"Accept your life and what it brings"

Some days, I start and entry and then find a quote to match. Some days, I let the quote lead.

My attempts to refind/recreate a screensaver I once had have met with limited success (by which I mean none). The screen saver drew from a list of quotes I had entered and continually tweaked, and when it came on, I used it as a self-selected sort of bibliomancy. I never thought I could tell the future, and I never really particularly worried if other people could or could not, tarot has always been (to me) a hook to hang thoughts on, a way to shift, subtly or not, the way I'm looking at something. And having someone read the cards for me is a gift they give me, a way of looking at the world that I can't spontaneously create because I'm inhabiting the system I'm trying to observe. Also known as perspective.

There was a test run of new, calmer Omnia last night. A) Light had to stay late at work and I wasn't even a tiny bit panicky or resentful. So, I wasn't doing anything on a Friday night. That wasn't actually true, I just wasn't doing anything with anyone else. I cross-stitched, I watched a couple episodes of the River, I took the dog on a walk, I screwed around on the internet, I read more of my awesome book, I called my mom to thank her for something she mailed me. I paid a couple bills, I cleaned. I did not do the dishes (which was a sort of active rather than passive thing).

And, I listened to a message my plastic surgeon left me about my options going forward without really crying very much at all. So, I currently have 800cc implants. To the rest of the world, I still look like a fairly busty woman. To me, I've lost a cup size, the ability to wear pretty bras, comfortable access to about a third of my clothes (since they fit very differently now) and my disguise. I very much felt about my old boobs that I could use them to keep people frm looking at my face. And I don't feel that way anymore.

So, there is a large implant. It's saline, not silicone, and reports from the ground say that it is very firm. And there's a new implant company that just got improved that might offer something else.

So now, I have to figure out what my self-image is worth, and what angle to attack the problem from. I know at the moment, it's way too close to my last surgery to even be able to contemplate going back under the knife. I'm not at a point where I can sign up for any more of the not-fun kind of pain. So, I can live with the breasts I have, or get more surgery.

I don't want to have to compromise. I want this to have gone well and right. And I know that all sorts of things about this have gone right, but it feels cheapened by the fact that the bit of the decision that I carry around with me, these not-boobs aren't what I wanted the end result to be, and I'm forced to confront that pretty much every time I shower.

I build up callouses, of course. I've toned down the sullen resentfulness, I've tried to put aside for the moment the question of being attractive to people other than Light, I force myself to a place of bemused resignation rather than the rage that still sort of percolates somewhere deep down inside.

I don't want to have to make this decision. I don't want to suck it up and buckle down and buy extra-credit fake boobs to fill out the bra where my internal not-boobs fail me. I don't want to have to decide if I'm going to get a nipple tattoo, or just leave the notboobs creepy as hell, since Light doesn't mind and I don't think that there will be any solution I won't mind and I basically dare people to look at me now in the locker room. My therapist continues to caution me that some things can't be thought through, some things I can't use my considerable willpower to bludgeon myself into accepting.

In other, related news, I got a questionnaire in the mail asking me if I would be willing to participate in a study on the sex lives of women post oopherectomies. I have a pretty strong feeling about people being able to have blood or tissue or anecdotal evidence about pretty much anything related to any of my medical bullshit. (I hesitated on calling it bullshit, I feel like since I'm not in constant physical pain, I should apologize for calling it such.) So, hopefully it'll be more interesting than hearing someone wander around the topic of 'intimacy' only to have an hour long conversation/a 12 page brochure/something of that sort boil down to the idea "learn to love lube."

It was a pretty awesome week. I had a museum-date with Delight, went to the gym Monday-Tuesday-Friday, had a lovely lunch date today and got to see where Light works. I had a totally successful studydate with Light, where we went to the Library and I went to a meeting of friends of the library and then read a Cosmo while he studied the thing that's making him miserable (lisp) (is it intentionally acronymed (hell yes I'm making that a verb) after a speech disorder?). I got Berryline, and the results of a couple kickstarters I funded. I got a fantastic surprise in the mail. There were certainly things that bugged me, but there always will be, and I'm trying to work on the idea that good things are more interesting than bad things, not less.

"Accept your life and what it brings"

Some days, I start and entry and then find a quote to match. Some days, I let the quote lead.

My attempts to refind/recreate a screensaver I once had have met with limited success (by which I mean none). The screen saver drew from a list of quotes I had entered and continually tweaked, and when it came on, I used it as a self-selected sort of bibliomancy. I never thought I could tell the future, and I never really particularly worried if other people could or could not, tarot has always been (to me) a hook to hang thoughts on, a way to shift, subtly or not, the way I'm looking at something. And having someone read the cards for me is a gift they give me, a way of looking at the world that I can't spontaneously create because I'm inhabiting the system I'm trying to observe. Also known as perspective.

There was a test run of new, calmer Omnia last night. A) Light had to stay late at work and I wasn't even a tiny bit panicky or resentful. So, I wasn't doing anything on a Friday night. That wasn't actually true, I just wasn't doing anything with anyone else. I cross-stitched, I watched a couple episodes of the River, I took the dog on a walk, I screwed around on the internet, I read more of my awesome book, I called my mom to thank her for something she mailed me. I paid a couple bills, I cleaned. I did not do the dishes (which was a sort of active rather than passive thing).

And, I listened to a message my plastic surgeon left me about my options going forward without really crying very much at all. So, I currently have 800cc implants. To the rest of the world, I still look like a fairly busty woman. To me, I've lost a cup size, the ability to wear pretty bras, comfortable access to about a third of my clothes (since they fit very differently now) and my disguise. I very much felt about my old boobs that I could use them to keep people frm looking at my face. And I don't feel that way anymore.

So, there is a large implant. It's saline, not silicone, and reports from the ground say that it is very firm. And there's a new implant company that just got improved that might offer something else.

So now, I have to figure out what my self-image is worth, and what angle to attack the problem from. I know at the moment, it's way too close to my last surgery to even be able to contemplate going back under the knife. I'm not at a point where I can sign up for any more of the not-fun kind of pain. So, I can live with the breasts I have, or get more surgery.

I don't want to have to compromise. I want this to have gone well and right. And I know that all sorts of things about this have gone right, but it feels cheapened by the fact that the bit of the decision that I carry around with me, these not-boobs aren't what I wanted the end result to be, and I'm forced to confront that pretty much every time I shower.

I build up callouses, of course. I've toned down the sullen resentfulness, I've tried to put aside for the moment the question of being attractive to people other than Light, I force myself to a place of bemused resignation rather than the rage that still sort of percolates somewhere deep down inside.

I don't want to have to make this decision. I don't want to suck it up and buckle down and buy extra-credit fake boobs to fill out the bra where my internal not-boobs fail me. I don't want to have to decide if I'm going to get a nipple tattoo, or just leave the notboobs creepy as hell, since Light doesn't mind and I don't think that there will be any solution I won't mind and I basically dare people to look at me now in the locker room. My therapist continues to caution me that some things can't be thought through, some things I can't use my considerable willpower to bludgeon myself into accepting.

In other, related news, I got a questionnaire in the mail asking me if I would be willing to participate in a study on the sex lives of women post oopherectomies. I have a pretty strong feeling about people being able to have blood or tissue or anecdotal evidence about pretty much anything related to any of my medical bullshit. (I hesitated on calling it bullshit, I feel like since I'm not in constant physical pain, I should apologize for calling it such.) So, hopefully it'll be more interesting than hearing someone wander around the topic of 'intimacy' only to have an hour long conversation/a 12 page brochure/something of that sort boil down to the idea "learn to love lube."

It was a pretty awesome week. I had a museum-date with Delight, went to the gym Monday-Tuesday-Friday, had a lovely lunch date today and got to see where Light works. I had a totally successful studydate with Light, where we went to the Library and I went to a meeting of friends of the library and then read a Cosmo while he studied the thing that's making him miserable (lisp) (is it intentionally acronymed (hell yes I'm making that a verb) after a speech disorder?). I got Berryline, and the results of a couple kickstarters I funded. I got a fantastic surprise in the mail. There were certainly things that bugged me, but there always will be, and I'm trying to work on the idea that good things are more interesting than bad things, not less.