowds.  I've looked at life that way".  

Hey everyone - it has been awhile.  I guess I know my story isn't more important than anyone else's and it feels weird to assume anyone wants to hear it :).  But writing is very therapeutic for me and I could use some therapy today.  I had my boob reconstruction on April 6th.  I had DIEP flap surgery, which basically means they took fat and skin and blood vessels from my stomach and used it to make new boobs.  It sounded like a good plan.  I guess it was except the left side "failed" which means there was a problem with my artery and the new boob was dying...necrosis is the term they use and it can be dangerous.  Back into surgery on April 7th to remove the dead boob and put in an implant, which was pretty traumatizing.  It all happened very fast and unexpectedly.  My surgeon has done over 600 of these specific transplants in his career and I am his second fail.  The odds were definitely in my favor and everyone was disappointed.  I think I'm still processing because luckily our bodies have this way of protecting us when we get big news, right?  It's like you hear it and do what you need to do when that phone call comes.  But sometime later when you are sitting in the quiet, your mind really starts to wrap itself around what happened and accept it in bits and pieces because maybe you wouldn't have been able to function if your mind had to handle it all at once.  It is protective grace.  And I am thankful for it.  Anyway, the point is I'm processing the left boob fail and the days of being in the hospital and coming home in a narcotic stupor.  I'm removed enough now to settle into it all and I hope I will eventually trust everything is fine.

My mom and my aunt came again and did what they do. Comforting and encouraging and taking care of everything around me.  Brian and the girls stepped up yet again to take care of me and themselves.  It is both a blessing and a curse to realize that life really can go on without you and maybe what you do isn't as important as you think it is when you know you're about to not be able to do it for awhile :).

Friends delivered meals and texts and flowers.  They made me feel stronger than I was.  My family and my friends are everything to me.  It really is that simple.  You give my life meaning and the words thank you could never be enough.

The reason I felt compelled to write was because of the song Both Sides Now by Joni Mitchell.  It is a nostalgic one as it takes me back to my mom listening and loving it in the 70s...usually crying as she sang along.  I played it today after I dropped Alexa off and was in my car alone for the first time in weeks.  It makes me think about the passage of time.  And I guess that is why I'm struggling.  I've wanted time to pass so quickly these past couple of months.  For surgery to come and be done and recovery to start and be over.  But that same passage of time means my mom left this morning. Lex didn't even think about looking back to say goodbye when I dropped her off because my baby is getting so independent.  It is warmer outside and everything is getting green.  Summer swim, my fav time of year, is coming.  We will spend most waking hours outside and outside is my fav place. I see my parents aging.  Nick is graduating from Clemson in 3 weeks and moving into his own place that isn't on Bandol Lane in July.  Maddi is home finishing up her internship and we get to have her here for a few months, but then as summer comes, it will also go and she'll leave again.  We have been blessed with a new member of the family...Maddi's new Australian Shepard named Koda, who has brought crazy joy into our lives already.  I also see Diesel and Memphis and think...wow it was just yesterday they were that little and bouncy and busy and how have they gotten so much older so fast.  Our kids slip away from us to start their own separate lives...exactly as they should.

Our anticipation and excitement for the next event or thing or season is such a big part of being alive.  And these contradictions of time are so powerful.  Something is lost.  Something is gained.  And that is what I see from both sides now.  It is breaking my heart today.  And I probably won't feel so dramatic and melancholy about it tomorrow.  Or maybe all of life's illusions I recall will continue to remind me that I really don't know life at all.