I have never been one to take a lot of selfies. I am not a vain person. I have always thought myself to be quite average. Before my cancer diagnosis the only pictures I took or posted to social media were of my cats, my nieces and nephews, or pictures of my husband and me together. As I was looking through my picture gallery the other night, rearranging pictures for my jewelry company, I noticed there seemed to be a lot of pictures of myself, starting right after my diagnosis. I slowly looked at each picture, really looked at the woman looking back at me in those pictures….and I saw me.
Well of course it was me in the pictures, I am the one who took all of the selfies. What I mean is I really saw me…. I saw the fear, the pain, the uncertainty, the fatigue and sickness, the happiness, the love, the good, the bad, the person I want to be and the things I want to do, and I saw a sparkle. My eyes sparkle in just about every picture I have taken, no matter how I was feeling that day. The cancer took my hair and it changed a lot of physical attributes of my body but it did not take the sparkle from my eyes.
I think I started taking selfies unconsciously, wanting to have a record of my journey. To be able to see the changes, to help myself “get back” to the “old” me. You know…I have a wig. I thought having a wig would make me feel more like “me”. I wore it for about 30 minutes, finding it uncomfortable I took it off and never put it back on. That wig, this hair, this physical body does not make me who I am, and honestly I don’t want to go back to the old me, the me before the diagnosis. I have learned so much about myself, about life, about God, and about others. I have changed, both physically and mentally. I will smile on the hard days and I will sparkle.
Every selfie I take reminds me that I am still here. Every selfie has a story. Every selfie has a meaning and reminds me that cancer did not take my sparkle.
melissasheart 