Eye Of The Beholder

I love fabric. I love the colors, the patterns and the texture of it. Each color, pattern and texture has an emotion all it's own.

I just got this fabric from Down Shadow Lane on Etsy and boy to I love it! It's vibrant, expressive, happy and most of all it matches my wheelchairs frame. Hubby, on the other hand, rolls his eyes and leaves the room. He was happier with the basic black cushion covers the chair came with. Hubby can go sit on an ice cube! The cushion covers stay!!

There are other things in life that are in the 'Eye Of The Beholder', too. How do you look at yourself, for instance. This is something all of us are faced with. How do you 'Beholder' yourself? Are you happy with who you are despite the flaws you precieve to be there? I've been faced with just that question since I was little, as we all have. I've had to face that question even more up close and personal recently. I had yet another weird mamogram on December 26, 2007. I'd already decided back on November 26, 2005 when lump number 12 was removed that it would be the last one because if another one showed up I'd just opt for the mastectomy. I'm done with this piece of me here and piece of me there approach to treatment, prevention, and healing.

Thus far I'm still cancer free, so far as lumps and tumors are concerned. My 12 lumps were knotted tissue, not fibroids or cancer, just odd, weird knotted tissue. This last mamogram, however, has brought me closer to cancer than I've ever been and the time has come to have the 'unnecessary parts' removed, both of them. How do I see this, percieve this, feel about this, and see me, too? Well, I've heard so many stories of how a woman should feel without her breasts. I've heard how traumatic it is and such. But, in the eyes of this beholder, it's just no big deal. I've been both hugely big and am now small. I went from a B cup to a DDD cup (yes, triple D) in the course of just under 2 months back in 1991. I was packing watermelons and it wasn't fun. Well, ok, I'll do a bit of confessing here....I trained as an automechanic and I've loved cars since I was little. I always bought recycled junk heaps, fixed them and drove them till they needed more work. I'd then trade them in on another junk heap and repeat the process. It was cheaper than car payments and more fun, too. Well, with 'watermelons' in my shirt, I was able to talk several car sales men who couldn't take their eyes off 'the girls' down $1000 off the price of the car because they weren't paying attention to anything but my shirt. In that sense, being that big was a good thing with how tight my budget was back then. Beyond that, being that big is really over rated and then some!

I don't see the loss of my breasts as a big deal. I don't see the scars as a big deal either (I'm covered in them from the car accident and the previous surgery to remove the first 11 lumps). I don't see, nor do I understand, why breasts are such a big deal. It's in the Eye of the Beholder. My talents and skills and personality and who I am are not in my bra, but in my heart, soul and mind. How will others see me totally flat chested? I don't know and don't really care, either. Those who could see "me", didn't see me as any different when I could walk as they see me now in my wheelchair. It's not me people should feel sorry for, but they should feel sorry for those who can't see past the visible to the heart and soul of the person deformed, according to societies standards, by life.

It is all like fabric. Our textures, our patterns, and how we look will strike emotions and feelings in those who 'Beholder' us. Lets keep those eye open so that when something is set before us, we can see deeper than it's surface and into it's heart and soul.