sno & mint

For someone who claims to be as emotionless as I am, I’m extremely soft. I don’t care much about many things. I’m stubbornly set at unflappable and almost aloof, where someone can say something offensive and I won’t even bat an eyelash. Where I can calmly consider the best course of action as I continue to walk normally while a drunk man starts chasing me out of nowhere in the night. Where I can smile at the strangers offering me a ride as they cruise down the street. Luckily, nothing horrible has happened to me yet... somehow.

Distancing myself to a certain degree comes naturally to me. But I’m cursed with a seemingly limitless amount of empathy, which is ridiculous. I think people that stress over trivial things are foolish, but I know that they are different from me. And what seems like nothing to me may be the world for them. Maybe it’s because I don’t have any feelings of my own.

I do kind things. So people mistake me for being kindhearted. But doing kind things costs me nothing but my time and maybe my energy. I don’t go out of my way, but if I see that I can do something small and insignificant that would make them happy? I have no qualms about doing it.

Because they’re different from me. Because people take care of me, even though I know I don’t deserve it. What people won’t do for others, they might do for me.

I intended on sleeping in, but I woke up to the sound of a grown woman crying. I’ve always kept my distance, so I could only sit upstairs and try to understand what was going on without showing my face. But she just cried without explanation. I stayed away because I didn’t want to make things awkward. Because if it were me, I wouldn’t want anyone else to see me. But she is different. Maybe I should have gone downstairs.

I know nothing about her, but I know she’s alone. Perhaps the stress of raising the child on her own had become too much for her to bear after her mother left to go back home. I wondered if she was just overwhelmed for the moment or if someone had broken her heart. I empathized because she seemed so perfect, so put together. I thought she was so very unlike me.

I have all the friends I need, though I don’t have many now. I have just enough to keep my days from being spent in complete isolation and just enough to keep time saved for myself. I’ve always been funny like that. I grumble about not having any alone when I’m surrounded by people and I begin to feel lonely when I’m by myself.

I’ve had many friends of circumstance over the years. People I was very close to in those passing moments, who I’ve lost touch with over the years. People I worked with, shared my frustrations, watched their accomplishments in life, guided and took care of when they lost their way. No matter where I’ve been or where I go, there are always people taking care of me. I’ve come to feel like it’s an obligation of mine to lend a helping hand where I can.

I still consider those people I don’t talk to anymore as friends. It’s ok that we’ve lost touch and it’s ok that we’ve grown apart. Because they were there with me and we lived countless moments together. We laughed together, we danced together, and we looked out for each other in whatever misadventures we happened to stumble into. And they each shone brightly in their own ways that I’ll never forget.

It’s been many years since I’ve taken the time to consider Christmas. Things were different when I was younger, when I still looked forward to spending the holiday with people I loved and friends I cherished. It makes me wonder at what point did I lose that part of me. I haven’t cared for holidays at all for some years now.

I remember I still cared about Thanksgiving ten years ago. I remember being so disappointed at being stuck in the hospital while they raced to find a diagnosis for my condition. I remember feeling so weak and helpless, like my life would never be ok again. I remember walking around the ward at the nagging of my mother, feeling like my legs were so unfamiliar.

But they found that an IV drip of antibiotics dispelled my recurring fevers the day before, so I was allowed to go home with a port to administer it on my own. So I was able to spend Thanksgiving at home with my family, as sick as I was. And I was thankful for that. Even though the antibiotics stopped working right after and I had to go back to the hospital before I was sent to the city. I stayed there for another two weeks and ultimately got my answer.

I suppose I wasn’t the same after that and I was even further away after I had my daughter. I don’t know what I was thinking. But sometimes I’ll look back at old journals and read what I was feeling. The entries are sporadic and sparse, likely due to my joints being swollen so often. Sometimes I can recall fragments of the pain and the despair and I realize just how far I’ve come.

No matter how dark the times might turn, I have to remember that there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel. It might be bright and warm or small and barely there. But nothing lasts forever and I know that I can find slivers of joy in the tiniest, most obscure aspects of everyday things. 

It comes and goes in waves. 

Sometimes, I think I’m strong and I can take on whatever this world has to throw at me. Other times, I spend my days curled up in bed, in and out of sleep, dreaming about a life I’d never have while watching the days pass into night.

Sometimes I try to remember what it felt like to be normal. I wonder if it’s because I was diagnosed with Lupus that I feel it all the time. Maybe if I was never diagnosed, I’d still believe that I’m normal now.

Most days, I pretend like I am. I pretend that I don’t have Lupus and it seems to work well because I can smile as if everything is alright. I can push through the fatigue and convince myself that it’s not there. I can disregard the swollen joints and the mysterious symptoms that come and go before anyone can see them. My illness is invisible and in some ways that makes me thankful because it makes pretending so much easier. But it’s hard in more ways because I know I don’t look sick and I don’t want anyone to think I’m just lazy.

Sometimes I think that I’m too good at pretending. Because I begin to realize that I have no idea who I really am or what I’m really feeling. Am I ok? Or have I pretended to be ok for so long that I don’t know how to feel like I’m not. Am I happy? Or have I managed to fool myself so well that I can’t discern real happiness from fabrications of my mind.

I feel like... in order to keep living, I have to be ok.

You ever look back on your life and realize that your prime has passed? I’ve done it quite a few times now, but I’ve always found that life seemed to like to give me second, third, and fourth chances. 

I’ve never considered myself lucky in the sense that I’d never win the lottery... or any lottery. I was lucky in other aspects of life, but it seems that my luck has finally run out.

I used to be beautiful. I used to be wanted. And I used to love life and all it had to offer me, even though none of it was perfect or what I would have chosen for myself.

I was happy.

But even now, I consider my past and wonder... if I had the chance to go back in time and try again, would I change my choices? I’ll admit that I regret many things in my life, but I don’t regret the connections I made and the people I’ve met. I find that I wouldn’t trade them for the world, even if my life is less than ideal. I can’t imagine what life would have been like without them. Even though they’re not right beside me anymore, our moments shaped me and the memories keep me warm inside.

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