bad mall moment

What a mistake. When T'ai went to the mall to get a quick haircut today, I tagged along thinking what the heck.
Was everyone there? Were you all there? I'm guessing you were, but I couldn't have found you if I tried. The crowd was just too massive. Did they add a new holiday? Is there something coming up that I should know about?
At one point I was walking alongside a man and his three-year-old. We were all moving slowly, like so much cattle. The man's wife must have been well ahead of us in the herd. When she started to gain too much ground, the man said to the child, "Shout for Mommy."
"MOMMY!" the kid shouted, with impressive force.
"Louder," ordered the dad.
"MOMMY!!" the kid shouted. This was loud, like you'd shout on a remote Kansas farm when there's a twister coming and the kid and her dog still haven't come home.
"Louder," said the dad.
"MOMMY!!!!!" the kid shrieked. People threw smoothies into the air, The Gap's windows rattled, and every woman who had ever had a child turned her head -- except for Mommy.
"Ach, Jeez," the dad scoffed. "Never mind."
That wasn't the bad mall moment, though it will stick with me for awhile. No, the bad mall moment came when I tried on a couple of sweaters.
Last winter I had the bald head to distract the eye. It's like those perception tests where you tell people to focus on the basketball being tossed around and while they're doing that, half of all viewers fail to see that a gorilla is walking through the scene. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vFAQC7FvKc Last year, my head was the basketball (in more ways than one) and my concave chest was the gorilla that you could easily miss. 
Now all I have is this freaking gorilla suit. 
Sweaters (other than the heavy winter ones) and shirts are cut not just to make room for breasts, but to point a tiny neon arrow toward them. Trying on a simple sweater in the dressing room was both depressing and comical. I don't know how to describe how it looked, but it felt like being caught in the rain in a thin t-shirt, in a bad way. Only without nipples or breasts. Or rain. It just felt like being caught.
Suddenly I was not looking forward to spring, which I think may be a sign of insanity at this point.
I know! I know! No one is looking. That helps the head, but not, well, the ego. Tell a 55-year-old woman "No one looks at you anyway," and, though true, it is not much comfort.
I got kind of choked up on the way home, and talked to newly-shorn T'ai about today's dressing room failure and the likely wardrobe malfunctions in all my tomorrows. He held my hand. 
"That stinks, Mom," he said. And somehow I felt comforted. It turns out that when my heart is comforted, my ego pipes down.
That's a good thing, because the gorilla suit is here to stay, for as long as I am. I just need to figure out how to love it.

in some important ways

In some important ways, it's easier to be the driver. You know how aware you are of the stopped car in front of you; you've got it all under control. You see the black ice. You've already spotted the pedestrian. The passenger has to decide what to point out, and usually waits until she can't stand the suspense anymore -- this may be a matter of a second, but still, it's stressful.

And if the passenger is generally a more cautious driver herself, well, she might occasionally, reflexively, grab the armrest when the other person is at the wheel. The passenger's right foot may press the floor. Since the driver generally does have everything under control after all, the passenger has learned how to pretend she was going to shift toward the armrest anyway. She was going to take that sharp, deep breath. Ahhhh, that air feels good.

Laura is leaving her job in June and is going to work on her own. You know her. Laura, the major breadwinner in the house. The one who actually receives a paycheck at the same time each month.

The one whose job has provided us with healthcare.

I'm sure Laura, who is driving along singing "Ohh, Freedom! Ohh, Freedom!" at the top of her lungs, sees the nails scattered across the pavement, the flock of geese waddling through the traffic, and the mattress that just flew out of the car up ahead. But I, strapped into the passenger seat and nervously humming "buddy, can you spare a dime," am quietly gripping the armrest and taking lots of sharp, deep breaths.

It's not just money I'm worried about. I'm sure she'll find coaching and consulting gigs, and I'm sure we'll learn how to live without a paycheck. Hey! I was going to take that sharp breath anyway.

But the search for healthcare on our own has brought up old, dark, sad feelings for me. When Laura called USAA to inquire about their insurance (she qualifies because her dad was in the Air Force), she explained our relationship and my health situation.

Their response was, "Ma'am, we wouldn't touch paula until 10 years after the end of her treatment."

You know, you feel pretty vulnerable after a cancer diagnosis. Sort of forever, somewhere inside. The idea that this insurance company would rather insure a 65-year-old me than a 55-year-old-possibly-with-a-target-on-my-back me is hard to take in.

The dark feelings were right under the surface. How could I possibly have demonstrated more of a commitment to beating the cancer, beyond sacrificing both breasts? Did it matter to the insurance company that my nodes were clear? If that doesn't matter to them, does it matter to my prognosis? Why wouldn't the insurance company bet on me?  It stings that they bet on the cancer instead.

So we have some things to figure out, and you know how I feel about incomplete puzzles, incomplete anything. But I feel like I owe it to Laura to be as supportive as possible as she makes this long-awaited change in her life. If I decided I wanted to open up a practice on the moon, she would be supportive of me. She'd have her doubts, but she'd want me to have what I wanted. She'd also know I could charge a gazillion dollars for ten minutes of therapy to anyone who showed up in my office on the moon. She believes in me.

And the truth is, Laura has had to sit in the passenger seat, gripping the armrest, while I steer as carefully as I can through the creepy villages of Cancerland. It's been hard on her. I really do think that in some ways, it's harder for the families of people with cancer than for the cancer patient herself. Not in all ways, but in some really important ways.

It's Laura's turn to drive.