apples and oranges

You really have no idea how you’re going to react until it actually happens to you. I mean, you can think about it as much as you like. You can stay up nights, chain-smoking and drinking strong-as-fuck tea, and think it over and over and freak out on the inside and even cry a little until you are thoroughly convinced that you know exactly how you would feel if it happened to you, because you have “basically just put yourself there,” but I’m telling you now, all of that will not give you a fucking clue.

Trust me: I know.

I thought I knew how I would respond. Fuck, I thought I had practically already experienced it a thousand times over. I mean I have the most incredible imagination - really, though. My imagination is so crazy it freaks me out sometimes. Like, I can visualize something and then feel it – like really feel it. It will happen at the weirdest times too. Like I can be walking down the road, and just listening to my ipod – you know, just walking home from work or something – and I won’t be thinking of anything much. I’m just in my own little world, holding onto the straps of my backpack, and I’m looking down at the sidewalk making sure I’m avoiding the dog shit that people never seem to want to pick up – what’s up with that, anyway? So I can be walking along, and maybe a bus will drive by – or a big truck – something with those big wheels with those big tires that give me the fucking creeps. And the bus, or the truck or whatever, will drive past and I’ll feel it. SMACK! Like I just got hit. And I’ll have to stop right where I am, like, right in the middle of the sidewalk, because I feel like I’m going to be sick. And I hold on to my stomach and I clench my fists and I feel a cold sweat come over me and my heart is racing because I have the most perfect picture in my mind of having just been hit by the bus, or the truck or whatever. Like the driver never even stopped or hit the brakes or anything, and just smacked right into me and mowed me down. And maybe I picture that my head was crushed and I feel my brains, like I can see them, fall mangled and torn apart and looking like spaghetti somehow, and I feel them falling out of the spaces between the bits of crushed skull. And my body is still and it’s really hard to tell if I was a person or a dog or what I looked like at all. And the people on the other side of the street are covering their kids’ eyes, like to make sure they’re not traumatized for life, and are sort of acting like they just can’t look, but they’re really peeping from behind their hands to see what happened to that girl who just stepped out without looking.

So that’s why I was sure I knew what it would feel like. I mean, I’ve thought about this stuff so many times before. I think about everything. Like, what if, you know? I’ve even lost sleep over it. And I knew, I just knew that I would feel it, like if ever it happened to me, I would have these waves of emotion and it’s not like I would tweet about it but I mean, I could never keep that shit in. I’d tell my girlfriend first, of course, and let her talk about her feelings, and then my sisters and Mum and Dad and my brothers and of course my best friends, and probably my friends who’ve already been through it, but I don’t know ‘cause I wouldn’t want to burden them or whatever. And I would put on a brave face, and maybe blog about it, and let myself cry, you know – like feel my feelings, and probably eat only raw and basically heal myself through positive thinking and self-help CDs, like Louise Hay and all that shit. And I would have a really good sense of humor and I would probably make friends with all the nurses, and I’m not saying I’m, like, something wonderful or anything, but it would basically be a life-changing thing, not a life-ending thing, and I was pretty sure it would bring out the best in me, you know? I mean, if it ever had to happen.

Still. Nothing really feels the same as actually experiencing it for yourself.

I was in the shower, and I figured I should check. I mean, here I am, like 23 years old, and I’ve just been talking to my friend on the phone about this shit, and he’s been on at me to check because I think he knew some girl that had it or something. I don’t really remember what his reasoning was to be honest, but I remember he had asked me about it, and I sort of thought it was really cool that he would even think about this stuff, so I made a promise that I would check.

So I’m in the shower, and I never fucking do it because it makes me feel sick to my stomach for some weird reason, even though I know I’m supposed to do it because it’s part of being a woman and all that bullshit, but I figured, I promised. And so I do.

And then everything fucking stopped.

I didn’t even have to hardly feel. That’s what’s so fucked. I mean, it was right there. I just lifted my right arm, and soaped up and started under my armpit, just like I’d been told, and I felt it right away. It was like an apple. Like a small, sort of soft apple that’s been sitting in the fruit bowl for the last week ‘cause no one wanted to take it for lunch, and now there it was, just hanging out in my chest.

And everything stopped except the shower running. And it all got quiet and really clear and slowed down, like the light coming in through the window got brighter somehow, and I felt stark naked. I mean, of course I was naked, and no one else was in there, but I felt like I needed to cover up, like I was exposed or something, like I needed to hide. And I was really aware of the green of the bathtub, like a sort of foresty-olive green, and I could see the how the light made the water from the shower sparkle like dust in the air, like each drop was in slow motion and each drop reflected the sun. And even though the water pressure in that house kind of sucked, it felt like it was hitting my skin harder and faster than usual but it was like my skin couldn’t feel it anymore, like when you go to the dentist and your face is all anaesthetized – my skin felt like that. Like rubber. And I stood there, half soaped-up, with the bubbles sort of running down my stomach and swirling in pools at my feet, with my right arm still up in the air, and my left hand just stuck there, frozen on that one spot. And my heart was pounding so fucking fast, and my breathing was shallow but slow, and I felt so fucking nauseous and cold on the inside, but my face, it felt like it was burning up and I couldn’t swallow or move or anything.

And I just stood there: quiet and frozen and naked with one hand up still, like I had a question for the teacher.

But of course I didn’t. I didn’t have any questions. And I didn’t want to call anyone. Or cry. Or feel any fucking feelings whatsoever. All I wanted to do was get out of that shower and dry my rubber skin, and wrap myself up in warm clothes and tell no one - no one at all.

So I didn’t. I sat with it for ten days before even calling my doctor. And I didn’t tell anyone else a thing. At night I felt full of this bright white panic, and during the day I would sometimes have to hide in the bathroom for a minute to push the tears back inside, but apart from that I felt calmer than ever.

And you know the really fucked up part? Even in all that, even in all the quiet and silent panic and false calm and holy-shit-it’s-happening, I still got it wrong. Turns out, that apple was nothing. I mean, really nothing. Like, I thought I could feel a cancer like I felt my brains hanging out, but really there I was, just fucking fine. Like, just fine. Just reacting to something like I thought I knew how. Like really, nothing wrong at all. And it’s almost embarrassing even telling you this whole thing, because really, I thought I knew so much.

But you never really know shit until it happens to you. Trust me: I know