powered by SignMyGuestbook.com
powered by SignMyGuestbook.com
|
Reflections on 7 Years
2004-08-31 - 1103400179 Seven years ago I learned of the death of Princess Diana from a hospital bed where I was recuperating from a near-fatal episode of theophylline poisoning. The asthma drug had built up to a toxic level in my blood without my knowledge, as I had increased my dose so that I could continue to work as an Americorp pesticide safety trainer to migrant workers. I was giving trainings out in the fields and in sheds where the pesticidas were stored, and it played havoc with my allergies and asthma. I had no idea that I was slowly poisoning myself with theophylline. The day after I learned that my boyfriend of the past 8.5 years, the Dago, was cheating on me and we split up for good, I collapsed in full cardiac arrest and wound up in ICU for 11 days. When I was finally taken off life support and was breathing on my own, I turned on the tv, and they were announcing Princess Di and her lover had been killed in a car wreck in Paris. I remember being astounded that I had cheated death and she, who was so beautiful, famous, and the doer of so many good works, had succumbed. Almost dying turned out to be a life-changing experience for me. Although I was in profound pain, both from the emotional betrayal and abandonment of the Dago and the physical pain from the resuscitative efforts of the EMTs and nurses, I was alive, and my life still held possibilities. I had the chance to begin anew, and I did. I found new friends who weren�t backstabbing bitches who couldn�t wait to kick me when I was down, and renewed old love with the Indian, who had come between the Dago and I years before, but I had sent him away. I changed careers, becoming a paralegal and working for Supercunt the attorney. I settled a lawsuit with a former employer and made the down payment on my house. My life totally changed for the better. I truly learned that what does not kill us makes us stronger. Seven years later, I again stand at a crossroads. While not nearly as dramatic, I am faced with another life or death dilemma as I grapple with the knowledge that I have two potentially fatal diseases inside me. I am starting to wonder just how many times this phoenix can fucking rise. I am not as strong physically as I was in 1997. I am older, and there�s not as much fight in me now as then. I�ve lost a lot of people that I cared about in the years between then and now, to drugs, to death, to anger that could not be stemmed. I�m tired. There are days when I can�t muster the energy or initiative to get up out of bed and greet the world. I�ve spent the majority of my life swimming against the tide, and I long to just flow effortlessly toward the open sea, become part of the next wave crashing on a distant shore. I want release, surrender. I want what is easy instead of that which has become so elusive, so hard to achieve. I don�t know where my life is heading. I don�t know what I�m really here for, what lessons life has yet to teach me. I know I have decisions to make that I have chosen not to make. �If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.� I think I need a break, or I will break. The properties of my soul have become to brittle to bear. �
still here - 2009-12-18
|