Getting "The Girl" back

I am a big fan of fashion. I love clothes and shoes and I love to browse fashion magazines and catalogs in my (albeit limited) spare time. One of my favorite television shows is "What Not to Wear" on TLC. The part I love about it is how they teach women to view clothes as something to express themselves effectively and how the right clothes, with the right fit, can boost one's confidence and completely change the way others see us and how we see ourselves.

Part of this show is often helping women deal with, "the girls". Since it is basic cable, they don't say breasts. Finding the right bra, enhancing, minimizing, properly supporting, and appreciating their "girls" is often a big part of a woman's learning process for the show.

As I've watched the show in recent months, I've come to see "the girls" to be a metaphor for all the things I've been dealing with since the cancer. While for many women, hair loss is the biggest change to their outward appearance during cancer treatment, mine is suddenly finding myself with no "girls" at all.

Losing my breasts, as I've written before, is in itself a big adjustment. But, what I've also learned, is that there are secondary losses that have taken some time to manifest and for me to figure out. I've lumped all of them together as "The Girl". These have included a diminished sense of femininity, a loss of self-confidence, and ridiculous changes to my body because of the forced menopause of the Tamoxifen. Instead of just taking these as a given and accepting them, I decided to find ways to get "The Girl" back.

Some of my steps have been difficult, conversations with my doctor about subjects I would never have considered discussing before, trying to explain odd mood swings and behavior to my husband, and adding yet more supplements and pills to my daily routine. Others have been leaps of "why not"? These have been more fun. I've started dressing more feminine than I used to, I am doggedly trying to find the perfect swimsuit that will cover everything it needs to cover while still letting me feel like a girl, and I started taking a class called "Pussycat Dolls".

The last one was the scariest to start, but it is proving to be the most helpful. The Pussycat Dolls songs are utter fluff, and their dance style is over the top, but if you are trying to get your girl back, it is a great way to start. The dances are physically challenging and the workout part has been helpful for getting my upper body strength back, but the routines are also designed to be sexy and playful, emphasizing all of our girliest curves, so I am learning, slowly, to get used to my new body shape in a place that is accepting, safe, and most importantly, fun.

I had dinner with some girlfriends the other night and I told them about taking the class. One friend asked if I've found "The Girl" yet. Not yet, but I hope to soon.