down the mountain {2/11/21}

Once upon a time, in 2011, my body fell apart.

It happened slowly. Slowly enough that I could pretend it wasn’t happening, or that it wasn’t going to get any worse, and every time it did I would say “well surely this is it. things are going to get better now.” And then they didn’t.

I saw every doctor, chiropractor, physical therapist, massage therapist, acupuncturist, and intuitive healer that people recommended. Still, it got worse.

I bought children’s clothing, because I’d lost so much weight it was all that would fit. I cut off all my hair, because I’d always wanted to, and if I was going to die why the fuck not? I was in constant pain. I stopped walking. Stopped working. Stopped doing anything but watching Law & Order reruns, popping Xanax, and googling symptoms.

But, as you can probably tell, I didn’t die. I finally got a diagnosis—Gastroparesis—and a treatment plan. I started putting weight back on. Slowly. Slowly. I started making and sharing photographs—one every day. I started writing again. I went to Buddhist church. I read books and meditated and planted flowers. I got another diagnosis—labral tear and hip impingement—and a surgery. My body stopped hurting so much. I could walk again. Ride a bike. Dance. I wasn’t the same as I was before—I still had a restricted diet, and still sometimes had problems with pain—but I was okay. I was okay. Which to me felt nothing short of a miracle.

It was a weird thing that happened. No one knew why. But it was over.

.

.

.

Until it wasn’t.

It came back slowly. Slowly enough that I could pretend it wasn’t happening again, that it wasn’t going to get any worse, and every time it did I would say “it isn’t that. this isn’t the same.”

But it is.

There are hollows in my collar bones. My rings slide off my fingers. My back and hip joints slip and grind, and my muscles spasm around them. I feel that same scramble, like an animal clawing madly at bald ground while they slide down the side of a mountain.

The first time I got sick I took a lot of comfort in Anne Lamott. In her book Traveling Mercies, she says:

“When a lot of things start going wrong all at once, it is to protect something big and lovely that is trying to get itself born—and this something needs for you to be distracted so that it can be born as perfectly as possible.”

In my case, the big lovely thing was my actual children. I’d wanted to be a parent for years, but, in the wake of my brother’s death, I had been paralyzed by fear. Fear of loss. Fear of love. I was shattered, crushed, and everything that touched the open, gaping wound of my heart was excruciating. But somehow the physical pain of my illness, the physical act of watching my body melt away, obliterated all my fear. And when I was healthy again, I was ready. I was certain. I knew exactly what I wanted.

I don’t know what is waiting to be born this time, and honestly, I’m scared. Scared it’s nothing, and that I’m just going to be hurting and sick for the rest of my life. Scared it’s something, and that I’m not ready for it. (And that I’m still going to be hurting and sick for the rest of my life).

I’ve been hesitant to say much about where I am, because so many people are suffering right now. Like really, really suffering. But if I learned anything from the first time, it’s that you don’t have to win the gold medal in the pain olympics to be genuinely hurting, and that nothing gets better until you talk about it. No one ever gets through anything alone. In fact, we’re all sliding down the mountain together right now, hoping that something big and lovely is trying to get itself born.

I don’t know what it will be—not for me, or you, or the world. But it better be fucking huge.