Eveready

As the cold and gray days of January arrive each years start, it is a bittersweet reminder of a time nine years ago that I was given a diagnosis of triple negative breast cancer. It is also a reminder of the gift of another year of  survivorship. Nine. 9.Years. 

It is, of course, spectacular, that I am still here. Still.

So much has happened in the time since diagnosis. My oldest child is an adult, my youngest learning to drive, and the middle one navigating a year out of high school during a pandemic. Pandemic.

My mother passed on 15 months ago. Ago. Gone.

My life has been caught in flux since then, mourning, sadness, pandemic, isolation, odd sense of time, no movement of time,sometime I feel it is still March 2020, the longest month ever. Ever.

When I was a kid, being a cat lover, for some reason, I was drawn to the Eveready battery logo. A black cat jumping through the number 9. Thought it was cool. When I was 18 and contemplated tattoos, that was what I wanted as my first, but alas, never got. Never.

Coming upon my first year of survivorship, I did indeed get my first tattoo. I planned on getting others to mark the passing of statistics, a 5 year survivorship perhaps, but again, just never did.

My plan back then was to mark number 9, if I got there, (and apparently I have) with a black cat and a 9. Something similar to that eveready logo. And this time. I will. Will.

Number 9. 9 lives. Eveready. Ready. Ever. N.I.N.E.