It’s hard to believe it, but a year ago today I got the call from SCCA with the biopsy results confirming in my heart what I already knew.

I had breast cancer.

I told a friend yesterday, it’s much like being a mom, or the last 20+ years with my husband, in some ways it feels like it happened yesterday.  In others, it feels like that moment in the shower where I found the lump was a lifetime ago.

Sometimes, I looks back, and it doesn’t seem like any of what I read in my blog happened to me, but to someone else who I know. (Then I peek down my shirt, still big ass scars… guess that WAS me!)

I went to my first Face 2 Face meeting of a survivors support group from the YSC, and it was great although still a little surreal. One of the ladies there mentioned that in some ways it may have been a good thing. She has a better appreciation for life and it’s brevity. That we all have an expiration date.

I think that’s true for me too.

I don’t necessarily think I’m a better person. However, I do think I’m more.

I try even harder to make sure I tell people I love them.

I try to appreciate the little things like quiet moments (or, since I live with a 10 year old boy, loud and crazy moments) with my son and/or husband, or even the dog.

I make a point of reaching out, not just via Facebook likes, but I’m trying harder to show up in person.

I do the best that I can to not sweat the small stuff, let go of anger and focus on things that I can control.

When I miss someone, I reach out to say hi.

I still don’t believe in “living like you are dying,” because I think that can be an excuse to not plan for the future.  I am planning for the future every single day.  The difference for me is that I focus on making every single day count.  I plan on having a whole hell of a lot more days, but I want to make sure that I’m making the right impact on everyone that I touch in those days.

This does not, by any means, mean that I am in a perfect state of zen.

Yesterday while I was driving to work on I-90 in the far left lane going 70-ish just past Preston, a car cut across all three lanes, on to the shoulder, and started to go into the grassy hill of the median in front of me, before swerving back into the lane I was in. If I hadn’t swerved over into the center lane, I’m pretty sure that he would have hit me. My first thought was, “I can’t die from something stupid like this car accident! I’m barely through kicking breast cancer ass! I don’t even have my new nipples yet!”

But like that near crash, I’m focused on doing what I can. I smash through as many obstacles as I can to get where I want to go.  I try not to focus on the mess the boy is making, but what’s he’s learning by making it… reminding myself that we can always clean up later.

But if it’s a white Oldsmobile driven by someone likely drunk or high… I swerve.