Tampa Is…?

Moffitt’s FACTors held their 19th annual Breast Cancer Education Conference at the Marriott Waterside Saturday.

All the participants wore colored lei’s. On my way in, I saw the chart that listed the key to all the colors.

• White - recovering <1 year.
• Green – 1-5 years.
• Purple – 6-9.
• Pink – 10+.
• Yellow – caregiver, family & friends.

Some people wore more than one. But the special ones, the ones I was scared to see coming, were orange. Those currently creating their own survival stories.

Standing in line waiting for a speaker, I chatted up a bubbly lady of 5 foot nothing wearing a white lei and a cute wig. I complimented her adorable appearance and she called me cute. Her husband asked if he was furniture, so we gave him compliments too. When women get together, regardless of circumstance, good things can’t help but happen.

Lots of people shy up at the opportunity to speak into the microphone despite the fact that they are full of things to say. For an unusually shitty salesperson, I am pretty successful at getting folks to open up to me. It makes me sad that my shyest people today were all Latino, not wanting to share their imperfect English with the world at large. So I told them to speak en Espanol. They opened up like floodgates. I love my job. Of course, I have no idea what they said. Will have to work on that.

Speaking of work, I used to laughingly refer to MNF as my fake/unpaying job. But for all the work and time I dedicate, I finally started referring to it as what I do. Because it’s pretty much the only thing I’ve been doing. I know it’s all words in my head, but a girls gotta do whatever keeps her coming back.