Life Changing Times

Life Changing Moments

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  • Compassion and Serial Killers

    Me: I am on season 12 of Criminal Minds
    Therapist: Have you watched Unorthodox? (goes on to describe it)
    Me: No, I am obsessed with serial killers currently and have watched all of these seasons consecutively
    Therapist: Continues to talk about the poignancy of Unorthodox…
    Me: Oh! You think I should stop watching serial killers and connect with something more heartfelt!
    Therapist: …..

    I often joke that the first half of my life was about getting fucked up, and the second half was about fixing it. Cue 20+ years of therapy. Although I will have to change the maths, as that was applicable when I was 40… I am back seeing my oncology psychiatrist for an unwelcome return of PTSD, or PTSS (replace ‘disorder’ with ‘syndrome’), or whatever it is called when you are utterly disconnected from yourself and trapped in an endless spiral of anxiety/insomnia/terror. I tend to be ridiculously high functioning when I am in a state of trauma and not only fool those around me into thinking I am doing well, but I also fool myself. Perhaps that should be high functioning foolish.

    I started seeing the wonderful Amanda when I was mid chemo in 2015 and I was about to say she was a lifesaver then. Of course, the chemo/surgery/radio were the actual lifesavers, but she saved my sanity going through it all. Going through it all included entering into my first committed relationship in 10 years, which, it turned out, was a great reminder of why I had remained single for 10 years and why I have remained so since.

    Back to compassion – I am deeply compassionate although it tends to be equally deeply buried. Underneath a pile of serial killers currently. Compassion is vulnerability, compassion means opening up parts of myself that hurt and are raw, compassion is scary. To feel compassion for others, you need to feel compassion for yourself and that for me is the hard part for all the reasons listed. It requires bravery to open myself up that much and sometimes I am all out of brave.

  • Airports

    I love airports. Luckily, since I spend a significant amount of my life in them.

    I’m a people watcher, and airports are one of the best places to engage in this pastime. I love watching people heading out on an adventure, returning from one, meeting and greeting loved ones at arrivals, excited goodbyes at departures.

    There is the seasoned traveler – marching through the airport confidently, efficient luggage and clothes, not looking around, they know where they are going and they take no hostages on the way. Not literally, obviously, since I imagine an airport to be one of the worst places to try and stage a kidnap. They are smartly dressed even if casual, and always appear to be extremely organised. In case it’s not obvious I am mildly envious of these people because while I am a confident and accomplished traveler, I hardly ever look smart including casual smart and I always have various extra things in my hands making me slightly chaotic all the time.

    Then there are the people who act as if they have never been to an airport in their lives. (Yes, I appreciate some haven’t but it is not these I am talking about.) These are the ones who arrive at security, suddenly remembering that they cannot carry liquids, look affronted when asked to take their laptop out, unfailingly oblivious of everyone else in the queue behind them. They have nothing prepared when they get to the actual security part, search their copious amount of hand luggage for every last liquid, try and fail to fit it into the plastic bag, need to then entirely repack their cases. They must have 5 hours to spare before their flight. The rest of us don’t.

    The friends and family at arrival who are there with banners, who cannot contain their excitement at the impending arrival of loved ones. Who are rowdy, laughing, taking up huge amounts of happy space, who look as if they may combust with eager anticipation. Smiles and jokes all round. Love it.

    The bleary and bedraggled traveler. Who has come off a red eye flight, has no-one waiting for them, looks around slightly bewildered but knows where they are heading. Exhaustion is palpable from these people, they want to get through and get to bed without having to engage with another human being.

    Children are special at airports – because its a confusing place for many adults and yet children seem to be able to navigate them with no problem at all. From queuing at immigration to waiting for bags they take it in their stride. Get up, sit down, stand in line, walk up, down sideways, get on the plane, get off – totally unfazed.

    Quite literally as I am writing, while sitting an airport waiting for my family to arrive (sadly, no banners as its not quite the same when you are alone bouncing up and down with balloons), there is a person at a table next to me in the cafe speaking loudly in Bosnian. Believing no-one around him can understand, which is a strange assumption at an airport. I am currently learning more about his relationship with his wife than I ever needed to know. In between he is including copious amounts of swearing, even allowing for the fact that one of the reasons I love that language is for the swearing – the type and the free use of pretty outrageous terms by the majority of people. I’m also learning that today is not one of the best days of his life and seemingly not sweating the small stuff is so far an unknown concept to him, judging from his complaints to the long-suffering person on the other end of the phone Mind you, an elderly man has also just sat next to me talking even louder on the phone, in English, discussing his aged relative’s arthritis and then ends the call abruptly after being told by his wife she is busy at the hairdresser. He is now watching a YouTube clip of ABBA singing Dancing Queen. Loudly.

    And I think that’s it – airports give brief snapshots into peoples lives like little else, its like watching a collage of life through the equaliser of travel. Absolutely wonderful.

  • Life Changing Times – Loss

    The term ‘lost’ when referring to death, limbs, body parts (boobs, in my case) and so on has always left me bewildered.

    ‘I’m so sorry you lost your breasts, Sonia’. Losing them would have been extraordinarily careless. They likely won’t turn up behind the sofa at some point…. It literally makes me laugh – dark humour, granted, but then, most of my humour is on the darker side. I do have to bite my tongue when people use the term in general, like ‘I lost my husband’ – it’s SO hard not to say one of the above retorts.

    Why am I waffling on about this? Because I’ve been thinking a lot about loss, as opposed to lost, recently. I frequently get lost since I have no sense of direction and can’t find my way to the bathroom half the time.

    And I realised that I have no fear about loss, at all. Grief, absolutely. Depths of melancholy that can and do get triggered by the smallest things – a song, a photo. But fear, no.

    The loss of that fear was a life changing time. Perhaps even moment, I’m not sure. I realised in my late 30’s that I needed to cut all ties with my mother, and sadly my brother and his family as well. I had spent my entire life, not unreasonably, desperate to be loved. Instead I was abused and that warps pretty much everything and everyone around it.

    Another expression that drives me up the wall is ‘they couldn’t love you the way you needed to be loved’. Oh fuck right off. Really. I hear that used for adults when they are struggling with all different levels of childhood neglect, abuse and whatever else. And what? Is that meant to make people feel better? If anything, it reinforces what pretty much all kids who grew up in dysfunction believe – that they are not loveable or worthy of love. I say this in the context of my family of origin – there was a sort of love. But deeply, deeply inadequate and very much not what any child, or adult, needed.

    So I remember that part inside of me unalterably changing – that’s the life changing moment. I was courageous enough to say no, I’m not hanging on for this because I’m so scared to have no family anymore. I was fucking terrified, and heartbroken, but to use the cliche, I did it anyway. Something inside snapped, I felt it when it happened. But since then I have no fear of any loss.

    Today everyone in my life is here because I have chosen them. There is literally nobody who I do not deeply care about, whose presence enhances my life and I hope the same in reverse. I have left partners and husbands with nothing but a child (or two) on my hip, plastic bag in my hand. I have ended unhealthy friendships and connections. I don’t suffer fools. I am ridiculously honest and as anyone who knows me for five minutes realises – ‘fuck off/it/you/this’ rolls off my tongue frequently and comes from the heart :).

    It’s an incredible freedom. Hard won, but then, fuck it.

  • Earthquakes and Implants

    As anyone who regularly reads this blog couldn’t fail to notice, I regularly take my clothes off in public. Ostensibly to promote the fact that living life with no breasts is not only possible, but can be celebrated.

    With regards to body parts, a few years ago it struck me as ironic that I was replacing my hip just a few short months after deciding not to replace my breasts. Albeit titanium was not a breast replacement option – perhaps if it was, I may have made different decisions.

    And now I have yet again gone for implants. This time in my mouth.

    I wonder am I really just hankering for implants of any sort….?

    I was in Turkey recently doing a review of the humanitarian response to the horrific earthquake that happened on the 6th February.

    A slight aside. My life in a snapshot. I was in a theatre a couple of weeks before I left for Turkey, watching myself on a VERY large screen, you guessed it, in my knickers. Did I mention it was a screen literally the size of the full stage – ffs?! It was recorded some time back, as part of a show called ‘Mark of a Woman’.

    To say that it’s daunting to watch yourself like that would be an understatement. Being half naked is vulnerable. Speaking from the heart about the reason I am popping up half naked all over the place, even more so.

    Then off to Turkey! Talk about a change of persona. My two types of work couldn’t be more polar opposites.

    But the link is that they are both real. Gut wrenchingly so at times. I was, as I always am, humbled by the people I met and spoke to in Turkey. Many of them 9 months later still working night and day, yet who had themselves lost everything.

    Myself and my team worked hard, 12+ hour days – and we dealt with the intensity by laughing a lot during our evening debriefs. One particular favourite was the breastfeeding festival. I was interviewing a local organisation comprised of nurses who provide support to women, including around breastfeeding. The interview was being translated, and I was told that in this particularly conservative part of Turkey, they had recently held a breastfeeding festival. I was trying to keep my expression neutral as my thoughts were swinging between admiration for doing something like that and ‘what the actual fuck were you thinking and did we fund this???’ It wasn’t a festival, it was a workshop I finally discovered, to my relief and small bit of disappointment.

    At the end of the two weeks, a few days before we were due to leave, we arrived back to the luxury of a lovely hotel and where we were sitting in the lobby enjoying the warmth and comfort. When the floor and chandeliers started to shake. A colleague appeared, pale and clearly terrified, from her room on the 5th floor where she had felt it even stronger. Richter scale 5 earthquake – apparently super common. Right.

    The next day I went to the dentist as a tooth had got damaged. Seemingly everyone apart from me knows Turkey is the dental implant capital of this part of the world. This was Friday, I left the appointment agreeing to two dental implants being placed on Monday evening at 5pm, just ahead of my Tuesday 7am flight.

    I have wanted implants for 10+ years, to be clear. But could never afford them. However, I had absolutely no intention of getting some quite like this – I was stunned when the dentist made it sound so simple. And when I mentioned this to any friends, all were ‘oh yes, of course – Turkey and implants!’ I had no fucking idea.

    And here I am, 2 weeks later to the day, home with the stitches in my mouth slowly dissolving. Alongside my bank balance.

    As I wrote about before, I’m making major changes to my life and my work. The madness has to stop. But fuck, there will be parts that I will miss.

  • Life changing teenagers, past and present

    Apparently caterpillars turn into a gooey mess first, then emerge as butterflies.

    I’m not entirely sure how I feel about likening myself to a butterfly – I mean, delicate….graceful…..dainty…..not so much. But emerging from a gooey mess and growing wings, absolutely.

    The gooey mess (I like writing those two words, can you tell?) has been, as you would expect, messy, sticky, exhausting, confusing and involved a LOT of crying. I don’t usually cry a lot, or hardly at all in fact, but I seem to have made up for a few years worth recently.

    I could get into all the cliches of the hard shell cracking, letting the light in, the grief coming out….apt, albeit slightly vomit inducing. But by my standards, there seemed to be all the tears, all the time. Tell me, does anyone actually ever cry beautifully or is that just a movie myth? Holy shit, I don’t.

    But this is what happens in my life changing times. I was saying over the (more than slightly debauched) summer that I could feel major changes were coming. I didn’t know what, but I’ve gone through enough to recognise the pattern.

    And a huge part, I came to realise painfully, is about my role as a mother and provider. I kept saying to close friends ‘I’m done with parenting’ which they, understandably, found quite alarming. But I didn’t let that deter me, I kept on repeating it…..they had social services number saved just in case and on we went.

    Most parents feel that way about 50% of the time, but rather say it as a way of expressing frustration, exhaustion etc. I wasn’t saying it that way at all – I meant it. I didn’t understand what I meant, but I knew something major was shifting. Given I’m writing this currently from an earthquake zone, I’ll use that as the metaphor. I could feel the cracks and the movements internally, tectonic plates shifting inside me, seismic shifts coming, certainty in the earthquake, preparing myself, uncertain as to the outcome.

    My earthquake was an outpouring of grief, loss and becoming….you guessed it…a gooey mess. And I didn’t understand that when it was happening either, but I went with it. And finally, it has started to make sense.

    My soon to be 16 year old and current 17 year old have reached the age where they need to grow their wings. My children have deeply complex needs – I don’t like the word needs as it implies a lack – they are not lacking, quite the opposite. Rather they have required me in my role as a fiercely protective, all embracing, all providing mother to cocoon them until they are ready to face the world with their differences.

    And that time has come. No, I’m not throwing them out on the street, but I am moving towards taking a big step back in the coming months and letting them grow their own wings. Understanding that may involve them at times becoming somewhat of a gooey mess for a while first.

    And holy shit, that’s tough. I’ve been parenting for 33 years, I have been larger than life, making miracles happen, providing over and above. Raising deeply vulnerable children, as an adult who was a deeply vulnerable child and not parented. The lines of who I was parenting invariably became blurred.

    Which means I am having to face the challenge of who the fuck am I if I am not fighting to protect children? It’s no coincidence that I am both now and in the past working with Save the Children. I’ve been fighting my entire adult life to provide for my children, emotionally, financially, physically. And my entire life to do the same for others around the world.

    Ha! How twatish does that sound? ‘Look at me, suffering to save the world’. Not so much ;). What I am saying is that the underlying thread in it all is that I was repeatedly ‘saving’ myself. Over, and over, and over. And over again.

    And now I am stopping. My children no longer need me to be the momma bear, and in fact, carrying on would be detrimental to their progress. I am close to done to flying off around the world to jump into the next crisis/humanitarian disaster.

    The latter I am stopping sooner rather than later. Without anything yet to go to, with the need for (another) loan to keep my cripplingly expensive life afloat. But I know it’s the right, if far from the easy, thing to do.

    And therein lies the life changing moment. This is my ‘fuck it’ button in action. Major life changes coming up? I’ll fucking grab them with both hands. I’ll process, I’ll walk through the unknown, I’ll sob, shout, laugh, go through the fear and take major risks – but I’ll keep going forwards. I don’t settle for safety, I don’t compromise for comfort, I don’t hide. Because that starts to dim my light, parts of me start to fade away, the parts of me I love. And, no.

    Terrifying, exhilarating, raw – and real. As any life change should be.

  • London

    I’m heading home to London today – from Lusaka, my home for the last two months. I can’t wait, I am beyond excited to go home, to be back in my own flat, to be with my children, to be back where everything is familiar and of my choosing.

    And for the past nearly 8 years, I have written or said that about London multiple times – it has been my base, despite constantly leaving it for varying lengths of time for work. Work that brings me away, so that I can continue to be able to afford to live in London, ironic, much?

    This would be the same London, which I left kicking and screaming, vowing that they would only bring me back in a box. And I stayed away for the next 27 years.

    To say that London and I have had a love/hate relationship would be simplifying it, my associations with both the UK and London are complex.

    I grew up as the child of two immigrants, people who came to London to make better lives for themselves. My father was fleeing the tyranny of Archbishop Makarios in Cyprus, my mother came from what was then Yugoslavia – they met and then stayed for the rest of their lives in London. My father never once returned to his native Cyprus for the rest of his life.

    The working title of my book, the part at least of my formative years, is “My Poxy Childhood’, which will give you some idea that things were very different behind the often glamorous and very polished external images of my childhood. But that is for another time.

    I grew up in Wimbledon Village in the ’70s and ’80s, it was very white, elitist, wealthy, and British and despite my mother’s best efforts, we did not fit in. Like many children of immigrants, I grew up between our adopted country’s cultures and my parents birth ones. With the added dimension that my father was a professional gambler and he was loud, brash, and larger than life and cut a very striking figure in quiet, reserved, stiff upper lip Wimbledon.

    I didn’t fit in for a whole list of reasons that would be a book in itself – I was awkward, socially inept, I viscerally disliked the show of wealth and privilege around me that others seemed to revel in and I was very, very different to pretty much anyone else. Leading to a whole lot of acting out.

    Which in turn, led to me at 17 being packed off to Israel to a kibbutz for a year to get my act together. An unusual decision, but one that I believe inspired my lifelong love of travel, learning about new cultures, and the experiences that only immersing yourself in a new country can offer.

    I went from there to the Netherlands, following the Dutch love of my life as he left the Kibbutz and realised after a couple of months of living in a small village called Wierden, mainly in the company of his 75 year old father, that perhaps love did not conquer all.

    When I was coming close to my 19th birthday, back to London I went – you may see this theme running throughout this blog, I suppose the title may give that away. It was a turbulent 2 years there, yet again, events that could warrant another book in themselves.

    As a slight aside, this is actually why I am slightly struggling to prioritise what to write in my book. I see many books written about any one of the many experiences I have had, people saying how transformative things have been, how a,b,c changed their lives irrevocably, how getting through and coming out the other side was an incredible journey, and so forth.

    I quite genuinely don’t know where to start with my life, because the one constant I have is that those experiences keep happening. Ones that people talk and write about as life-defining, as one-offs, as I say, the content of entire books, are for me, par for the course. They are just as huge for me as for anyone else, but the difference seems to be that they just don’t stop.

    I finally left London, for what I believed to be the last time. Over the next 27 years, I lived in Ireland, Bosnia Hercegovina, Kenya, and Lebanon and traveled and worked extensively across many countries around those regions.

    Given this is not a travelogue, I will spare you the details of all the different countries and places, but I am extraordinarily grateful for some of the most incredible experiences. And some decidedly hair raising, (that word could also be traumatic…) ones that I am, with the gift of time and a lot of distance, equally grateful for.

    For the first few years after I left, I traveled back and forth to London frequently, visiting family and friends. By the time I left Ireland, I had made the decision to estrange myself from my remaining family of origin, and almost all of my friends in London had faded away as my life was being lived elsewhere. I left Ireland for Kenya with one child and one husband, I left Kenya 7 years later with no husband and 3 children.

    In 2010 I started working for Save the Children Somalia, and since the HQ was in London, the tendrils started to pull me back in – I had to travel back for meetings, conferences, and many other things. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been back and the first time I arrived in London, in Spring, it was like coming back to an entirely different city and country. (Note I mentioned that it was Spring..winter in London is a different experience…)

    I loved it. I felt joyful, I was in parts of the city that held no memories or meaning for me, I felt the buzz, the diversity, and for the first time, I saw that London is an extremely beautiful city.

    I still had no intention of returning, but I loved that I could see my hometown in this entirely new light. I’ve never belonged anywhere, to this day I do not feel allegiance to any one country, but I did like the fact that at least by virtue of my passport and my accent that I was as much a Londoner as anyone else there.

    Fast forward to 2014. Racism had reared its ugly head and I needed to protect my family and get them out of Lebanon. The world becomes a very small place when you are looking for safe, welcoming places for a bi-racial, neurodivergent family where the only breadwinner has a career working in humanitarian settings.

    Running the response to Ebola was one suggestion, but hardly a family posting. My eldest had recently finished university in South Africa and was with us in Lebanon, so we looked at moving to Cape Town. Looked hard in fact, and would have done so but South Africa made a sudden change in their visa requirements, making it impossible for us to go.

    Then a job in London was reluctantly offered. I ignored the grudging nature of the offer as it was the least the organisation could do, given I was forced into leaving a posting because my family was experiencing racism. Not least I had absolutely smashed the job I had been sent there to do. So I found a fantastic school for my youngest two, my eldest was going to do a Masters which I would fund and she in turn would continue to live with us and support with the two little ones, who were then 7 and 8 years old.

    They went ahead in late August 2014 so everyone could start their school and college years, while I finished up my contract notice period, to join them two months later. The two months when the reluctant London job offer was rescinded.

    Another story for another time. But despite that rocky start, we loved London. Thanks to a friend in Lebanon, I managed to secure a consultancy contract to tide us over, and all four of us began a new life in London. The little kids loved their school, my eldest had never lived in the UK before and missed her life and friends in South Africa desperately – it was a mixed time for her, but she also loved what London had to offer.

    From October 2014 to July 2015, I was incredibly happy. I felt proud that I had managed to set us up in London, that all of my children were thriving, we were all together, and that I could support my family somewhere that was undoubtedly good for them. I started to rekindle the joy, the love of life, the inner positive drive and I fed off the London buzz and energy, really feeling that despite all the setbacks, I could make it work.

    In July 2015 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I’m not sure, have I mentioned that life changing experiences just keep on happening?

  • Naked Education, Cancer and Crazy Pastors

    ‘My’ episode went out on National TV on Tuesday 25th April – it’s on All4 here if you missed it. Despite having streamed from the 4th April, the impact of the show airing seemed to be much bigger and obviously, reached many more people. Which is incredible.

    My experience of it going live was a little different. I already knew it would be challenging because I was in Zambia, four hours outside of Lusaka (where I am based for this contract). Internet connectivity is not great at the best of times, never mind outside the main city. I knew I might not get a chance to watch it since I would need a VPN which requires strong internet to work properly.

    What I hadn’t counted on was a lunatic, self-proclaimed pastor and ‘doctor’. To whom I was clearly a threat since power was the name of his game. Even without meeting me he apparently knew that I am not someone who is an acolyte nor stays quiet in the face of an abuse of power.

    He sent me a stream of increasingly insane and abusive e-mails, seeking, successfully, to exclude me from the whole reason that I was in this location. As abusive people do, he effectively separated me away from the 30 other people, thereby isolating and targeting me, resulting in me being alone in my room for 24 hours. While everyone else participated in the team building. Yes, he was there to lead a two-day team-building workshop.

    Have I mentioned before that my life is rarely dull? I talk about my life motto being ‘fuck it’ – but ‘you couldn’t make it up’ comes a close second.

    ‘Sonia, you are going to be on National TV running around in your knickers, talking about having no breasts, displaying your chest, and in fact your arse and all else, to everyone. However, don’t worry, you won’t be anxious about it because at the time it will air, you will be stuck in the middle of nowhere with a raving mad, abusive pastor’

    I managed to get out of the place after 24 hours and return to Lusaka, back to my lovely, lovely haven here which is a beautiful, peaceful, and a lunatic pastor free zone. And then I could start to engage with all of the incredible comments and messages that were pouring in after the show.

    I was blown away. The whole reason I did the show was to reach as many women as possible with messages of empowerment. Having breast cancer is terrifying, the very word ‘cancer’ strikes to the very core, and while you are reeling, you get onto this enormous rollercoaster and it sets off. Tests, results, more tests, doctors, nurses, a whole language of cancer you never know, drugs that almost destroy you, surgery, pin prick tattoos for radiotherapy. You hold on tight to the sides of the rollercoaster, feeling completely out of control with your head spinning and your emotions all over the place.

    And then one day you are out the other side, those of us who are lucky enough to get out, that is. Your entire life has been turned upside down, you don’t know yourself anymore, you don’t recognise your body, you have no idea what normal is and what the future holds. You know you have irrevocably changed, but do not know who the new you is.

    For me, getting my autonomy back, starting to make choices over my body, and deciding on what next was crucial. My mastectomies happened 3 and 4 years after my cancer diagnosis, just as I had started rebuilding my new normal. And holy shit, I nose-dived back into the whirlpool of grief, loss, terror, and, loss of control over my body all over again.

    So taking power back by deciding on a flat closure on the basis of then having extensive and beautiful tattoos, was incredibly healing. My choices, my decisions – no, I couldn’t keep my breasts, but I could control every single other step.

    It took 3 years and 8 months from start to end. From the first mastectomy to the first tattoo to the second mastectomy followed by over a year of tattooing. With a hip replacement in the middle, for good measure. Every tattoo session, every conversation about the design, every drawing, every, single part, gave me back some of me. The physical pain of the tattooing showed me how strong I was, the times I wanted to give up as I couldn’t tell the difference between the intensity of the emotional and physical pain. But I didn’t.

    In January 2023 I had my last tattoo session. My left arm has the birth flowers of all of my children, along with the Acacia tree flower, the national tree of Kenya. It also has the planets in the universe with the names of my children, as I tell them I love them to the universe and back. My left shoulder and chest have Japanese sakura, cherry blossom, for no other reason than I loved the beauty of it. And from the centre of my chest to my right thigh is the phoenix – suggested by my incredible oncology surgeon. The meaning, hopefully, is obvious.

    3 years of that healing process to get to stand up on television and give a message of power. Of choice. Of living life on its own terms. Of celebrating life, grabbing it, and living it, joyfully and with autonomy. It’s what I meant when I said on the show ‘this is the end product, I didn’t wake up after my first mastectomy and feel this way’.

    So to get the ourpouring of messages from people saying how much the show helped them, helped their loved ones, resonated, made them cry and made them smile is just incredible. Way more than I hoped for and I am immensely grateful to have been given the opportunity to reach people in this way.

  • Lakes and TV

    Lake Karina, Siavonga, Zambia

    I’m going to be on Channel 4 tonight at 8pm. Topless, proud, vulnerable, kicking ass. (And shiny faced)

    It’s 6.28am and the image was taken just now – I couldn’t feel more removed from the U.K. if I tried – it’s a very, very surreal feeling. I mean, I’m obviously far removed from the U.K., but I mean in terms of the show tonight.

    I’m on a team building retreat with a team who don’t really want to build at all and who certainly don’t want any boats rocked. I would like to do both.

    And I’m quite stressed by that – feeling a little isolated, vulnerable, again being the lone voice speaking out and feeling the anger from others when I name and reflect the truth.

    Which makes me sound like some crusader. I really am not, but I do real and I do honest – I do not do let’s pretend nor head in sand hiding

    So running around on national television in my knickers is not stressing me, speaking out here is. There is no comparison in terms of reach and scale, it makes absolutely no sense and yet sums up a part of me perfectly.

    Because the TV show tonight was huge for me – I imagine for all of us who appeared on the show. And it was for a purpose, to carry a message of power to women who have survived breast cancer. I challenged myself to get over my vulnerability because that message is far more important than just me.

    Therefore I grew, I tapped into everything I have and know, I went out fighting, so to speak, and bloody hell, was I going to shine. Literally as it turns out. If I’m going to strip on television, then I will drum up every hidden pocket of strength to carry it off.

    And the me who is here is right now, feeling exposed and vulnerable (with all my clothes on, I hasten to add) is also me. It makes no sense at all.

    I think I need to bring the two parts together. I’ll suggest we put the show up on the projector so we can all watch it as part of the team building. No, I won’t, but thinking if it makes me laugh as they are very, very religious and conservative and imagining their faces is hilarious.

    That is the thought and image I will carry for the day, and tonight I will hope my VPN and internet holds out so I can watch the show as it airs. And let myself feel a little proud that I dared do it, and did it with all I had in me.

  • An x-ray was closest I have come to sex….

    …..for a very long time

    Due to my lack of, and/or non functioning remaining body parts, wherever I travel I have to find good fixing people. Yes, that is the technical term.

    Here in Zambia I found a great, hands on, physio. Who referred me to an equally hands on x-ray technician. I feel the two roles are quite distinct and do not require the same level of touching, but it appears I am mistaken

    ‘Your hip and surrounding areas are extremely tight and restricting movement’. No shit, I’m in constant pain. ‘Before I treat it further, please get an x-ray to make sure the hip replacement hasn’t displaced’ Excellent advice.

    So off I trot on Saturday afternoon to dutifully get my x-ray. I arrive at the place where the large sliding door is almost shut, I manage to stick my head through and ask the gentleman if it’s open.

    It was and off we went to a small, dingy room with a metal table and a small x-ray above it. I lie down and then he starts positioning me – more like I’m a corpse than a living, breathing human.

    Grabs my shoulders to move me around, then my legs, then prods my hip bones followed by pubic bone prodding. Then the light goes off followed by more manhandling and prodding.

    At no point was it creepy – I can pick up creepy male vibes from 100 feet away – it was practical and completely objective. Which is why I had to stifle my laughter at the ridiculousness of it.

    Can you imagine that happening in the US or the U.K.?? No words, no permission requested, a male technician alone in a small room with a female patient – he’d be sued to within an inch of his life.

    This happened in the same way 5 more times. We even had me sideways with my legs splayed. Twice. Me repressing my laughter each time.

    On the very big plus side, my fake hip is fine and sitting exactly how it should. Hence my 16 mile walk yesterday, with a few more to come.

  • 16 miles, 25km

    Is what I walked today!

    I’m doing the 25th MoonWalk in London on 20th May – which is the length of a full marathon, 26.2 miles.

    The MoonWalk is to raise money for breast cancer charities and all people who participate do it in their bras.

    All people other than me, that is. Because if I’m going to get my breasts lopped off, then I’m going to make the most of things – one of which being never wearing a bra again!

    So I’m doing the MoonWalk topless. Me and my tattoos. I figure if I’ve just been on National TV topless then, fuck it, I can do 26 miles in London the same way.

    It conveniently starts from Clapham, near to where I live. And they have a great training schedule which I’m following – more than a little disrupted due to my work travels.

    I signed up while I was still in Iraq, figuring I’d be back in the U.K. from end of Feb and could train then, as I’d be having some time off. Right up until the rather sudden Zambia contract came about…

    Between earthquakes, general stress, swapping countries I didn’t manage to do my twice a week weights training. The training that keeps my errant (and painful) body parts in check.

    And of course they went mad – my left knee in particular. So that was up like a balloon – for the record – do NOT get surgery if you tear your meniscus, made mine 100x worse.

    Which made training for a power walking marathon…challenging. Back strength training with my fantastic trainer the past 3 weeks, walking here in Zambia, finding where and when to walk. As it’s dark by 6.15pm, I finish work around 5pm…there are bumpy tracks which my knee won’t take…

    So up at 5am on the walking days, get around 6 miles before work, and the long ones on weekends! Did I mention I did 16 miles today!!!??

    Feeling bloody great, albeit with a very sore knee – and really proud of myself.

    In case anyone wants to sponsor me – all the money raised goes to breast cancer charities, here is the link: https://walkthewalk.enthuse.com/pf/sonia-zambakides-7d5c1?fbclid=IwAR3zaOfMFbWZg1E49_Ev0Vb1Vh2lH6cn8kyh0o6DoGTTmVpm9Q3qkfby5WA

  • And I’m off

    For a change, I don’t know where…

    My life in one sentence – jump off a cliff and trust I will fly and land in the right place. And not crash. I know – two sentences

    The cliffs change, the destination changes – the overwhelm that builds up thick and fast leading to the cliff jump does not.

    I use the term ‘cliff jump’ because it literally feels like that – the journey to the cliff, the anxiety building, tinged with excitement, moving in and out of fear the closer I get.

    The ‘fuck it’ getting stronger and stronger, the internal and external pressure becoming almost intolerable, the drive to break free overriding the fear.

    The closer I get to the cliff, the louder the noise becomes. People constantly at me, the myriad of responsibilities I deal with daily start to crescendo. The to do lists, the demands, the requests, the reminders, the duties – they get louder and louder.

    When I get out of the car and start walking to the cliff, the knot in my stomach is the size of a football, but the excitement is larger. The taste of freedom is getting stronger, the feeling of soaring through the wind is joyful. The doubts are shouting at me – ‘you have no wings’ ‘you can’t fly’ ‘you will crash’.

    I stand at the edge and look up, not down. I don’t look behind, I lift my arms and I choose to feel the joy, the excitement, the pure exhilaration of being free. The noise is there, the fear, the anxiety – but I let them be.

    Then I jump. And that stomach clenching moment where I don’t know if I will drop and crash, or if the wings will come and carry me. The older I get, the more I have jumped and the more I trust the wings will come.

    The feeling when I feel the air under my wings, when I feel myself being lifted up and I am soaring is indescribable. The moment I’d pure joy, the freedom, the leaving behind all the noise and exploding with possibility and adventure.

    I soar and I don’t know where I will land. I know now from experience that when I land it will not be easy, it will require me to adapt, to embrace change. It will need a lot of effort to make it work. But fuck it, and fuck it again – I jumped. I made the change. I broke free.

    I’ve done this when I’ve left relationships, sometimes with a child on one hip, carting a plastic bag with my belongings. When I’ve left jobs without another to go to. When I’ve moved country, trusting the new one will provide what we need. When I thought cancer would kill me and I threw myself into the treatment.

    And now. I’ve written the first draft of my book. I will be on television in 2 weeks. I have a fantastic team helping me push myself out there on social media. This has, arguably, been in the making for a large part of my adult life.

    I haven’t yet jumped, I’m driving towards the cliff. The noise is getting deafening and I’m dipping in and out of overwhelm – the car is going slowly, but it’s moving and there is no stopping as it’s in motion. Perhaps train is a better analogy. Except I’m driving it.

    And terrified as I am, I can’t wait for the jump. Getting here, as always, has been a mix of rocky, hard, fun, pushing myself out of my comfort zone, doubting myself 100 times a day, feeling the passion and the drive. The latter is starting to win and get stronger each day.

    So watch this space. To date, whenever I have aligned my heart and mind and gone for something, it’s always happened. Perhaps not in the way I have envisioned – you never know where you will land when you jump off the cliff, but it’s happened.

    And now I’m putting myself out there – topless, shiny faced, raw, talking about the deepest and funniest things, writing. I’ve even set up a YouTube channel. Well, the lovely team helping me have.

  • Shiny face and power

    Topless, half naked (which auto correct somewhat accurately changed to half baked), upright and proud on a Channel 4 TV trailer.

    With a fucking shiny face. A friend kindly said, let’s use the word ‘polished’. Another pointed out that perhaps the fact I’m half naked on National TV is more eye catching than the shiny (polished) face…

    Shiny or not, I’m pretty proud of myself. Though I do wish I’d gone topless when I had boobs as well – albeit that would have been a whole other sort of TV show.

    It’s slightly terrifying, and as I do, I brave that out with bravado. Can you say ‘brave’ and ‘bravado’ in the same sentence? I think not, and yet I did 🤷🏻‍♀️.

    I am passionate about being an advocate for body positivity. For being unapologetic about who I am, how I look, what I choose to do. That does not mean I find it easy, because I don’t. It does mean I still do it.

    And it’s funny (odd) how people react. In this case, I have already been picking up some underlying tones of pity – something I viscerally can’t stand.

    I didn’t choose breast cancer. I didn’t choose the subsequent complications. I DID choose a flat closure mastectomy. I did choose to have beautiful tattoos. I did choose no reconstruction. I did not choose these to be pitied.

    I’m all about empowerment. About choices. About taking control, no matter what curve balls are thrown.

    And I’m all about my life motto of fuck it 😉

About Me

Leader, speaker, storyteller, feminist, body positivity activist living an intense, unapologetic life. I take space, I speak loudly, I call out bullshit. With courage, care, and deep empathy. I have spent my life making a positive difference to others through my work as a Humanitarian leader and now through my life experiences.

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