It’s a year after my bilateral mastectomy, and I’m in my plastic surgeon’s office Friday, and she’s asking to see my boobs. It’s something I initially felt so squeamish about, and then I could do without even being asked. Yet, it’s a year later. How do I think about it all now?

It’s human nature to want to know the perks of the job. (What’s in it for me?) You know. How many vacation days? Benefits?

Well, you enter into a boob job with much the same mentality. Bigger? Sure. Knock your boobs off. Women pay serious money to elect to do this.

I did not elect these boobs; trust me, no one would. I had cancer. So it’s not the same thing. The most important thing was to be cancer-free, but a year later, I forgot that. I have my life so now I want to complain about my boobs.

So when the plastic surgeon asked me, “How are they?” I said, “Good.”

That’s all I could say, “Good.” I remember once having an entire conversation with someone I hadn’t seen in a long time around that word.

He: How’ve you been?
Me: Good. How about you?
He: Good.
Me: And your parents?
He: Good.
Me: And your sister? How’s she?
He: Good.
Me: Well, good, then. See you around.

Last year, I didn’t dream about my boobs looking “good.” What about great? Promising? A five-star review? Instead, they look as fake as that genuine conversation with that no-name loser.

They’re fake, and they’ll stay that way. Sometimes my boobs light up at the airport in that stupid detector machine they make me stand-in, and I get padded down like a fake boob criminal.

But I don’t have time for this. I’ve got my life to live. Instead of complaining, I should reflect on how life has changed in the past year now that I’m a cancer survivor.

And I’d do just that if I didn’t have these recycled boobs as the trade-off. Not to mention, life’s too short, and it’s hectic. (Take last week’s unposted muse as evidence.)

Remember the song “The Power” by some group I don’t remember called Snap!? It might be too much of an ask since even I had to look it up, but the lyrics in the middle of the song were brilliant, “It’s getting, it’s getting, it’s getting kinda hectic.”

Oh, I loved that song in 1990. And if you still don’t know what I’m talking about, here it is.

https://youtu.be/nm6DO_7px1I

When I worked at a now-defunct Moxie Video Productions, that song was the thing, and when the workflow started to amp up, and we’d all be feeling the stress of it, an assistant editor would walk into the tape room singing that part of the song.

And somehow, it released the pressure, like we were all about to explode until he reminded us, “I’ve got the power.”

That’s why thinking about the 90s makes us smile. No matter what happened, we’d dance it off.

But the only dancing my boobs do now is in Twelfth Night (the musical), which opens in two weeks, by the way, if you’re thinking about coming. (We could use the company!)

But that’s just the beginning of where my boobs have been. It’s been a whirlwind of activity, from Dad being honored in Cleveland for the Top 75 (not that I was there, but it happened, anyway) to the family going to Florida to celebrate Mom’s 80th birthday.

I’ve been going from event to event with my boobs dutifully coming along with me, and maybe that’s good because when I look back on a year ago, all I wanted were my two front teeth, ahem, insert boobs.

(It’s pretty hard to sing “All I Want for Christmas” when you’ve got “You’ve got the power” still stuck in your head. Right?)

If only they had an operating manual that had come along with those boobs. How trivial, really, but I wanted just the basics. Being cancer-free was on the list, too, somewhere buried underneath my hair re-grow, getting my energy back, and regaining the feeling in my left arm.

There were the perks of the job–ah, the new boobs. Right! That’s what got me to take the job, hoping that my new boobs would look just like my old ones.

Everyone talks about the journey, yes, the journey, you’re going on a trip, but there was no manual to warn about returning to life as a cancer survivor with fake boobs that no one can see but me and so much baggage.

I had no clue that being a cancer survivor would be so demanding like trying to jump aboard a fast-moving train that’s pulling out of the station with all my baggage in hand. I caught the train, but just barely. I look around to try to find an empty seat.

It’s so busy here, and people rarely talk about their boobs. It’s weird that I still do. I get it. But there is a perk to the job–no matter what, I’ve learned I can’t take them too seriously. And when I try to, I’ll never forget what I’m covering up: I’m just a boob cracking bad boob jokes trying to find a seat on the train.