Moments

I have spent the last two years wishing that things were different, that I was a different person. The moments that have defined me have been the moments when everything overwhelms me, the moments where my reality comes crashing down and threatens to crush me, the moments when I feel I can’t take it for another second.

Do you know those moments? The moments when everything feels unbearable, like you can’t handle the pain of it for even one more second. The moment that comes right before the inevitable relief, when the pain lets up just enough for you to feel like you can breathe, like you can see and hear and touch and feel, like maybe you’ll be okay. Until two years ago, that was my experience. Then the universe decided to screw me over.

I’m sitting on the counter in my parent’s bathroom, the cold marble hard and uncomfortable against my bare legs. My mom stands in front of the mirror wearing a bathrobe, slowly detangling her hair with a red comb. She looks right at me.

“Natalie, is this real?”

I’m staring at the ceiling in my bedroom, I can see myself in the light fixture, my reflection completely distorted. I count the days in my head, it’s January 12th, making it almost three weeks since it started. I start to wonder if it’s all in my head.

I’m walking out into the front yard of Maya’s house after dinner. Earle follows me. I tell him I’ll see him on Monday. He answers:

“If you’re there on Monday.”

I’m laying on the uncomfortable green leather exam bed in Dr. Alex Zaphiris’ office. I’m staring at the paper cranes hanging from the ceiling, moving slightly from the breeze wafting in from an open window, and for the first time I find myself wondering what the hell is going on.

I tell myself I should be happy, I have my arms around my best friend, I’m officially done with middle school, and I’m not wearing uncomfortable shoes. The usually kind of quiet buzz of pain I’ve learned to live with is somehow louder today, and it’s in the background of everything I do, everything I say, and everything I feel. Her head is on my shoulder, my cheek pressed into her hair, and I know I should feel sad about leaving her, but the overpowering emotion in my brain is fear, fear of the future, fear that maybe the pain isn’t as temporary as I hope it is. It’s June 9th, and it’s been six months.

We fall back onto the bed, and I’ve never been more exhausted. She rolls over to look at me, hair fanned out behind her, her eyes meeting mine, and she smiles. The buzzing has become stronger by the second, and I can’t focus on her eyes, this girl who I’ve known for years, and I can’t fucking remember what color her eyes are, because the pain is blinding, and I feel like I can’t possibly take another second of this, like maybe this will kill me.

I spent hours pouring over pages, reading article after article, until every new sentence sounds like something I’ve heard before. I’ve always loved words, but these words don’t even register in my brain. The words don’t even process, because I’m so happy to finally have a solution, to look at my future and see that maybe one day I won’t feel like this, and I’m not mature enough to understand that a wrong answer isn’t better than no answer at all.

I’m sitting in English class when it finally clicks, when I realize the past two months of my life have been a lie. I think over every interaction involving my pain, my diagnosis, my miracle answer. I resist the urge to cry, and I try to stay calm. It wasn’t working anyway, I remind myself. I repeat over and over that this isn’t the end of the road, that there will be an answer, that I can do this, no matter how impossible it feels right now.

The world spins above me as I slowly sit up. I hear my name being called by more than one person, but my head is so foggy it doesn’t register completely. I focus on the pattern of the carpet, and fight to stay conscious.

I sit in the car with my knees pulled into my chest, my temple resting on the window. I push my hand farther into my heart, like maybe the pressure will lessen the pain.

I can’t do this anymore. I’m done. I stop taking the medication that makes me feel like I’m dying, I slowly return a little bit more to normal. The ever-present buzz of pain doesn’t lessen in the slightest, but I feel a little bit of me return to my life.

I sit on a cold stone bench in the Houston airport, and I can’t stop the tears from running down my face. I call three people that day, and for the first time I feel okay admitting how much this affects me.

I’m fifteen years old today. I feel like I should be fourteen, like the year of my life that has been consumed my the inferno of my illness shouldn’t count. It feels wrong, but I don’t tell anyone.

I walk into my room and almost immediately collapse. I feel the energy draining out of me. That night I sleep for nine hours, but the next morning I feel like I haven’t slept at all. I’m used to the feeling by now, it’s become my new normal, but this morning it shocks me. I feel like every single nerve in my body is on fire, like I could never possibly recover, it almost demands me to give in. I fight harder than ever, and somehow I make it through.

It’s three am and I stare at the ceiling. My body feels like it’s floating, my head spins, and everything is blurry. I make tight fists, I can feel my nails digging into my palms, but I continue to press, tighter, tighter, like if I can just make a tight enough fist then maybe I could stop feeling this way.

I turn off my alarm clock, and slowly sit up in my bed. Today is the first day of school. I had been hoping and hoping for a good day today. Hoping to feel just a little bit better. It didn’t work. Obviously someone all-powerful has a hit out on me, or maybe today is just another big cosmic fuck you. I feel like I was hit my a semi, and I can barely breathe it hurts so damn bad, but I push through it, because what else can I do?

Tomorrow is another day. It could be worse, or better, or completely unbearable, but somehow I’ve learned not to care as much. This pain has become a part of me, and while every single day I wish it didn’t exist, I wouldn’t be me without it. So maybe I can turn it into something positive.