When I walk into a restaurant I look like an average girl about to eat a meal. When I go to the grocery store I look like a normal person getting food for the week. When I walk into a doctor's office I don't look like I just beat cancer, or that I don't have a stomach. I've noticed that people see what they want to see. I look normal, therefore I must feel normal. But do I? No. Absolutely not. When I do yoga, which I have recently started doing again, I can feel my scar tissue stretching inside me. Even when I lay on my side I can feel that something is missing, I can feel the empty area inside me where my stomach once was. I miss it. Today I got sick in Memphis and, while in the bathroom dry heaving over the toilet, my friend Rachel came in the bathroom to check on me. I started to cry because I just wanted to go out and be normal. And I told her I missed having a stomach, I missed being normal. She hugged me and we cried together. I can only imagine what the woman in the stall next to us was thinking... It's really hard for people to understand what I'm going through because of the simple fact that I look like nothing is wrong. Yeah I've lost some weight, but do I look like I just had an organ removed? No. Just because my battle scars aren't visible doesn't mean I'm not going through a lot. I am fighting daily. I am pushing myself with all the energy I have so I can be "normal". I think maybe it's time that I stop forcing this change. Maybe I need to adjust to a new normal. Because lets be honest, I'll never be normal again. I'll never be able to eat a piece of cake, or a doughnut, or drink a chocolate martini. I'll have to sacrifice so many things that I once loved because that's my new normal. And I have to accept this new normal. I have fought hard to avoid this change rather than just accepting it and adapting to a new way of living. People say change is good. I feel like the type of change I'll have to face is a little unfair, I mean I really loved chocolate martinis. But is drinking a chocolate martini and getting so sick I can't even talk worth it? I don't think so. It's time to change, it's time to start looking at my situation from a new perspective. It's time to start living like I don't have a stomach, it's time to start putting my health first. It's time to start putting myself first, and I don't intend to apologize for doing so.
