My 3-Panel Picture of Friendship

Friendship. 

I've spent the better part of this week thinking about that word, and I've discovered that for me, it brings up 3 very distinct lines of thought. 

On Intimate Strangers

I used to say I was an extroverted introvert. A social butterfly who'd rather be, and sometimes is, a fly on the wall. 

In high school I ran with a number of different groups. I wasn't the popular girl, I just played up different sides of myself depending on what circle of friends I was with. It was exhausting. 

By the time I was in college I found it easier being a part of a large group, but as people we organize ourselves into smaller sets. 

Always, I found myself feeling rejected. Wishing I didn't give a shite what others thought. Then one day I was listening to music and I had an epiphany: ALL friends are just intimate strangers. 

I made that connection & realized the Indigo Girls were right, "I have no need for anger with intimate strangers." It may sound silly, but I was freed. My view on friendship is now always through this lens. 

Which is to say: if you are happy with yourself, proud of how you conduct yourself, then hang the rest. The people who value that way of being will stick.  

On Losing Friends

Doctor Who, 11th Doctor, Matt Smith

At the risk of sounding uppity or insanely geekazoid, I view myself rather like The Doctor. I've regenerated several times over the course of my life. I'm fairly certain I will again. But I've got all those other lives inside me. I honor them all because without them, I wouldn't be - I couldn't be - me. 

This quote from Doctor Who is such truth. We ALL change & grow, all throughout our lives. 

Sometimes our relationships are invigorated, sometimes they are unaffected. 

Often, however, such change means friendships end. Not in a blaze of glory or other drama. Then one day you remember someone who used to be there. Like Kevin Costner's character in Fandango, someone has just faded away.  

Sometimes I find I'm like The Doctor, and I'm the one who has left my companion, imagining I'd never come back. 

On Technology & Virtual Friendships

I reckon I'm not alone in saying in my day to day life I am connected to literally all my friends almost exclusively through social media. Some, like my SisterCat, I only see a few times a year. Some, sadly, I may never see again. 

Some of my closest friends I will never meet in person because this world of social media has given me extraordinary new friends. 

It has also helped me renew friendships with people I thought were lost forever. People who knew a different me. An earlier version. In my early days on Facebook I reconnected with a few of my best friends from 4th grade. Kids I met at about age 8 or 9, I guess. I found it remarkable that we are much the same as we were in grade school. Grown, different in ways I didn't anticipate, but still the same. 

We were a military family, which I credit with why I don't have friends from my early childhood. The year I started 4th grade was when we moved to Governors Island, a base here in NYC. I was twelve when my family left. Several of the friends I made during that time became "lifelong" friends. 

Did those bond stick because we were all military brats who knew the drill, or because we tried harder because of our semi-nomadic lifestyle? Or is it like Stand By Me - we never have friends again like we did when we were twelve?

#FriendshipRevolution

What I have learned is this:

The most important part of friendship is being true to ourselves & honest with our companions. 

Friendship, like Life, is Dynamic.

The friendships that end aren't any less important than the ones that last. 

Each person we take as our companion has the potential to alter our perspective. This is to be valued regardless of how the friendship started, how long it lasts, or how often you get to share space. 

Why is it on Wednesdays I Wear Pink?

"On Wednesdays we wear pink" is a line from the smart and funny movie Mean Girls. So the short explanation for why I've adopted this rule is because I like celebrating something that is smart and funny. However, for me it is much more than that.

If you were around at the beginning of April 2014, you know about a little thing Hot Mess Mom called #Underboobpalooza. Maybe you noticed - it had FB buzz for a few days. It was a funny way to go about raising awareness and money for breast cancer research.

I love to find the silver linings, so I shared, posted, and prodded at folks to participate in this serious silliness. I also vowed to post my own #underboob on my FB page when the goal was met. That looked a little something like this:

As promised, check out #TheDoctor Potato Head lending his support for HMM's Underboobpalooza.
In fact, he's also supporting the site of one of my very own surgical biopsy scars.
So far I've been #cancerfree, but this disease gallops through my family. While Hot Mess Mom put the fun in this fundraiser - this campaign has also been very personal. It was important for me to lend my voice via this page & I greatly appreciate your support.
The initial goal for this one-week campaign of $10,000+ for breast cancer research was reached today, & HMM's Underboobpalooza page will remain active. You can also be sure come October I will be out waiving a pink flag to raise awareness & dollars.

Being a part of this fundraiser sparked something in me, and I although I didn't know it until I was typing that status I had decided that I NEEDED to do more.

I've known about breast cancer all my life, literally. My grandmother, and both her daughters - my mom and my aunt - all had breast cancer, each with different outcomes. While they didn't all die from the cancer, all of them are gone now. Unfortunately I don't really have their medical history, and know much less about the cancer history of our extended family.

Honestly, when I was young I was happy enough not to know details. Because - seriously - cancer is scary.

I knew enough to know that I had a target on my back. 

Before I was 30, when a doctor was alarmed and wanted first a sonogram, then a needle biopsy  I knew I would say yes. I knew when the oncologist took one look at my chart and asked if she could schedule a surgical biopsy right away - just days before Christmas - that I could not think twice. Thankfully, I also soon knew the undeniable relief of hearing the results were clear.

In the years following my biopsies I was encouraged to get genetic testing. I balked. I couldn't wrap my brain around why I would do it. As I couldn't see myself having preventative mastectomies. Wouldn't I just be getting a more detailed look at the Sword of Damocles hanging over my head? No, thanks, I'll just wait 'til it falls.

Of course, I was young and all those ladies in my family were still alive. Plenty of time to worry about it later.  Get more info from the women who had lived to tell the tale... But like the testing, I put off the hard conversations and then it was too late.

Mom and my aunt died six months apart; they have been gone almost a decade. When my grandmother lost both her daughters,  not terribly long after her husband died, she understandably let most painful things retreat from her mind. 

So, there I was: Last woman standing. Alone, being the only female of my generation to blossom on that branch of the family tree.

I admit to getting pissed off about my own naïveté, as well as the way my family handled the subject. I should know more. And they should be here to tell their stories and guide me. 

So few months back I had a mammogram. And then immediately a sonogram. Bonus - I'm also one of those lucky ladies for whom such diagnostic tools are almost inconclusive. So while neither showed anything of any real concern, again doctors have strongly urged me to get genetic testing. ASAP.

I'm 2 months away from my 40th birthday. My family history is scary and I have a decision to make. Because now I'm a mom and an aunt. I have a daughter, as does my brother. So I'm thinking I need to learn all I can so they can have answers.

Wow - What in the hell does ALL of that have to do with Wearing Pink on Wednesdays?

Well just this: #Underboobpalooza made me realize that I needed to stop ignoring the Scary Sword of Cancer. I needed to reach up and grab it.

Oddly, or perhaps not so unpredictably, when I reached out the first thing my brain grabbed was that movie quote. And it just clicked:

• I will wear pink on Wednesdays to remind myself that I AM IN the fight against breast cancer.
• I wear pink because I will face my fears & I will fight like a girl.
• I wear pink to honor all the women I know who have had to take up the fight against breast cancer.

I wear pink on Wednesdays to honor my mom, and my aunt, and my grandmother. Of course, those ladies were all really smart & funny. So I guess the short answer works for them too.