October always brings pink. Ribbons, campaigns, T-shirts — reminders of survival and loss, awareness and hope. I’m not against it. But every year, it stirs something deep in me — a quiet ache, a reminder that healing doesn’t end with the scars fade. It continues in quieter ways–the unseen kind that asks for patience, gentleness, and grace.
A woman I used to work with just finished chemo. She’s lost her hair, yet when I see her at the gym, I don’t see loss — I see strength. The kind that shows up anyway.
Living Inside a Healing Body
I didn’t go through chemo or radiation, but I did make the decision for a double mastectomy. The scars are mostly invisible now, except to me — and to the shoulder that still doesn’t move quite right. Outwardly, I seem healthy, and I am — but I live with pain. Every day. Pain is part of healing—learning to live with a body that still hurts and meeting it with kindness. I manage it through movement, mindfulness, and food that heals more than it harms.
Recently, I stopped taking tamoxifen. It’s the last in a long rotation of hormone-blocking drugs I’ve endured for three and a half years — all of them bringing their own brand of ache, inflammation, and exhaustion. I’m choosing now to manage my body differently: through nutrition, patience, and listening.
Because, as Maya Angelou wrote, “If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me?” Those words remind me that beyond healing, there’s something gentler—a daily, intentional practice of being kind to myself, especially on days when my body feels unfamiliar or exhausted.
Messages Along the Path
The other day, I walked through the park and saw bright chalk messages along the path — written by young hands in big, block letters: “You got this.” “Be kind to yourself.” “Keep going.” The words felt familiar, like echoes from my own journal. Pages tattooed with ink, coffee stains, and tears.
Maybe it’s the full moon. Maybe it’s just life doing what it does — cycling through pain and grace, endings and renewal. What I know is this: I still have so much I want to do, to create, to give.
The Quiet Practice
And maybe the only way forward–beyond healing–is to keep letting the light through the cracks, to stay open to what life is still teaching me about tenderness.
Healing isn’t a finish line. It’s a quiet practice–a daily act of being kind to yourself while you’re still becoming.
Author’s Note
This reflection began as a journal entry — a letter to myself, a reminder to stay tender. Writing has always been my way of making sense of the unseen. If it resonates with you, I hope it reminds you to pause, breathe, and offer yourself the same compassion you so freely give to others.
Done, Not Perfect: Writing, Hope, and Letting Go