hell

the vitamin d helps and the cozy house i come home to and the arms waiting there for me. and i am buried. and today it's going to snow and i have been cold since i woke up. and time is building bridges and valleys between ivan and me that used to be steps and streams. month after year and i don't miss him any less he has just gotten farther away than i ever wanted him to be.

i am adjusting to my new reality. i am breathing again. i am learning to grocery shop with a crutch and a cart and to not cry when i see my car waiting for me in that handicapped spot. i am trying to hold onto hope but i am trying to be realistic. i am trying to not be afraid. i am trying to not think of the next test til the next test comes. i am trying to see the hospital halls as full of life of the grey's anatomy dating/sex/human kind instead of the prison it has felt like to me all these years.

people always talk about living in the present like it's a good thing. but that terror that leaves you blank to everything outside of you. living in that moment. having that be your present.

it is hell.

days

yesterday was the most amazing moon. and we sat by a fire under blankets and watched the sky and listened to the fire cracking the wood and it was perfect. all week i had a fever so i was laying low. no office stairs. no running around. my leg felt normal. so i started small back to my old old physical therapy exercises from back before when i was first recovering. and my leg felt normal. and so today i did a little more. nothing big. the tree pose was all. and now my foot is numb and my leg hurts so bad i can hardly sit still again.

i remember in those early days the doctor told me that in recovery there are good days and bad.

it's easier to push forward when you stop taking score.

Holding Hands

& winter rain that remembers spring
& notecards with scalloped red edges &
long sleeves with short boots.

you weren't here but i knew you too.

waiting

waiting is hard. today my leg was a little stronger. i could walk around the house without my crutch and didn't need my pain meds til nearly 9 pm. we went out to get some sun and i am not used to going out like this yet. people are so rude. i mean what kind of ass hole knocks into a person on a crutch? apparently alot of people. it's hard enough for me to walk without people knocking me over. do people think this is easy? do they get that if you need a crutch it's probably hard for you to get around? i cried in the parking lot and joe took me home. it's better there. i almost feel normal when he is next to me on the couch and we are watching some old 90210 episode on netflix.

if only i could just stay here and not leave.

the truth

the truth is that it's hard for me to hear about how hard the life growing in your belly is slowing you down when this disease in my veins is taking away my leg right before my eyes and there is not one thing i can do about it. the truth is i can't sleep at night because it feels like there are a hundred firecrackers going of right under my feet and it hurts more than anything i have ever known and yet i am also relieved because more of the time i can't feel my foot at all and that is a terrifying feeling.

i am full of terror.

i can hardly breath. or listen. or give a shit about charlie sheen or traffic jams or your hangover.

this is too much. i have had enough.

this is too much.

and i am not okay. and i know you need me to lie to you and say i am because that is what i always say. and all that other stuff all those other worse days they just keep getting better and sometimes i wonder if maybe i was meant to die on that day and if maybe this is how fate evens the score.

mri

she is listening to me but pointing at them. i am watching things as they fall down.

i am listening to the sounds that ivan is receiving.

joe is behind me but i move so fast. spiral staircase and the noise coming out of my throat is carrying me. i can't let her fall.

the loud crashes. mri sounds. pink lights when i close my eyes. i think it was a panic attack. i don't think the machine was really burning my back.

right after the lady in the scrubs moved my bed into the tube she said 'what a way to go. how did she die? she sat on a wine glass. can you imagine?'

what i want to say is 'i have struggled for 7 years to stop imagining just that.' instead i say nothing.

finding my footing

the last couple weeks have been hell for me. my leg is shit. i can hardly walk. i left the doctors with a gimpy crutch prescription and a handicapped placard. i feel so worn down. and maybe i have spent so much of my post-accident life fighting for each step forward that i forgot to take the time for acceptance.

for breathing.

because my leg is bad. and it's only going to get worse. and i don't know how i will ever be able to carry my own child in my arms. hell i don't know how i could carry a baby in my belly. all that extra weight. all those details that never occurred to me in the trauma of surviving.

i have survived.

and now i have to learn to live with this.

and some days it breaks my heart. some days i wonder why i have to go through all this. some days i don't feel "lucky to be alive".