We Did it

(Or, All of Me)

In early spring, I sat with one of my neurologists (I have three) and admitted something I had not said out loud. I told her I had stopped looking at pictures of myself from before melanoma. I said it gently, but the grief underneath was anything but gentle.

I cried too. That happens in these appointments, especially when they include sentences like “you will start CyberKnife next week.”

She looked concerned, but steady. “I do not see any reason why you will not get back there,” she said.

“That makes one of us.”

The brain radiation itself was manageable. I’ve had my skull opened, so anything less than that now feels strangely doable. What felt impossible was believing that I would ever look in the mirror again without recoiling.

I know how dramatic that sounds for someone who has survived. I know how lucky I am to even be here. I also know that surviving something monumental does not erase the places where I am still painfully human. Maybe other people can throw their vanity over when life drags them close to the edge. I could not.

After the diagnosis, the surgery, the radiation, and the treatment, I gave up on real clothes. I lived in leggings, soft shorts, oversized hoodies, sweatshirts with ridiculous graphics, and sometimes my kid’s T-shirts.

Curling my hair, putting on makeup, and wearing anything with structure felt absurd. It also took energy I did not have. I needed that energy for things like trying to get through a day with no more than two naps.

Then time passed. Somehow, I kept going. My son, his cousin, and I spent the whole summer taking wild field trips and swimming. I sold my house. I moved. Then I had a quiet collapse after moving because that is what sudden change can do, even when I know the change is right.

A year from the brain surgery passed.
A year from the start of treatment passed.
Then a week where I stayed awake until eight and still woke up before nine.
Then a full month like that.

And then something shifted. I put on jeans one afternoon. I did my hair. I bought new makeup. I looked in the mirror, and instead of flinching, I said, “Hey, I have missed you. You look great. Thanks for not staying away forever.”

My reflection kept smiling.

I do not usually push back against my medical team, but I will bend the truth of what my neurologist told me. I am not back where I was. The vainest part of me would still like the old scale numbers. But the wiser part is stunned by the truth of what has happened.

I am here.
I am healing.
I am becoming someone new, yet I still recognize who I am.

We did it.
Every part of me.
The parts I love, the parts I resist, the parts I have tried to hide, and the freak flags I finally let fly.

We did it, and we are still doing it.

Also, while obviously, no one sponsors me for anything, I have to confess that Jones Road Beauty, Bobbi Brown’s new makeup venture, is pure delight. Their miracle balm is pretty damn close to being just that. Highly suggest. 1 million stars. Also, hoodies are still iconic.