So it’s long been the case that when I have an idea for a blog post, I am too lazy to write it down, forget the idea completely and then never write about it. I know why. It’s because I am in a different place, mentally (well, physically too if I want to be accurate) than I was during my peak blog posting days on ole killingitblog.

I do not feel the same sense of urgency and don’t have the same adrenaline rush that I used to experience when an idea bubbled to the surface — bursting to come forth. Which isn’t surprising when you consider that during treatment I was engaged in battle and was determined, single-minded and focused (almost entirely) on one thing. This is something I have written about before.

A little time and distance change a person and change the way one thinks and reacts. The question is, am I even capable of producing a good blog post now that my focus isn’t so focused? Maybe not. That quick wit or ability to tell a good story that seemed to flow effortlessly from my fingertips might have gone the way of the dodo.

If I’m honest with myself (this is an expression the English use constantly — “if I’m honest” — which I find irritating but when in Rome, so…), I find that most of the things I want to write about now have nothing to do with the reason I started this blog in the first place. I want to write about design and fashion, for instance. And I think that I will once I get off my ass and start a different blog, considering that the title and tag (and the honey badger, of course) of this one mightn’t draw in the readership I’m hoping for.

So is there still a place for killingitblog? Or should I consider it killed? Done and dusted? Ready for the file? I think not. For two main reasons:

1) A relevant thought still crops up from time to time. And with time, distance and perspective, I see things through a different lens. There is value to be had in that, I think. And analysis to be done.

2) There are plenty of times when I wrote about something that really had nothing to do with cancer anyway. When I think about the heart of this blog I think about it more as a blog about life seen through the eyes of someone who happened to be dealing with cancer treatment than as about cancer per se.

And, things happen to me occasionally that make me realise that there is always another story to be told. Because although there is time and distance and perspective and dare I say a certain “wisdom,” about this topic, at least, one thing will remain the same and that is the fact that I had cancer and that experience will always be a part of who I am. Like it or not.

Cue the inadvertently insensitive comment.

The other evening I was out with some friends and one lady remarked, out of the blue: “oh you are SO lucky you don’t have to wear a bra.” I responded “really?” But she didn’t hear me, perhaps because she had just made the comment in passing and wasn’t really thinking about what she said.

Here is what I would have liked to say to her in response:

I am lucky in many things and for many reasons but I am not lucky that I got cancer and had to have both of my breasts removed.

My cosmetic result is “fine” and you wouldn’t ever know, probably, even in a bra, what I have been through, but sister, you don’t know what I would give to have my real tits back. Even if they got a little deflated with age, even if it meant I couldn’t fit into the bikini tops and sports bras that I have fairly recently acquired. Even if it really hurt when someone elbowed me there.

I can be lying in a bathtub in pretty hot water and if my boobs are sticking out (which they always are since they never move) and I touch them they are cold. They are NOT REAL BOOBS. They are glorified plastic bags filled with cohesive silicone gel and they are masquerading as tits.

I have very little sensation there because all that is left of my own tissue is the skin and even that doesn’t feel much because of all the surgery.

I do not feel comfortable changing in a women’s locker room, not that I have any issue with my own body, but because I just don’t want to deal with the looks I will get because it is obvious that I had breast cancer.

On the up side, they do look pretty good in clothes. I can jog and do jumping jacks without hitting myself in the face. And I can make them dance — even one at a time — since my pecks are on the outside and am blessed with good muscle isolation, which is a fun party trick and a good way to end an awkward conversation with someone. And I don’t suffer from, as my seven-year-old so aptly coined it, “chilly boobs” which is when your nipples get hard when the temperature drops.

I am not whining. I do not feel sorry for myself. These are all things that I can live with. I even think that it is funny, to some extent. But I would still prefer to have real, human flesh on that softest of female areas. Warm semicircles that flatten out when one is reclined on one’s back, or that can be pushed together and form a single line of cleavage in a corset (if one is into corset-wearing).

I don’t hold the comment against the nice lady. I even like her. It just revealed that lack of awareness that exists in so many of us. Or perhaps that failure to look before you leap.

This is not the last comment of this kind I will field. And that is okay. I can take it. I can laugh about it. I may even invite such things because I am so loquacious (that’s a fancy word for “never shut the fuck up”), because I do not consider the topic remotely taboo and have made a lot of jokes about it — so people feel they can say anything to me. (As an aside, a comment I totally would have appreciated would have been “how are your tits? Firm and high?” Now see that’s actually funny and would have made me smile. Though I wouldn’t recommend you try it out on someone else.

The thing is, there is nothing lucky about getting cancer. Even if with it have come some unexpected gifts. At the end of the day it is still cancer. And it still sucks. And no one wants to have it.

By the way, if you are reading this and you are the one who said this to me, I want you to know that the last time I saw you you had spinach between your two front teeth and I didn’t tell you.  Ha ha.