A letter to the skin cancer in my eyelid.
I have this rather inconvenient skin cancer in my eyelid. I’ve seen doctors, spoken to naturopaths, whined to my friends, boyfriend & family about it. No matter the amount of herbs, tinctures, meditations etc it aint budging. Why the resistance you ask? Great question. I don’t particularly like the idea of having the tissue of my eyelid cut out (while I’m awake by the way). I’m a spritely 30 year old and thankfully don’t have too much excess skin hanging around my eyes (yet). So, that also means a reconstruction of my eyelid. Sure, it could be worse and I certainly count my blessings for that. Someone once told me, be careful, don’t be too quick to solve these problems, once they’re sorted you get some bigger ones!!! Oh, the irony!!
I digress.
I realise this might sound vain, but, most of my life I’ve been overweight, my pretty face, to be honest, is all (I feel) I have. I’m scared that my eye is going to be ruined, that’s the god’s honest truth. Im scared that I wont even have my pretty face left and that only leaves my “great personality”. I don’t care how this sounds because writing our fears down or saying them out loud sets us free.
For sure, this is my ego talking, I totally recognise and acknowledge that. I am truly aware (again) that it could be worse. But this is my current battle and it has been consuming me. I see it every day. So the other day, my lovely Shiatsu lady reminded me of a concept, to just “love it”, to embrace it and stop resisting it. So I considered, what has this cheeky little skin lesion “given” me?
That, my friends, is easy to answer. The day I found out it was a skin cancer, I finally decided to quit. In a flood of tears and exhaustion I finally decided to leave my job. That job (and choosing to be in it) had been the source of my degeneration, gaining 10+ kg, becoming unsocial, losing sight of what was most important in life and becoming a zombie. Life is all about choices and I needed that boot up the bum to get my act together quick smart and make changes, scary changes. So thank you little eyelid lesion, you gave me the “Lion” that I was missing.
Its been almost two months since I left my job, I feel free. I am constantly out of my comfort zone. I am being creative every day (which makes me feel ALIVE), I’m connecting with people, meeting new people, learning new things all the time!! It feels as though I’m waking up after a long hazy coma. I might even have some muscles forming in my body (that is truly a first) from all the swimming and yoga I’m doing. I LOVE IT.
I’ve decided to blog this because it is my truth, people keep telling me how brave it is that I cut free of the 9-5 to do what I love, so maybe somewhere someone might read this and be inspired?
N xx
PS my boyfriend is amazing, his steadfast support throughout all of this is a testament to pure true love, clearly, something (or rather someone) else to be truly thankful for.
NW Photography 