The Other Side...

  Going through the dark and fearful door... 

and emerging on the other side...

With barely an opportunity to catch my breath...

I stand in a daze, wearing my unwanted and slightly scuffed Pink shoes... 

knowing in my heart that I have many more miles to travel in them...

filled with twists and turns...

before I can peel them away from my tired feet. 

Realizing in one fashion or another... 

they will somehow become a part of me and stay with me the rest of my life.

  Temporary, foreign objects within me creating new and unnatural feelings...

pressure, pain, tightness, weight...  

and with them, bringing that all to well known feeling... 

Fear... 

returning to loom over me again.

I vow to myself as I lift my eyes to the new path before me... 

to do all I can not to allow it to lead my way.

  In a quiet pond by the roadside... 

I pause and see my reflection looking back at me.

My body a testament to the war I'm waging... 

the scars I'll bare the rest of my life... 

that the rest of the world will never see.

I do understand that I am to be grateful... as not all escape this battle with their lives... 

Yet I shudder in fear of the new unknown... 

the price I have yet to pay for making it...

here to the other side... 

  And so the Cancer is gone... I've been given a 'clean bill of health'... 

Now I slowly scramble down the rocks...

from the hill of elation the news had taken me to...

and shuffle along in my dusty Pink shoes... 

ill fitting and not a color or style I would ever choose... 

To the valley where I will begin my reconstruction...  

and set out on this leg of my journey... 

Here on the other side...