Today was a nondescript day...I'm sitting at my desk reading Slack et. al., for my OM course. Skinny Love spills out through the speakers on my desk and in behind my ears cuz I'm focused on my text. And I am fine. Except I feel a thousand miles away. Otherwise I'm fine. But then, as if, I don't know, some dumb ethereal being wanted to show me a slice of a different life, I am being told by a doctor I don't know that I need to be prepped for surgery. Now. Right this second. Why? Heart? Liver? Who knows, it doesn't matter. But right now. And I'm filled with a sense of dread cuz I don't feel strong enough to survive a surgery.
But whatever, it happens, I do survive...but, like I'm 17 again, I wake up on a respirator unable to breathe on my own. I bite down on the familiar tube and curse it. Unlike when I was 17, my family does not look hopeful and I feel physically awful...like my body was completely pulled apart and put haphazardly back together. Time feels...fleeting. And all I can think about is talking to you. I try speak but no one knows what the fuck I am saying. I writhe my face back and forth in abject frustration. Fuck all of them, I think. My brother grabs an alphabet board and tells me to spell it out. I spell your name one agonizing letter at a time. The looks on their faces... I recognize that no one knows who the fuck I'm talking about. Fuck!
Who does? Who will? I try to think through the meds and morphine. Time is slipping. Finally. Get Candice, I spell out. They know Candice. More importantly, she knows you. She'll know how to reach out to you from where I keep you. Waiting for her is agonizing. She does not take her time but it feels like I died a thousand times before I saw her enter my hospital room. She put her hand on forehead and smiles. You want me to find her?, she asks as softly as she asks anything. I nod and she takes my phone.
It's not 15 minutes before I hear your voice in my ear. I relax, my body relaxes and muscles let go a little. The pain becomes less noticeable and the future I care less about because I can hear you, my human medicine. You sound sad, your voice cracks...but you sing me a song. You fuck with me and start with Jay's Rap but you know all I want you to sing is Pink Floyd. You tell me who you think is unique but then you do the hard thing. You tell me it's okay. And you give me permission.
And that's when I'm back at my desk reading my text. Only now, Three Little Birds is playing and I'm a sobbing mess.
A few hours later, when I went to brush my teeth, this happened again. I'm staring at the white porcelain sink and before the brush can reach my mouth, I'm back on that fucking hospital bed listening you sing me a song and giving me permission. And when I come to? Sobbing into the sink like a baby.
It happened one more time after I returned home from dinner and I was reading Children of Ash and Elm in the evening light.
Honestly, I'm not sure what to make of it. I don't believe in fate and thinking this is some vision of the end of my life is the wrong lesson. Also, I'm not sure I believe in visions...unless one ingests something first. Anyway, I think it says something about you. I'm just not to sure what yet.
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