I haven’t posted for a few weeks. I’ve been desperately trying to come up with something funny to write about or something inspirational to post.

Turns out, I’ve got nothing. 

Oh, except this.

I’m pissed.

I have always had a love-hate relationship with my body. For as long as I can remember, I wanted my body to be different. I distinctly recall walking home from school in third grade and being eaten alive with jealousy watching girls with straight, skinny legs walk home. I wanted those straight, skinny legs with the protruding knees. Instead, I had thighs. Hateful, hateful thighs. And as I got older, there was more and more that I wished were different about my “let’s-just-call-me-Rubenesque” body. From my size-11 feet to my very thick eyebrows, I wanted to change it all.

This isn’t too say that there weren’t and aren’t things I love about myself. I’ve got great hair, at least I used to. I have an interesting eye color. My nose is the perfect shape and size. And once upon a time, I had terrific (undergarment-dependent) cleavage.

Oh, and we can’t forget my sparkling, sarcastic, snarky sense of humor.

But on balance, I always thought there was more to despise than celebrate.

And then I tried to get pregnant. And hating my body moved from purely cosmetic reasons to railing at the injustice of my reproductive system’s failure to do the one thing it was put on this earth to do – conceive and birth a child. I took every pill, every shot, every suppository the doctors told me to. I tried every tip I found online,  from the sublime to the ridiculous. After tragedy and disappointment and heartbreak, I finally got my body to succumb and do what it was supposed to do.

I thought we had come to an agreement, my body and I. After infertility and loss and pregnancy and birth, we were supposed to be on the same page. Sure, I could do more for my body by eating less junk food and going to the gym more often. And certainly my body could do more for me, by sleeping through the entire night once in a while and putting off perimenopause a little bit longer. But other than that, I thought my body and I were getting along just fine.

Until I got the cancer.

Now my body is mutilated. I only have half the number of breasts and underarm lymph nodes that I’m supposed to have. I have a plastic device inserted under my skin to ease the delivery of the poison that is supposed to save me. I have no hair, itchy skin and a peculiar awareness of my gums that is hard to describe.

I truly wish that I could say that I’m being more patient with my body, loving myself more through the difficulties of treatment and reaching a new understanding that my body is me and hating my mastectomy scar (you know, instead of my thighs) was now the furthest thing from my mind.

But I can’t.

Because I’m pissed.

Pissed that I’m mutilated. Pissed that I’m bald. Pissed that I’m going through menopause early.

I need someone or something to blame. So my body is going to have to take one for the team on this. And it looks like it’s taking my sense of humor along for the ride. It’s hard to feel funny or inspirational or even human when you’re consumed with trying to figure out whether that twinge of pain is chemo related or just a function of being almost 44.

Of course, I’ve made it my mantra to always find the funny. So that’s what I’ll do. I’ve actually found some funny, which I am more than happy to share. Because this? This is funny.