This Space in this Moment

So here I am. Sitting in the waiting room. One year has passed. Eight years since diagnosis. Scanxiety. It doesn’t get any easier. Time may distance you from the events that altered the course you thought your life was taking, but the scars, the scars never fade away. They are always visible, always present, always in the mind’s eye. Those scars…

I sit and write, as the wait will be long, and I know this. So, I came prepared. But much impatience surrounds me, as fellow women grumble, huff, and quietly complain. The wait proves long, hours past their scheduled time. They want to be seen. They want their scan completed. I can relate – I do relate. I am one of those women waiting. But, I wait in silence, wrapped in my cocoon of quiet fear. I have resigned myself to the long wait, sitting with the uncomfortable anxiety. For, this is a scan most women fear. This is the scan that either clears you for another year (or two), or lays the path for a very difficult journey ahead.

This is a mammogram.

As I sit here and wait, I cannot help but remember each appointment, each scan, each scar. The overwhelming fear, the uncertainty, the bad news, the good news. I have experienced it all within this space. I have been at my most vulnerable as well as my most grateful within these walls.

If these walls could talk, what would they say? I am sorry. It will be okay. You are stronger than you think. You will get through this. This space has witnessed the rawest of human emotion. Strong women. Silent women. Grateful women. Frightened women. Vulnerable women. We have all been that woman within these walls.

‘The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it.’ – C.C. Scott

Though this journey never truly ends, you do learn how to live within it. You learn how to share space with anxiety, fear, and uncertainty. You learn how to live life through it all. For life is full of twists, turns, new paths, and altered futures. Life is how and what we make it, with the circumstances presented to us in the present. All we can do is go forward and make the most of our moments. It is all that is within our control.

…by the time anyone reads this post, my scan will be completed. The next path of my journey will begin. And I will make the most of my moments as best as I am able in whatever circumstances I find myself in.

This Space in this Moment. Published by Crystal Joy Hall