Thoughts from a discount store slipper chair

The other day I went shopping, specifically to buy more underwear for my husband. We're leaving on vacation next week. He needed a few more pairs, and I needed a very direct task, something to get me off the chair and out of the house. I had shopping of my own to do, but things I needed were very vague to me, in part because my body has changed so much over these months, but honestly, mostly because shopping just didn't seem fun to me anymore.

Shopping isn't fun for everyone, I get that, but for me it used to be a huge thrill. I come from a long line of Filene's Basement and Loehmann's shoppers. Big family stories take place there, like the one where my Nana, at the news that my sister had been born, the first female grandchild after several boys, screamed at the top of her lungs to my aunt who was clear across the pantyhose bins, "Ruthie! We have a girl!" The thrill of the hunt, the dig for the deal, these were in my DNA. Once.

Despite my expert skills, I could not find the right underwear. I scoured the entire area twice. I was getting hot, in part because I was still wearing the aforementioned husband's climbing beanie when it was 80 degrees outside, and in part because of -- yes, that's right, the menopausal hot flash. Technically I'm old enough to be in menopause anyway, but at the time of my diagnosis, I was technically not in menopause. But a total abdominal hysterectomy and bilateral salpingo oopherectomy will do that to a person. It's one of those things that come with the ovarian cancer territory--the more physical instantaneous life change.

So I was hot and sweaty and I was limping around the store. In trying to get back to some sense of physical fitness these days, my arthritic hip has been acting up. All my core muscles are trying to figure out how to be strong again, and newsflash-to-me-- that can take a while.

Sweating, limping and running out of energy, I sought refuge in the off-price store's furniture area. There a light gray slipper chair called out to me, and I pushed my cart over, sat down, and took off my climbing beanie practically daring other shoppers to look. I swear steam came off my head. My back eased into the chair. Sweet relief.

I took some time to people watch and a kind of sadness came over me --- for the shopper I used to be: highly energetic, going for hours at a time, fueled on by caffeine and adrenalin, speeding through departments and aisles with precision. But also for who I was pre-cancer -- shopping for the fun of it, the frivolity, the fact that it was Fall and time for new boots and sweaters. It sounds weird, I think, but I think I was mourning a kind of innocence, or lightheartedness that I definitely do not have anymore. There's nothing I do right now that is completely untainted with the seriousness of this disease.

I suspect that with hard work and determination, I will get my physical fitness back. Maybe I'll get a cortisone shot for my arthritic hip. Hell, even my hair will grow back eventually. But that carefree approach to the world, the waking up and living without thinking about not living, well --- I don't know. I wonder if that will ever go away now. This isn't a ploy for pity--- it's more that I'm trying to come to terms with this thing and the truth is, there are losses I never imagined.