In the last two days I’ve read a lot of angry commentary from the people who hated the original decision. I saw many lines that ended with “Komen will not get any of my money anymore.” To me, that line of thinking is as upsetting as Komen’s original decision.

Don’t get me wrong: I am glad Komen changed its mind. I am happy it heard the angry outcries. I am glad it decided it made a mistake. But I don’t like any conversation, conflict or combat that ends with “and now I hate you.” I don’t think quick decisions and pulling support for a 30 year organization over one poor decision advances anything positive. And I am all about positive.

Which I think officially makes me a milk toast. And my perspective could be dead wrong; maybe fighting and financial fist-a-cuffs is how any thing good gets done in this world.

But as I battle metastatic breast cancer, I have become more even-tempered. I am hyper-focused on solving problems, not battling them out. And like I just said, I’m not at all sure I’m right. So hooray that Komen changed its mind and kudos to all your reactions that helped it get there.

But I stand by my original reaction, which was this: maybe Komen should go find another way to help out the population that Planned Parenthood addresses. Remember, not all people who go to Planned Parenthood are asking for abortions. I have a friend who goes there because she can’t afford health insurance but wants to stay healthy for herself and her 12 year old son. There’s a broader non-politically-charged population there–and it needs breast care help. And that is the mantra of Susan G. Komen For The Cure: stopping women from dying of breast cancer.

I guess what I’m saying is maybe there’s a place for both reactions: the “screw you I’m taking my money and walking” one and the “okay, if you can’t help one way, figure out another way to help.”

To that end, here’s an idea: maybe Planned Parenthood–and what it does to help a large group of women who find themselves without healthcare insurance but in need of health care–shouldn’t be the only game in town. Maybe the world shouldn’t be considering financially challenged women and ones-who-want abortions as the same focus group. After all, my friend doesn’t go to PP for an abortion. She goes to maintain herself as a healthy parent.

I have no idea what the real reasons were that caused Komen to pull, then reinstated its PP funding–I assume it was political, and twas ever thus. But today, Komen is once again giving money to Planned Parenthood as it aways “planned” to do. Which I am happy about for many women, including my friend. But since “plan” keeps coming up in this conversation, how about Komen plan to figure out how to take its money and give breast health to women in need on its own?

How about Komen side-stepping this entire problem in the future by teflon-coating itself against political pressure forever? How about a new wing of Komen called something like–and I’m making this up here– “Planned Parent”? Or better yet, “Planned Prime-Of-Life”? With the objective of reaching the underprivileged women out there who don’t want an abortion but who want not to die of breast cancer? With the secondary strategy to live to see a child graduate high school, and the third objective to live long enough to be a parent in the first place?

Since we’re talking about plans in the first place, how about that for a plan, Komen?

Since my mini-non-profit has no money, this kind of a decision has never happened to me, and therefore I can’t speak from a similar standpoint. I suppose on the one hand, the Komen group can do whatever it wants with its money.  It’s a business.  Business, whether a non-profit, a not-for-profit, or a for-profit has that right, as long as rules are not broken along the way.

It looks to me like that’s at the crux of the outrage–that Komen didn’t do what it wanted, that it did was others wanted–mainly pro-lifers.  The assumption is Komen bent under political pressure from anti-abortion powers who somehow threatened trouble ahead for Komen if it continued to give money to PP. I am assuming all this as I have no clue–like you I’m just reading along and listening as the story unfolds.

I agree that’s a lousy way to dole out your cash–at the behest, badgering or the bullying of another.  But that’s the way this country often does things–by pressure.  Hell, that’s the way a lot of countries do things–who are we kidding.  That’s why so many presidents get up to the podium, win the election, and fall flat on their democratic, republican, socialist, imperial or whatever-the-political-choice happens to be backsides–because there’s too many cooks in the political kitchen.  And way too many others on the sidelines holding fistfuls of voter spices that no chef can make a meal without.  The threats fly amid that kind of a system–”if you don’t do what I say, I take my spices–and my voters–and I’m gone.”

I don’t want to sound blase about this or like I don’t care because I do care.  I care a lot–for the women who due to this decision by Komen will never get diagnosed with breast cancer and will die because of it.

As for the rest of it–the pressure, the money, the funding–it is what it is. You can’t change the system–at least not right away.  I hope some day that changes–but let’s face it, it ain’t gonna change today. But that’s not what Komen for the Cure is supposed to do.  Its mantra is not “hell bent on beating the political system”.  It’s not a group dedicated to rearranging the proverbial spice drawer in the left wing/right wing kitchen. It’s a group dedicated to three things: women, breast cancer and the cure for an insidious disease that hits 1 in 8 women in this country every year, including me.

So I say Go, Komen, Go–find another way to help. You’re big, you’re powerful, and though you may have had to bend to pressure–and twas ever thus, you’re not the first giant to get smacked in the big eye by this kind of sling shot–go find another way to reach the women you might have helped via Planned Parenthood.  You’ve got many smart people working for you, they can figure this out.  Forget the spice holders in this political kitchen.  They may have all the power today but like I bet the real Susan G. Komen–God rest her soul–would have told you, were she alive to do so–

there’s always tomorrow.

I just got this photo today: do you know where this is? Hint: that lion is NOT in a zoo…

Thank you for sending this in! Today’s entry is from a family who recently traveled to a country where breast cancer is the second largest cancer detected in women and in too many cases it is detected far too late.

Ann Murray Paige – FIT House Member of the Month! from Ara Arbabzadeh on Vimeo.

I thought it was a fluke but I still had some Fiji Water left so I took it the next day for my infusion to fight off my breast cancer and SURE ENOUGH the nurse, ready to poke me half a dozen times, almost fell off her stool when she got into my arm on the first try. Another fluke? Possibly…

Then yesterday, having a PETSCAN–because cancer is so much fun!-the tech poked my arm, got into my vein, looked at me and said, “Bullseye!”

I wanna tell you I almost hugged him–because having someone poke you like a pin cushion and dig around for your freaking vein is so very unpleasant I can barely write it. As I sat in the radio-active-tracer-lounge waiting for the stuff he injected to pump through my body, I got right on Twitter and tweeted a photo of my arm and my almost-empty bottle of Fiji Water and I told the people at Fiji how much I love them. Of course, they likely think I’m crackers, since they responded, “we’ve heard a lot of health stories about our water but this is a new one on us.”

So anyway, back to last week, when someone forwarded my blog Fiji Magic to someone at Fiji, she did it without me knowing. Not that I wouldn’t have said “go ahead” if she asked me first, but she did it on her own, because the first line of the blog says “don’t tell the people at Fiji I’m writing this or people will think I’m on the take…..” And sure enough, someone at Fiji emailed me that evening to ask if the company could send me some free water.

And you know what I said? H-E-L-L Y-A.

I, not one to get paid much for what I do, nor have I ever been approached by any business who wants to support my effort of getting my book into cancer centers across the country–(and believe me I’ve tried. Like at that blogging forum in SF a few weeks back, I threw my book into the hands of someone from the Gates Foundation–awkward–and ZERO response from them)–and I, who hate to appear needy, have to tell myself, “Whatever. Someone else will figure out that my cause is important.” Because I ain’t a beggar. My book sold exactly 10 copies this month. I’ve made a whole 32 dollars. Fortune 500 here I come.

But this stuff, this Fiji Water, and I have no idea why, has now saved my arm exactly 9 track marks in 2 weeks. If you have my same problem you know that’s A LOT A PAIN I avoided. And I have more ahead as I battle the breast cancer beast. So while I may not be able to be bought, I can absolutely be showered. And if Fiji wants to dowse me with its magic water and help me deal with this ridiculously awful symptom of this outrageously terminal disease I’m fighting, I say HAVE AT IT, I’M ALL YOURS.

Though I’m not being paid by Fiji to say any of this, I now call their product LIQUID GOLD. Because all of us facing any illness that involves getting poked and prodded deserve a freaking BREAK. And if ponying up 6 dollars for a bottle of H2O gets us out of the phlebotomist’s rooms any quicker I’ll pay that bill all day long.

I now have 48 days of good blood draws stacked between the salsa and the oatmeal in my pantry: I think that means I’m “on the take.” And if that’s the case…

I’ll be on the take for as long as Fiji Water will take me.

The sad thing about a life is that at some point, someone gets offended–at least it happens that way in my life.  And almost always afterwards I learn something very important that makes my life more evolved and better understood to myself. I have never intentionally, at least not since I passed my college entrance exam, ever made someone purposely angry– but I have done it nonetheless.

Take the time a friend was sick and wanted me to come over to check in.  She must have said or done something to send me the drift that I should stop by, but I didn’t pick up on it and I didn’t come by.  The next time I saw her she was pretty angry with me and I apologized–I even brought flowers.  But I learned something very important about myself and about her and it’s been critical to me in my relationship with her ever since.  I learned that I need to never give the impression that I understand subliminal messages. I need people to tell me what they need up front and not expect that I’ll “just know.”  I used to “just know”, in fact I think I was some kind of a pro, knowing just what someone else was feeling and attempting to help them through it–before they even knew what the problem was themselves.

In the past, the folks in my life became dependent on my “knowing just what they needed” and I exhausted myself showing up for everyone in need.  But those days are over and I say good riddance to them. And thanks to this friend and our conflict, I learned absolutely that I no more want to be a person who automatically takes on other’s burdens.  In the past my choice to do so was my choice alone:  I needed to stop myself from doing that. And I finally did it.

My friend got over it.  She now knows me a little better now, too—knows what I can and can’t be.  And so do I.  This pal–incidentally a better pal now than ever before–inadvertently helped me learn this very important lesson about myself.  And I am forever grateful to her for that.

That’s what usually happens with me:  through trauma and drama come enlightenment and evolution.  It’s a hard price to pay but I pay it none-the-less.

I’m not referring to blame here.  I’m not saying “and so-and-so learned never to cross me again.”  Blame has nothing to do with this.  It’s about me learning, growing, evolving–understanding my life and my self and how it all works—the ups, the downs, the highs and the lows.  I never blame anybody.  I learn from them.

So for me, it is never about the moment of pain that any one, least of all anyone in my life including me–should stay stuck in.  It’s about the learning and the growth. And if you are someone who may have inadvertently hurt me–like I did my friend–I hope you move on.  I hope you don’t blame yourself, or blame me, or blame blame for what happened.  Everyone is doing their best in this lifetime.  That I know for certain.

We can’t change other people, as I always tell my kids–we can only change our reaction to them.  It’s harder when that person turns out to be us.  But we have to learn to forgive ourselves–after all, who’s purposely manipulating and plotting and planning to wreak havoc on another?  Unless it’s a bad soap opera or an episode of “Desperate Housewives” who in the world is trying to mess up?

Life is short–and take it from someone who knows all too well just what that saying really means.  We all deserve a break.  We are all doing our best.  And our best IS good enough.  If it isn’t, we’re in the wrong company.

As the anonymous saying goes, “Forgiveness is to set a prisoner free and realize the prisoner is yourself.”

I say it’s time to set ourselves free.

I have been particularly honored by the mothers who’ve responded, “I am marching my son/daughter to the mirror in our home to pass on this lesson”–what a tribute for me. I am honored beyond words. The lesson, in case you missed it, is point your finger at your child’s reflection and introduce them to their one and only lifelong best friend.

But this new essay isn’t about that lesson as much as it is about that mirror. Because that’s not the only lesson doled out in my water closet, among the blobs of toothpaste, mold on the wall, towels on the floor and unwashed sinks. There’s the Apology one, too.

Any time I catch my children calling themselves dumb, stupid, idiot, how-could-you-be-such-a-jerk, or anything else resembling a personal put-down–
I march them right to the mirror, have them look at their own reflection and APOLOGIZE. To themselves.

I assume on first blush that sounds a little weird. But honestly, I can’t tell you how often I myself have been in that place–called myself stupid and believed it. I grew up hearing adults call themselves dumb and somewhere deep inside of me I adopted the same routine. I continued the put-down pattern as easily as breathing air–so well in fact that as I grew older, if I made an error I verbally called myself “STUPID”–and just by saying it, I made that ‘bad’ feeling about myself bigger. Like I need one more person–and my BFF of all people–to put me down when I’m already down.

If I were to ever read the Rules Of A Lifetime–were someone ever to write it–I am sure it would place ‘Call Yourself Bad Names’ directly under the Chapter titled “Don’t Ever Do This.” Because let’s face it: enough people have, had and will call me bad names before I’m through in this world. Not everybody gets along. And even though I remind my kids when they say so-and-so-said I was such-and-such, “just because someone says it doesn’t make it true. It just makes it what they said.”– still, when my best friend tells me I’m dumb, stupid, an idiot, etcetera, somewhere deep inside me I kind of believe it.

So once I figured out who my real best friend was, I all but cured her of that call-me-bad-names habit immediately. In fact one of the last times I looked myself in the mirror and apologized, I was forgiving myself for believing the person who told me I gave myself metastatic breast cancer.

In case you didn’t know, there are many people out there who believe we, the ‘diseased’, give ourselves our illness in order to work out some other issue in our lives. This is not the same thing as finding ’silver linings’ in a disease. Slowing down, finding your own voice, not taking crap from others–that’s all great.  I’m talking about “and I will die so that I can finally understand why I let bad men into my life.”  Sorry, but the trade-off on that or any other tit-for-my-life’s tat makes ZERO sense when it’s your life on the line.  Of course not a one of these people who expound this disease theory actually has a life-threatening illness to begin with–therefore the theory is safe for them.  As for me I’ve never heard, for example, an MS patient say “Yes, I gave myself MS so I could understand my bad relationship with my mother”.  And you know I bet I never will.

Still, it’s a belief out there–a reckless, scary one in my opinion–that we choose disease, that we give ourselves, in my case, metastatic breast cancer. And so, when someone told me this a year ago, right after my re-diagnosis, and I was in a terrible, horrible, fearful place in my heart and my life–I believed her.  And immediately not only was I the victim of a life-stealing, insidious, out-of-the-blue killer, I was the killer as well. The mere thought of it all sent me over the edge.  It took months of therapy to get me back on track again.

Some BFF I turned out to be.

So it took me a long, long time to apologize to myself for that– ” MURDERER! ” is a tad more difficult to get past than “STUPID.”  But I did it.  And I still have to do it–because on the up and down roller coaster of the cancer life, there are days when even my biggest smile can’t erase the fear inside me that maybe this is all my fault…

Oh Lord, I did it again.  Looks like I’ve got a date with my reflection.

So, the next time you look yourself in that water closet mirror, make sure you tell yourself not only aren’t you stupid, dumb, an idiot or–Heaven forbid, a killer, but you are smart, healthy, doing your best, and you are one fantastic best friend.

And if you need any help, come over to my house.  I have dual vanities in my bathroom and I welcome your BFF any time.

I don’t mean the hypotenuse-geometry-gay-pride-symbol ones. I don’t mean the cute ones that swim under the sea with Sponge Bob and his cronies. I don’t mean the bright blocks kids sort when they haven’t yet learned to walk. I’m not even talking about the love ones, where someone slips out under the cover of darkness and slips under the covers in someone else’s bedroom.

I’m talking about the friendship triangles.

I mean the ones where three people like each other and really get along. But at some point, two gravitate toward each other and the other one, odd man “out”, feels–to repeat the word–left “out”.

It happens to everyone–at least I assume it does. Since I don’t know everyone, I have to guess here. I also guess that it’s a human condition to find someone to cling to, someone you like above every one else. The term best friend is more common than best friends with an S. I don’t see the term BFFS as much as I see BFF all over the girly clothes they’re selling to my 3rd grader. There it is–etched on a cotton/poly blend in pink, red and electric green, sized small, medium, large and huge–along with the dangerous undercurrent message that says “and you can only have ONE.”

Which is why–whenever my kids try to tell me their ‘best friend is…’ blah blah blah–I’m always the first one to say “HOLD IT RIGHT THERE. I already know your best friend.”

It happened just the other night. One of my children answered, “You do?” And I said, “I sure do. They’re in the bathroom right now.” And my child went quickly into the bathroom thinking someone–I know not whom–was in there, and that some kind of a surprise play date was under way.

And when my child rounded the corner into the empty water closet, and then went further into the sit-down section of the room and found still no one there, my child turned around to see me standing there, too. “There,” I said, with my arm raised and finger pointing at the young reflection in the mirror. “There’s your best friend, my dear. It’s YOU.”

This could seem to you anywhere from radical to ridiculous, or maybe you don’t care–which is fair enough. Not everyone has to care. But in my life, the term “best friend” was always associated not with the person I chose but with all the ones I didn’t. If I chose Susie over Maria, for example, Maria’s feelings got hurt. (And I can actually attest to that, as two winters ago I got the chance to apologize to “Maria” for really and truly choosing “Susie” over her back in high school. Of course 30 years and lots of maturity had erased the whole problem now. But the memory lingered–and Maria did feel that pain back then.)

It happens to all people from kids to adults–again, I’m guessing since I don’t know all people. But from what I’ve lived I know that most folks become 8 years old again when not invited, chosen, or otherwise included along with the others. And maybe it’s girls more than boys? Or the sensitive over the blasse? Either way, as I remind my children when they come home from school, forlorn due to some so-and-so excluding or ignoring them, I say, “sounds like you need your best friend.” And if they haven’t run screaming from the room saying “not the mirror agaaaaaaaain!” I march them into the bathroom and have them look at the reflection waiting there. “You see that kid? That’s your answer. That kid will see you through.”

What I don’t tell my kids–at least not yet, they’re too young, but I will eventually–is that it won’t be long before the friends who exclude–unless down the line they turn out both to be gay and fall madly love, which would be cool–will find others to drift off to. That’s kind of how life is, it’s how people evolve. Correct me if I’m wrong but usually people don’t evolve in lock step with their elementary school friends. Of course there are times when kids are meant to be best-est buddies for the rest of their lives–and God bless them. That then brings me to another lesson I teach my kids when–once again gnashing their teeth that they weren’t included, and that the triangle they thought they were in is really, it turns out, a line–from friend A to friend B–

“you can’t control other people. You can only control yourself.”

And since I’m already on the Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood Trolley here, let me throw this in, too:

“Whether someone likes you, doesn’t like you, includes you, excludes you, invites you, ignores you, and otherwise plays it strange and unfriendly–there is NOTHING that changes one simple fact: YOU ARE YOU. And you are the GREATEST. Nobody, nothing, nada changes that.”

And now I have a favor to ask you, all you who are reading this:

If I’m not around to remind my children of all these things; if by some God-forsaken reason the metastatic breast cancer beating its way through my immune system actually wins one of these days, and I don’t get to remind my kids over and over of all these important, love-yourself lessons as they “evolve” in their lives–I say ‘over and over again’ because that’s the way we all need to hear this self-esteem stuff before our true evolution finally occurs–

will you please tell them for me?

but last week when I had my infusion, I drank Fiji water before my blood draw–the one that usually takes like 7 draws for them to tap my vein–

..and she got into my vein on the first try.

Coincidence, right? That’s what I figured. Yet as a human phlebotomy pin cushion I can tell you I am always the problem child in the chemotherapy room. Lord help me if and when I actually need real chemo. Right now I’m getting a bone strengthener drug instead, but I still need to get it dripped, or infused, into my aching arm each month. And trying to get that dang needle into my veined-challenged arm is hell on the nurses, the phlebotomists, anyone passing by who hears my whimpered cries, and on whomever has to pay for the 5 needles it takes before the sixth one goes in.

So, due to my strange and exciting Fiji water experience of the day before, I drank another small bottle of Fiji H2O on the morning of my infusion. But I went into the Infusion Center prepared to get poked. It can sometimes take upwards of 5 tries for the poor nurses to strike hemoglobin-gold with me. So I sat down, and the nurse got the needle out, and we both prepared for repeated failure…

and she got it on the first try.

Not to be an undercover blogger/ Fiji water marketer–which I’m not–but honestly, I could be. Because that stuff saved my arm this month.

Could I prove that in a court of law? Absolutely not. And speaking of proof, the real proof will be next month–when I try my experiment again. It may fail miserably–I may drink a gallon of the stuff and have nothing but track marks and a bad day to show for it. If so, there goes 3 dollars for a bottle of water.

But if it is a success, my non-aching arm will be reaching for the Fiji water on a monthly basis–

and I’ll be and thanking my lucky stars I discovered that, for some reason, this South Pacific island hydration, collected and available on my grocery store shelf, is making a world of difference for one North American breast cancer fighter.

At the same time a nicely dressed older woman–maybe in her late 60’s but quite good-looking, with not too much but just enough make up on to make her look appropriate for her age–was coming up next to me.  I didn’t see her until I’d put the jacket down and shrugged a little, because I wasn’t sure it was “me”.  I looked up and saw her smiling at me.  I took that as an entree to say something.

“I don’t know,” I gestured down to the jacket.  ”I think it makes me look like a jester in the king’s court.”  She smiled and said, “it’s a beautiful jacket.”  I looked at it again–maybe it was a beautiful jacket.  Maybe I was in a fashion box–the same old, same old look.  What if she was right?

I stood there for a beat–then finally put the piece down.  I really don’t think cranberry velvet has any right hanging off my front.   Plus, it was kind of expensive–even on sale– and if I was going to go out on a fashion limb, I wanted it to hit my wallet a little less hard.  But that lady was right, it was a gorgeous piece. She was still standing there, so I held up the jacket and said to her, “It would look nice on you maybe?  We have the same coloring.”

She shook her head and smiled.  ”I have BOOBS,” she looked down at her front, “It wouldn’t fit.”

For a split second I thought, ‘Oh my word does she know me? Does she know I have no breasts?’ But then I saw her smile and her self-deprecating gesture toward her largely endowed front side, and I realized her comment was not about me.  It was about her.

I smiled and started to put the jacket back on the rack, and as I did, she pushed her cart by me and added, “Boobs ruin everything.”

Now I don’t look like I have had a double-mastectomy-no-reconstruction: I just look like I’m small in the chest.  So she had no idea who she was talking to–me, the Queen of “boobs ruin everything.” (Though of course I’m kidding because they don’t typically ruin everything.  Hell, I loved my boobs, until they tried to kill me.)

But I wasn’t going to get into a breast cancer dialogue right there in the clearance jacket aisle–there was shopping to do, fitting rooms to conquer and I wasn’t about to ruin it all with cancer chat.  So I just took the irony for what it was–FUNNY–

and as she passed by me on her way to the shoe section, I replied with a good-natured laugh,

“I hear you, sister.”