One day, you’ll literally fall on your face. Your body will have a message, but she knows you’re too quick to your head, so—rather than let you wander down rabbit holes of worry or false hope— she’ll send you flat on your nose.
No bullshit, no denial. She’s waited her whole life to faint, saved it for now. Pay attention. She’s trying to speak plain.
There’ll be a tiny pellet of shit stuck in your appendix. Hate to break it to you, but there just isn’t a dignified way for your body to tell you that. Your 4am internet search for “appendicitis or gas?” is going to set the stage, though.
This is all about communication, okay? Listen up.
You’ll be on the toilet tenderly probing your fingers along the right side of your torso when you notice the backs of your hands are sweating and you feel lightheaded. Your ears will be ringing, but you’ll finish your business and wash up all while asking yourself if this is what it feels like when you’re about to faint?
You’ll turn off the lights and crouch your way through the house in darkness, making it back to your bedroom just in time to faceplant into the carpet. You’ll come to on your hands and knees and forehead, by way of your nose.
You aren’t sure if you actually lost consciousness, but you don’t remember the trip to the ground. You feel a jarring ache in your neck, the moisture building in and on your nose. Blood? Probably. There’s nothing to do but accept this surrender to gravity. Just wait and try to find yourself.
Easy. You’re here. You’re okay.
… Right? You’re okay?
Yes. Breathe.
When you’re ready, you move slowly. You make your way to the bathroom, wash your face. Your carpet-skinned nose is bleeding, but it could’ve been much worse. Nothing broken, at least… Except for the gold ouroboros septum ring you bought yourself for your last birthday.
Your body knows you’re a sucker for a good metaphor, and she really is trying to speak in a language you can hear. It’s even a new moon AND eclipse. Give her some credit for the attention to detail.
You crawl back into bed. You won’t sleep, but you have to lay down. You notice the birds singing up the sun well before its light breaks over the horizon. Nothing to do but listen.
Later— after the trip to urgent care, the CT scan and the ER sending you directly to surgery— you find yourself sitting in a waiting room facing a huge window, overwhelmed and on the edge of tears. You notice the birds flying in the distance, the particular blue of the sky, the sunlit edges of clouds.
You are here. You’re okay. Breathe.
That happened to me, too, July 10-12, 2020. Suddenly in surgery after a really bad night. But I did okay and lived to tell the tale. Laparoscopic appendectomy. Now I can hardly find the scar though my body has a certain internal shifting around as legacy.