I have an essay up this week at The Underbelly, a new magazine sharing honest stories from breast cancer patients. It’s about boobs, body image, and why cancer doesn’t always have to be a fight.
Suddenly, I was being told I was in a battle, and the enemy was literally parts of myself. The combat would start with my traitorous boobs, and possibly other pieces would defect. I was now a pink-ribbon fighter, valiantly vanquishing my own flesh on the frontline of war.
Women are very rarely encouraged to see and know our bodies as complete, worthy units, as living creatures to unambiguously love… We learn to relate to ourselves in parts, as a collection of stubborn flaws and precarious assets. Training myself to relate differently to my body had been a battle in its own right. It’s one most women know extremely well.
I didn’t want cancer to change the way I felt about my body, to make me a divided and invaded thing.
The full piece lives here.
subtle workings 