In(de)cision (II)

It’s been almost a week now since my visit to Cleveland. I find myself already in an incredibly different place emotionally.

(Sometimes the speed of this all catches me off guard.)

A couple weeks ago I heard Loren Cameron speak, and he talked about the scars we wear and the stories they tell. The more I listened, the more I realized I wasn’t ready to hear the doctor tell me I would need double incision. That I would be wearing those scars. I’d always internalized what society had told me as a woman, that my chest wasn’t big enough – and I thought that it might, ironically, be to my benefit, allowing me a new chest with the keyhole or periareolar procedures. Without the big scars across my pec line, dividing my torso into constructed and not. And I tried for the next few weeks to prepare myself, starting slowly to allow the possibility of it into my imaginings of self, how I dream I’ll look just down the road, the ever-closer future.

And sure enough, that’s what happened. The doctor said double incision.

I was scared, and still am. Scared of the scars and the things I’m still unsure of. And yet, somehow, this week has given me patience. Distance. Time to remember that these scars are no more permanent than my own body. Time to remember that we earn these scars. And that one day I’ll be proud to wear mine.

So I scheduled my surgery with Dr. Medalie.

May 10.

Almost exactly two months from now – just enough time to reimagine.

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