of course i knew it was going to change me. i mean when you almost die it's all people talk about. not that i knew the rules. not that i could find one other person who was impaled 8 inches in the ass by a wine glass who could enlighten me as to what i had in store. but mygod it's all people talked about "these things change you". and hell change was hard to get around. i walked out my parents door on my own two feet wearing new black pants, a black ballet top, heals. i woke up 15 hours later on a metal table full of someone else's blood. i understood that things had changed and fast. what i didn't know was in how many ways.
i mean some of it was obvious. i had to come home from the hospital in an ambulance because i couldn't sit up. i was so weak i had to use crutches to get the twenty steps to the bathroom. and it took time. damn i wasn't dancing those days. i had a drain coming out of the top of my thigh. the constant feeling of warm thick blood on my legs. i had to lay flat on my back. and it hurt. ohmygod like grating on your very will to live pain. like i can't breath pain. like don't effin talk to me pain. and the drugs. so many drugs. i couldn't go up stairs. i couldn't bath myself. i could barely walk from the bedroom to the living room.
so this is how i drifted into the background of my very own life. this is how i stopped playing a center role. this is when i became a witness to a life i was too afraid to want to live. and so i passed a new england winter in a yellow room in the back of my parents house (i couldn't actually stay in my own room because it was on the second floor and we already discussed my problem with stairs). i read books that my friends named to me in lists, i wrote letters begging for a reprieve, someone else's moment to erase me, i listened to chopin on my discman and pretended i could fly out of my body and leave it all behind.
i did physical therapy exercises that involved things like lifting my leg while i laid in bed. when i was a little stronger i went to the mall in a wheelchair just to get out. went for long drives just for some light. stood as close to the ocean as i could just to smell someone else's air. and i threw up nearly everything i ate. i had nightmares. i hugged a heating pad. i opened care packages of lip glosses, poetry books, socks with grippy feet, pajamas, prayer dolls, flowers everywhere. i was astounded by the love around me but i didn't know what each day was for. the change was so complete i didn't believe in anything anymore.
people would say things. sweet, kind comforting things. things like "you are here for a reason". "you are so strong." "you look so much better than last week." and all i wanted to do was to throw something at them like a shoe. and all i wanted was something to scream too. and i wanted to know what the reason was for all of this. and what i wanted to know was why i had to be strong when they got to be weak and happy. and if you asked me then i would have told you that all i saw in front of me was nothing and all i had to lose was nothing and i got up each day and i did this breathing shit that i had to do because what else was i supposed to do.
these things change you.
