Lucas - Then Came Life

Right Now: Stop and Smell the Roses

I talk too much. Mostly to myself.

Sometimes the conversations are productive pep talks, but usually they are negative and dont reflect how optimistic I want to be and all the money I spend on therapy and that I am a cancer survivor and Im still alive.

I was only twenty-seven years old when I was diagnosed with a very aggressive breast cancer. Because of my age and the type of cancer, the prognosis wasnt great: They expected me to have a recurrence within two years, and any future recurrence would more than likely be, as they said, treatable, not curable. Every six months Id have blood tests to check my tumor levels; I was constantly put into different scanning machines so the doctors could look at all my organs to make sure the cancer hadnt traveled somewhere else. A single rogue cell could start trouble again.

Im forty-five now, but I remember when all I wanted was to hit thirty. At the time that seemed like a more dignified age to die than twenty-eight or twenty-nine. I had read the statistics for the percentages of women who would be alive two years, five years after my kind of diagnosis. Even though I survived the first round with cancersix months of chemotherapy and a mastectomyI never knew if or when there might be another round. Would I die or live? Which column would I land in?

When I turned forty, my forty-year-old friends started complaining that we were getting old. I always thought: Please dont complain to me about getting old; I know the other option too well. Each year passed with the punctuation of tests, mammograms, and scary reminders of the possibilities. I still think about those statistics and hold my breath every time I wait for my medical test results. All that worryingand then came life.

For instance: Tonight Im on my way to Saratoga Springs for my seven-year-old sons chess tournament. We are all squeezed into the car, three moms and three sons. We have already been pulled over by the cops for making a left turn from the right lane. It wasnt really our fault; the GPS isnt working. I am sandwiched in the backseat between two boys playing video games. The games are loud, theres not enough heat, and I wish I werent in this car. The conversation has begun, and Im so relieved that the other moms and kids cant hear what Im saying to myself.

Youre dreading the weekend. Chess moms are so uptight. After he lost a round, last year, Hayden complained that you dont push him hard enough to practice, and that he wants you to be a Tiger Mom. You dont even remember how to play checkers or backgammon.

I interrupt the conversation and ask Hayden to turn the music down so I can hear myself better. I pull out my mirror that lights up in the dark and stare at myself.

Your hair is so grayyou havent had time to dye it. Why do you always revert to pulling it back in a greasy ponytail?

I squint into the mirror to see better in the dark and realize how much my face is falling. My Botox shot is long overdue. My pants are too tight. I unbutton them so I can breathe. I pull my sweater down to cover my muffin top.

Maybe you didnt need those fries with your meal today. Arent you trying to be healthier?

I have no cute clothes anymore. Earlier today when I was packing, I sneaked into my teenage daughters room to borrow a T-shirt. She claims my stomach stretches her shirts, so Im not allowed to wear her cute stuff. She scares me. Shes the cool girl I never was. I worry about our relationship lately. She seems like she hates me.

I want to call Tyler from the car, but I figure hell just screen the call. I cant remember the last time we had a real conversation.

I feel all the gratitude for my hard-earned life draining out of me. All the things I wanted so desperately, clung to life so I could keep, just feel like a drag at this moment. I sigh into the mirror.

B efore they wheeled me into the OR, I put on bright red lipstick and I swore to myself that I would come out the other side and become the woman I never thought I could be. I would dare to live up to my lipstick and make every day red-lipstick-worthy. It was all about transformation: As my breast was being removed, I was going to be glamorous and reinvent myself. I had always been a gloss girl, and I thought I couldnt wear red like other women. But I decided to wear bright red lipstick to my mastectomy to show the doctors and nurses in the operating room that I had places to go, things to do. And here I am in the car nineteen years later, a chess mom. Alive.

I pull out a new tube of red lipstick and pucker up.