Well summer has really raced by and I realized I haven't blogged in some time. Personally, it's been exciting time for me -- I got engaged!! I not only have a great husband to be, but have also gained a beautiful 7 year old stepdaughter too. I feel very fortunate and excited to get married and start our life together.
For Feel Your Boobies, we've had an exciting couple of months with increased support from groups across the country that are hosting fundraisers to support our campaign and the lauching of our Boobies @ the Beach aerial ad campaign in New Jersey (which has always been a dream of mine). We are thrilled with how much we've been able to spread our message to young women -- far more than we ever expected. Check out our Campaign Page for more details!
Below is the next installment of my Boobies Basics article series. Enjoy and I hope to be back to blogging with more consistency soon!
******************************************************
Boobies Basics: To each her own...
I recently got engaged to my awesome boyfriend and given that I’m 38 this certainly calls for celebration. It not only confirms that I’m no longer listed on the national spinster registry, but it also marks the beginning of sharing my life with someone I love and with whom I’m looking forward to a future together.
The first question most people ask after finding out that I got engaged is “When is the wedding?” Often to their surprise, I respond by saying, “We’re not planning to have a wedding?” I suppose for most women, a wedding celebration is a day they dream about and often it’s planned in their head long before the future husband has been identified. I’ve never felt this way. First and foremost, I actually look terrible in white. Not to mention that I hardly ever wear dresses and I’m not very religious. This combination of “issues” makes the traditional wedding ceremony feel somewhat like an expensive chore to me vs. something I’m yearning to do.
For those who know me well, they’ve known this about me for some time, but for those peripheral in my life they often seem surprised to find out that I feel this way. After all, I love parties and being social. I also love clothes and dressing up. Seems like a wedding would provide the perfect stage for me, right? Wrong. For some reason when it comes to getting married, I feel like it’s a life event that is a very personal thing to me and I want to celebrate it in an intimate and less formal way.
A breast cancer diagnosis, in some ways, is the same sort of thing. Of course, in no way is it a celebration, but it is, most certainly, a life event and the way each individual deals with it is different. Some women choose to be very private about their journey, while others, like me, are very public about their experience. And everyone has their own reason for dealing with it the way they do. Those who don’t like to talk about it often say that they just want to move on and forget about it or they only really feel the need to talk about it with their partner and close family. Others, like me, derive comfort from telling their story publicly and connecting with others in the breast cancer community. So, to each her own. After all, there is no right or wrong, it’s a matter of personal preference and what feels right to you.
So while by day, no doubt, I will continue to share my breast cancer story openly and frankly through Feel Your Boobies, by night I will be quietly planning my special day with my special guy in a celebration that is just my style – whatever that may be.
