Serendipity

“I have always been tough. I have a will like steel. I am the nail and the hammer that hits it. I am the wolf. The lion. The last one standing. I do not cry in public, complain when I am hurt, or give up. I push harder. I am a fighter. But sickness? Sickness comes for you no matter how tough you are. I can try to ignore it, to push it away, but the truth is still there, hard and edgeless: I have lost something that cannot be recovered. There is something stubborn and unwelcome in my body, and it is stronger than my will. My illness is not a death sentence, at least not an immediate one. If all goes well, I have a lot more years ahead. The struggle now is to accept the dichotomy: to be sick and still be whole. To be sick and still be tough. To be sick, and maybe even to be tougher than I was before. Now I live side-by-side with the thing that hurts me. It is there when I laugh and kiss my boyfriend and write poetry. It is there when I take my pills, when my hair comes out in clumps, and when I can’t sleep from the pain. My sickness is there when I look in the mirror. It is not all that I am, but it is an inexorable part of me. I am finally beginning to accept that. Which is to say, I am learning to accept the world in all of its contradictions and live as best I can within them.”

This is how we find each other. Open hands and growing hearts. The sunset looks like cotton candy and it is the first color I’ve seen in years. When the bad things come at night, we start sleeping with the lights on. When the bad things come during the day, we start closing the curtains. This is how we find each other. Creaking wood floors and open windows. My hands have stopped shaking and there is milk in my coffee. We drink wine out of paper cups and there are marks on the furniture. The stubble on your face is a quiet reminder of how much growing we have left to do. This is how we find each other. Accidentally, like $20 in a pair of jeans you forgot you owned. Purposefully, like archaeologists running their fingers over ancient ruins. There is dirt under our nails and sun trapped beneath our skin. This is how we find each other.