May Contain Nuts

I must apologise. My last post was a bit selfish. Some of you may have read it, some not. I didn’t post it on the day and I didn’t share it. I think I have been a bit angry at the world and the crap I have had to deal with. I’m surviving. I just need to have a word with myself sometimes.

I have spent years, decades, of looking at pictures of myself and thinking – what was I thinking? My face looks fat, my teeth aren’t straight, my hair doesn’t suit me, my arms are too fat, my thighs are too large, my clothes are too tight, my clothes are too baggy, my clothes are too frumpy, I’m mutton dressed as lamb, and the list goes on and on and on. That has all changed now. I know I’ve gained weight, but I don’t care. I can do something about that and get fit again. I can smile and be happy and not worry about looking old, or fat, or ridiculous; I am alive. I get to live more days with my friends and families and I will continue to enjoy each day (even the down days because nobody is bloody perfect).

I will always count myself as being a lucky person. Lots of things have happened in my life but with every bad thing there has always been good to balance it out. Maybe that’s more to do with the positive outlook that people say I have. I will, and always have, looked for the happiness and beauty in everything and everyone. Throughout my treatment, I still don’t see myself, and never did see myself, as a ill person. I know that I looked like it, but I never felt it.

The NHS has saved my life, and I will always be eternally grateful to the radiographer who just wanted to take a biopsy as she wasn’t happy with the way a cyst looked. That one tiny lump has changed my life. It has made me change. I’m not going to say that I am going to eat healthy, I will eat what I want. I am not going to say that I stop drinking alcohol, I will drink whatever I want. What I will do is to eat and enjoy and make the most of everything that goes in my body as I can taste it again! You really don’t appreciate the taste of good food until chemotherapy destroys your ability to enjoy your favourite meal.

I was never one to say no to a night out, but I would normally try to fit in with the people around me. I adapted and changed to who I was with, or where I was. Not any more. I will go out and be even more me. Which the people at work found out the other week. If I have hit the work event dance floor in previous years, I have fitted in. Done the mum dance, hid in the circle, smiled and nodded. But you can’t do that when the Prodigy is played, so I let a little bit of the old Shelley out and she had a ball. She was knackered as her strength wasn’t there, but she let her hair down (or spiked it up) and laughed and jumped in the circle.

Some people may find dancing uncomfortable. I never have. I grew up in the Pink Toothbrush in Rayleigh. It was dark and safe and played the music I loved. You would hit the dance floor and would be squashed in with everyone else. You couldn’t stand still, you had to move or you would be knocked over. No-one looked at you, no-one cared. You could literally dance like no-one was watching. No-one judged. So we always laughed and let our hair down and busted out the Roger the Raving Turtle moves. If someone crashed into you, and they apologised, they would no doubt be a friend by the end of the night! You can’t be a delicate flower in a mosh pit. You bust out all the moves when the house music starts, you swing your pants when the dark goth sounds emerge, and you shoe gaze when the indie tracks hit. But there will always be happiness on the dance floor for me; that and laughter. The crazier the better.

So that is how I live my life. I always roll with it. Let it take me where it wants me to go. We don’t have control over our health, there are so many different variables to contend with, so why complain? Why not just accept that things happen. I didn’t ask for cancer. Maybe my body had been fighting it off for years and it did everything it could to keep it at bay. But cancer adapts and fooled my body and it let it grow a little bit. I shall now call this part of my life the slow dance era. I was never a fan of that part of the night in Tots. Or as some people called it, The Erection Section. I always saw it more as the uncomfortable section where you see your friend being asked to dance and you tell them to go because why not slow dance with a boy they have never met before in their life! So you stand at the side, waiting for the music to change so that the party can get started again.

So here I am, getting to the end of the slow section of my life and I’m waiting for the tunes to drop so I can bust my moves again. Some of the moves may be the same, same may be different and adapted because I am not a teenager anymore. But I look forward to where the music takes me as I love my life. I have the best friends, the best family and the best life. From the highest highs to the lowest lows. It’s my life, don’t you forget it.