Starting again

Sooo I asked Robin awhile ago whether there was going to be a 2014 BJP because I'm ready to start beading again.  As you can probably see, I haven't been very attentive to my blog.   I had a very good reason, but nonetheless, it kind of bothered me, like I had started something in my life but not finished.  

Just an FYI for anyone who wasn't here back in the first years of the BJP... I was good the first year in 2008 and kept up.  In late 2008 I found out I had breast cancer that was thought to be due to having had Hodgkin's disease back in 1993 when I was pregnant and having radiation to my chest.   I had bilateral mastectomy in December 2008, chemo in 2009, and all through everything I kept up with the BJP, I even managed to keep up with being the "registration Angel" for the BJP two years.   I love all the friends I made and the support I received through those couple years.   Then all the sudden after I finished chemo and regrew my hair and looked at myself in the mirror... I didn't see ME anymore and  I just lost all muse, creativity, sense of self, and packed everything up, every bead, every book, every creative item and for the most part refused to look at anything.   I was depressed, overwhelmed and lost.   Every so often I'd haul out a box of beads or watch a friend as she beaded and think maybe I was being inspired... but I wasn't.   

In the meantime my daughter grew up and left home for college and my two kitties died within a couple months of each other.   I started working at home instead of going in to an office and isolated myself even more.   After some really really bad months where I seriously wondered what I was even doing anymore, after thinking out loud and to myself, I finally decided to have breast reconstruction last year.   At the time I had my mastectomy, and after,  I was totally against reconstruction.  I was against prosthetics.  I was against it all.  Damn it, if I was going to have cancer and lose my breasts, so be it.  I went through 4 years of a self-imposed sense of not being me anymore.   Whether or not people stared, whether they talked, whether they felt pity doesn't matter.   It doesn't even matter if they totally never realized I didn't have breasts anymore.  What mattered was I was making it a big deal in my head and I finally couldn't stand it anymore.  I asked my husband what he thought and he was behind me 100% no matter what I decided.  Asked my daughter and she was with me every thought on my way.   SO to make a long story short, had my reconstruction (not implants, it was total reconstruction) last March and April, and I'm not kidding, when I was out of the hospital and feeling back to "normal," I was fine.  It was like "oh... hello me.  Nice to see you again."  I've never had a thought of it being a waste of time or anything.  I've never regretted it, not once.  I am just me again.   

And right after that I got my whole self back.  I started touching beads again.  And from there and then to here and now, I have been running in my head with joy and a feeling of "O MY GOSH, I'M BACK!"    I've got time to wait those bad days out.   So there you have it. My reasons for not blogging, not beading, not doing much of anything.  Like I said, it was a self-imposed, and I suppose necessary, time for me to regroup. 

Now I can start posting about the BJP!!!!!   Thanks for listening.  :)