In a minute...

Last night, I joined my mother for a showing of a documentary on the life of the late basketball/music phenom Wayman Tisdale.  I never knew him personally, but know the smile, the joy, the gentle giant of a man he was, and I remain touched by not only his absence, but also by the deposits he made while here.  I also was touched because as Wayman said on film, and as I always say, in one minute, your life can change forever.
Last week, I had my first mammogram.  I was having tenderness in my left breast, and I was determined to find out what the issue was.  In fact, after the mammogram, I found out the tenderness seemed to be a lymph node that was enlarged, but nothing to worry about.  It's the right side that I have to find out more about.  The mammogram and sonogram showed up 2 areas of concern.  Granged, they look like benign masses or cysts, and yes, I pray that is so, but I also can't help asking myself "What if they aren't?"  What if they are truly areas of challenge that will affect my life forever?  In fact, they already have.
I'll be 37 in December, and I realize more and more, through so many signs, like extra-dry skin, weight I can't shed, gray hair, mammograms, deaths of loved ones, and so much more, that I'm not in Kansas anymore...I'm not that little girl without much to care about.  I'm not in control of much more than what I'm supposed to be in control of, and what I see is that I can't worry about what I can't control.  I shouldn't.  I should only choose to LIVE, to BE, and to LIVE and BE on purpose.  To LIVE and BE truth, as ugly or as unpalatable as it can seem to others at times.  There is no time to waste, there is no time to worry about being what others expect me to be.  There is only time to be about the business that has been entrusted to me.
I can't live in a frivolous space, a space that is devoid of direction or of power.  Been there, and now I'm not.  Notice I can't say that I have any judgments about that space in my life, because it led to me being in the power I'm in now.
I'll have a needle biopsy of each mass on November 11th, and I intend fully to share the details, the feelings, the results and the journey to, through and past the experience.  Thanks for coming with me. It isn't the results that will change me, for I am already changed for knowing that I have to have a "biopsy" to begin with. Shoot, joining the collective of women who have had their mammaries made into pancakes changed me enough! Keep you posted...really...I promise.