Happy Anniversary!  The two year anniversary of my breast cancer surgery has arrived.  Actually, I’m looking at it in my rear view mirror now.

Initially I wondered: Should the anniversary be the date I found the lump, the date of my ultrasound that aroused  my suspicions, or the date of the phone call that confirmed my worst nightmare?  I decided not to go with any of those dates.  Honestly, that period of my life is a blur- a hazy cloud  of appointments, tests, and anxious thoughts.

So I chose the date of my surgery: July 3, 2013. A couple who came to the hospital to visit me the day after my surgery brought a plant with a tiny American flag embedded in its soil.  I still remember their words, “To celebrate your first day of being cancer-free.”  I would like to tell you that I smiled at my friends and embraced their sentiments.  Instead, I cried- a steady silent cascade of water flowing down my cheeks.  All I could think about was the loss of my breasts, the endless wait for the final pathology report, and that word, “CANCER.”

Twenty-four months, two years, 730 days have passed. I choose my foods more carefully, exercise more frequently, and live and love in the moment more extravagantly.  I show up for each blood draw, every chest x-ray, and all my follow-up appointments with “The Queen Bee.” At first, I felt like I was suspended in mid-air: waiting…  Waiting for bad news, waiting for words I didn’t want to hear, waiting for the proverbial “other shoe to drop.”

I am done waiting.  I don’t want to be “one of those people.”  A person who cannot fully live in the NOW because she’s living somewhere out in the nefarious land of “WHAT IFs…”

So, this girl is lacing both shoes up, pushing forward, and celebrating. July 3, 2013 has become my personal Independence Day.  A day of Freedom- freedom from breast cancer, freedom from living in fight or flight mode, freedom to make good things happen. And that “other shoe” lives securely in my closet with its twin.  Her name is…”Today.”

Galatians 5:1  :  “It is for Freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”