A writing contest entry that I'm sharing with you

Essence magazine and Ford had a short writing contest (it closed last night at midnight)... about breast cancer.

The entry requirements were simple: 250 words or less about how breast cancer has touched your life. I just decided to share my entry here -- not that I think its good because I really don't -- but because it represents a shifting in my heart about how I'm looking at myself, this disease and my life in the future.

There are a couple of other writing contests that I am going to enter before the end of the year -- and one of them is related to breast cancer. But the fact that I'm back to writing -- even when I don't like what I've created -- gives me a joy that you cannot probably understand.

I hate being sick but I love my life. :)

Let me add why I don't like the entry -- its too doggone short. lol... I could have spun this into something awesome with another 2000 words or so. But, for something brief, it will do.

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Thursdays are special days for me.

Breast cancer changed what Thursday meant to me. I used to believe that Thursdays were for celebrations. I was born on a Thursday in May years ago.

I grew to embrace that Thursdays are for cocktails. Happy hour on Thursday was how I looked forward to ending a stressful work week.

Now, Thursdays are for chemotherapy. I was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer in July of this year. I am 39 years old. I have never been married and I do not have children.

The cancer center on Thursday isn’t often a jovial and happy place. But it is becoming an extension of what I think my life’s purpose is.

This summer I was diagnosed with breast cancer. By my 40th birthday – I will be a breast cancer survivor who will have had one breast removed. My heart still aches when I hear myself say… breast cancer.

I’m still a bit of a party girl in my heart. The adjustment to my new Thursday cocktails has been a difficult one. However, I suppose that in my growing and aging… I have learned that Thursday – even with breast cancer – is still about celebrations and cocktails. Now, I celebrate life and its fragility and I take a cocktail of medicine that will allow my life to go on.

Thursdays are still special to me – just different now.