The day before I started radiation and chemotherapy, we sat on my aunt’s dining room table trying to figure out how to make the coming seven weeks as bearable as possible. It was a warm day towards the end of April and I mostly sat in silence, feeling like I couldn’t possibly contribute anything meaningful to the conversation. I think part of it was that … Continue reading I need you guys’ help.
But I also know that I’m trying. That in the last few years, when I’ve felt angry, I haven’t rushed to bury it. That I’ve sat with it. That I’ve let it teach me, that I’ve let it make me furious enough to choose myself. And maybe I’ll always be the kind of person that quietly rages at big unflinching things—at gods who don’t see me and men who aren’t scared of me. But maybe the point the point is to stop raging at myself. Continue reading A meditation on anger.
Because I think apocalypses, more than anything, are personal. I survived my apocalypse. I’ve held my heart in my hand and watched the sun rise and for so many mornings, the universe’s utter indifference to my pain hurt so much, I thought it would kill me. Because why would the sun continue to rise when my world was ending? But beauty? That shit is relentless. And my heartbeat? It’s the most beautiful thing I know. Continue reading My little life.
So there’s that—harrowing grief that stretches and swallows me whole. I feel really small in the face of it and I’m running out of emotional real estate to house it. But there’s also progress. Sometimes I think of a pun and it makes me laugh so hard, my teeth hurt. Sometimes I catch myself talking to myself, and it feels like I’m high-fiving myself. Everyday I catch glimpses of myself and it reminds me that I’m here; that I am present; that I am getting back to myself. Continue reading Some things I know for sure:
I’ve always thought I’d die young. For most of my childhood, it was an unexamined thought sitting in my subconscious, quietly accepted, yet to be complicated with the arrogance and hysteria of young adulthood. I had no concept of “gone too soon”; unaware of my potential, untainted by ambition; not jaded by hope and dreams. I read Bridge to Terabithia and thought, “that makes sense.” … Continue reading Heartbreak is the only way these things make sense.
Once your death sits on the floor with you, it never quite leaves no matter how hard you scrub the floors. I am constantly out of breath. I will always be out of time. Continue reading But at what cost?
We often think that going through life-altering things is an all-consuming endevour. We think people with terminal diseases just sit around waiting for death. Continue reading You know what’s funny? I can’t feel my tears.
Survival. I love the word survival, it always sounds to me like a promise. -Audre Lorde. A few weeks ago, I cried. Like, really cried. It is a Saturday evening and I’m scrolling down my Twitter feed, distracting myself, trying not to cry. I have been dangling tears since I left my surgeon’s office. The doorbell rings, and I hear my aunt’s voice asking … Continue reading Survival.
You have friends that will stay on the phone with you for eight hours. No V, our relationship isn’t telepathic, but thank you for calling when you did. You have friends that will offer to pay and accompany you to a therapy session. You have friends that won’t let you forget you matter even when you’re being an incredibly pessimistic piece of shit. You … Continue reading 22 things to remember when you’re incredibly annoyed by your continued state of aliveness.
My second memory, is me throwing up in the toilet after a whole day of running around, moving into this house. My college was in a very hot and dusty town. This town along with school, killed my already elusive joie de vivre. Even now, fifteen months after I officially left school, there are parts of me that are yet to be reawakened; anxieties to be rationalized. By the time we got our house in livable condition, I was so exhausted and dizzy, throwing up was more logical a reaction than any. Continue reading The way music stays with you.
Clarie's Ramblings 