Island of Misfits

Katy, Tx.–August 4, 2009–Most definitely there are times when living in the aftermath of breast cancer feels a lot like living on an Island of misfits. You really do understand there is just something a little off, a bit different about you now. Still you want to believe if just for a moment, even with your square peg you will fit into the round hole sitting in front of you. Point in case, my most recent moment off the island came last week in the hour I spent in a mall fitting room. Talk about feeling like a misfit as you try carrying in bra after bra, filling in only half of it and falling completely out of the other half of it! Talk about being a true mis-fit!

Then there was the little problem of who was this person staring back at me from out of the other side of the mirror? I finally just began telling myself I must simply be going blind. After all, this whole new me, well it simply wasn’t me! I certainly didn’t recognize this woman and the reflection I saw in the mirror. I honestly did grasp the situation fully, really I did. I just didn’t like having to accept it as I was trying on intimate apparel! I fully did understand and I do get this surely must be my body. But do I really have to claim it as my own is what I want to know?

So here is the picture as I was standing there in the fitting room. My dilemma was this; Do I squash, shove and squeeze myself into one side of the bra while sliding in, out and under the other side of it or just go with the cut and splice thing? Seriously maybe I just needed to run and hide or scream ‘FREEDOM’ as I burned the blasted thing right there in the fitting room! Well this is what I am talking about. Crazy right? So why I am trying to push my way into a round hole when I am clearly a square peg? There is just nothing else can I say about standing right there in a small little room in what can best be described as my own personal hell. But you know what? I did catch a glimpse of the woman I was before breast cancer ever made her mark on me and she was still smiling as if life wasn’t so bad on the Island of Misfits.

True I miss the days when I could just grab a bra out of my drawers and go. Yes, I miss the mornings when I didn’t feel so old, even decrepit or see so many deep lines inset on my face. But, these mishaps, large and small physical defects as we will call them, have made me unique. Truth is, not everyone can live on the Island of Misfits comfortably, because first you have to be willing to admit to being a mis-fit and that isn’t so easy after all.

I know, believe me I know I don’t own two breasts anymore and maybe I never will but at the end of the day I still have the best part of who I am left. This is the part of me which has been here all along. It doesn’t matter how long I reside on this island because my strength and my physical difference will always be the best part of who I am even when my days here are long gone.

So the truth is this: even the best of weeks are going to bring a day your way that is going to leave you ready to run for the doors, tearing every strand of new hair out of your head and every bra you see in half. But once we have made our way through the doors, past an obviously over due tirade, and back to the safety of our own private island of misfits, we can and still will, revel in the strength of those who love us.

At the end of the day, as hard as it is living in the aftermath and as overwhelming as it seems, even cancer with all it’s hang ups can’t keep you from smiling. What has made us feel misfit, a little different from everyone else, what has truly defined us, making us stronger women has honestly given us a home, a family of support. Yes this breast cancer in the end has brought us here and made us feel right at home on this strangely beautiful and wonderful Island of Mis -fits.

Christina Olachia

Contributing Writer to Fight Pink