The House

This house, pictured here, stands on the corner of my parents' street in NJ. It has long been my favorite house in our small coastal town, but lately it's had an odd effect on me. It's my reminder of the dreams I had as a girl, and if they'll ever fully be mine again.

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I stand here for a minute while the dog sniffs around, and I picture a game of football on the lawn, a tussle of cousins and siblings with grass-stained jeans and Giants jerseys on their backs. I look closer and I see not only my extended family, but a partner and kids of my own in the mix. 

Yes. Three kids, I think, looking up at the tree for a spot for the World's Coolest Fort. Maybe even more than 3. All boys with sturdy, Scottish and Irish and French names. 

And good health for them, and for me too. No durable medical equipment attached to my body, just maybe a kid or two in a sling across my chest. I picture cartwheels and sprinklers and childhood, unfurling across this blank green space.

I stand at this house and I think about this dream, the one I've given up on, the life that I'm certain I do not want.

But there's something about this house, this lawn, that has me thinking of the adventure I'm most afraid to embark on. It has me wondering if I'll ever have the courage to pursue it, and if I really ever can.

Does this house remind me of my girlhood innocence, or does it soften my jaded edges and impulses, the ones that tell me I am too sick for this life, that I belong on the road? Or, maybe, is this house telling me that the dream is still a possibility, and it is one I must pursue?

There is time, I think, as Shea pulls her leash, eager to sniff some new grass. And I need more.

this is just how it is.

last week i was tripping all over the wires and wednesday i broke free, out of that small, crowded room with a screaming roommate and a pain so visceral i cringed.

the middle of it all is okay because i don't have a choice but to live it. it is now, afterward, when i can do nothing else but remember it.

everything i understood left me when i took out my IV and discharged myself.

what remains is a blank space where all the things i can do, wanted to do, have disappeared.

when i came home, the phone was ringing off the hook. the screen was filled with one, two, three four text messages.

a stranger asks how i am feeling and i can talk to them. i spit scientific facts, details, banalities.

i know what to say to them. i am just a name on a chart.

but to the ones i love, i send out the mass text messages and forget to return calls.

i hibernate, because i don't want to explain why instead of feeling better, i feel worse.

i am grateful for this flood of support, for all the ears straining to hear my complaints, for all those whose arms are outstretched, just waiting to help.

but i don't want to be like this anymore.

i would like to walk ten miles and only complain about two.

i want to understand more than just the prick of the needle, the instantaneous pain.

i want to know what happens after.

i took out my IV myself, so why can't i do more?

all i know is this: i want to go home.

with that hand on my back, with the curtains drawn.

no expectation. no explanation.

no need to do anything at all except sleep,

sleep,

sleep.