Learning To Love Yourself
By Lori Burns
It’s Valentine’s Day 2014. I’m quietly recovering in our home in Queen Creek, AZ, after just having had a full hysterectomy (after 10 months of intense chemotherapy, bilateral mastectomy, AND port placement/removal surgery). My husband walks in and tells me he has lost his job due to “restructuring”, but there is another great job waiting for him in Nashville. Uh, no thank you. Have you seen my bald head? We don’t know anyone there. Where is Tennessee?
But we move anyway. It’s horrible. I’m in shock, traumatized by the events of the past year, uprooting myself, my young child, and my entire life. And I am bald. Who wants to look at that? I become frozen, unable to move, paralyzed with fear of the unknown, and for the first time in my life, doubting the person I used to be.
Suddenly, almost like it does in the movies, it hits me: if I ever want to get back on my feet, I need to learn to love myself. It was at this moment that I realized that I was in a relationship with myself…
