Putting on My Favorite Lipstick and Seeing a Living Person in the Mirror Again

Dear Delyara, The hospital gowns are gone, the medication schedules are finished, and the clinical smell of the wards has finally faded from my skin. But for months, when I looked in the mirror, I still just saw a "patient"—someone hollowed out by illness and fear. Today, I stood in my bathroom, carefully applied my absolute favorite shade of bright red lipstick, and put on a dress that has sat in the back of my wardrobe for a year. I looked at myself and I didn't see the fatigue or the shadows; I saw the spark of life back in my own eyes. I am not just a collection of symptoms or a recovery case anymore. I am a living, breathing person with a future, and I am finally back.