To “be” or to “become” ..

Aug 12

Aug 12 To “be” or to “become” ..

This has been a week!

I started off my week with a broken Mac. Yep, my baby is having issues. And the closest approved Apple facility with an appointment this week is 142.3 miles away! The closure of Apple stores didn’t bother me much until I needed a Genius Bar! So instead, I had to box my baby up today and ship her overnight to Apple. But not before ensuring that the current status of my draft memoir was backed up. You want to see a crazy woman? Come talk to me after losing 250 pages of hard writing.

In the meantime, I have to try to remain productive from my iPhone and iPad. Booo!

Tuesday I had an appointment with a dermatologist that specializes in post chemo skin, nails, and hair treatment. She used a light and some hair follicle tool to get a good look at my hair which she agrees is growing in nice and healthy and my skin is glowing (her words not mine). Then we got to the nails. As you may know, chemotherapy does a number on your nails. They can appear brittle and discolored. Mine are discolored but I wear nail polish (totally approved by the doctor) so I don’t see the impacts daily. During my last home mani/pedi, I noticed that the underside of my nails was starting to look at little weird. Excess skin on some and gaps on others. Well, Dr. Rachel diagnosed me with onycholysis. It’s a condition where the nail detached from the nail bed. And in some cases the nail comes off completely before it grows back.

After I had time to sit with the diagnosis, I broke down. I mean boo hoo’d too. And I could not understand why I was breaking down. Seriously. They are nails and they grow back. The same medicine that cured me caused this. Could I be happy for the cure and spazzing out about the side effect?

So, I dig deep to try to understand what I was feeling. I gave myself another one of my famous pep talks while I was chopping veggies for dinner on Tuesday. And after a 10 minute discussion with myself, I came to this conclusion: I told my therapist that I am not interested in going back to the old Tova. The Tova before cancer. Instead, I am loading a new Tova .. Tova 2.0 if you will. But what I’ve come to realize is that I was really only interested in “being” Tova 2.0 and not “becoming” Tova 2.0. And there is a distinct difference between the two. In “being” Tova 2.0, I’ve already arrived and moving on to life’s next journey. In “becoming” Tova 2.0, I still have to go through some things. I want to reinstate my physical and mental strength, lose weight, and apparently lose a few layers of ego also. And all of those things happen on the way to Tova 2.0. Maybe I’m on version 1.4 as I type this?

I’m human and imperfect and some parts of me are shallow. The part that forced me to tears at the thought of temporarily losing a few finger nails when the trade off was saving my life is shallow. And I’m ok with that. But I needed to understand WHY I was reacting the way I did so I could move forward.

But now that I know why, I also know that I need to go through. Stamina is built while going through. Endurance and character are built while Going through. Without beta testing, I can’t get to Tova 2.0. So for now, I will listen to the sound advice from Shonta and enjoy the right now without worrying about what may or may not happen to my fingernails. As a good friend Kate told me yesterday, “it’s all dead anyway.” Instead of worrying about that, I will focus on the part of me that’s alive.

❤️ T