The last few years have been a long-distance marathon away from a pick-your-poison selection of darknesses. The state of being me felt unrelenting and impossible to bear — In my mind, I was not running towards anything better, I was just running away. I was plumb out of fight, so all that was left was a panicked flight to keep the shadows behind me — hard to do when you’re not necessarily setting the sun as your destination.
I found this essay yesterday while searching for something else. Since today is the fourth anniversary of Rachael’s stroke, it seemed apropos to share it here this morning.
When I wrote Drawings From the Top of the Seasonal Affective Disorder Rollercoaster, I portrayed October as the top of the coaster, poised over the abyss of winter. It’s more complicated than that. While I love Halloween, the track to get there is full of potholes.
Two years ago a phlebotomist came into my room at 5 am. She inserted a needle into the crease of my elbow like someone had once every few days for the last two weeks. I was amazed they were still able to find a vein. Nothing stands out about that particular needle stick. It melts together with all the rest of the early morning wake up calls that involved someone standing over me with a needle and vacutainer.
I don’t know if I had ever even heard of Jason Chaffetz until this morning and yet, by lunch, the Utah republican had basically broken my brain. It was not his fault alone, the camel was already begging for a merciful death before Chaffetz ever added his victim-blaming straw. The first thing I read this morning was a breakdown of the GOP healthcare* plan. This is why we can’t have nice things. Because they walk right in, snatch it up, tell us we don’t deserve it, and then take it home for themselves.
If you are anything like me, you have likely read about a kazillion birth stories since the moment you found out you were pregnant for the first time. I have read everything from accidental unassisted homebirths to hospital horror stories. From beautiful water births to straightforward c-sections. I don’t know that I have ready many details about preterm c-sections.
My relationship status with nostalgia apps like Timehop and Facebook’s On This Day is, “it’s complicated.”