This Fucking Year
This was the year I saw death. Or, I saw a death. In the split second that the speeding car hit the man walking across the street, my brain refused to believe that a human body could fly up in the air so high. In that moment, I thought it was a piece of cardboard in the road that had been tossed up. But it came down too heavily and quickly to be cardboard and my mind caught up with the man I’d just seen starting to cross the street. It was dark. He lay on the ground by a utility pole, the overhead light burned out, the car fleeing.
This was the year I fell in love. Or, I thought it was love. In a whirlwind, I took a chance and let myself imagine that all the passion and excitement and delight of finally being with this person again meant love. He said it and I believed him. I said it back and believed myself. It didn’t last, it didn’t last very long at all but it was a splendid time. If I had to abandon a few parts of myself to chase after that love, then I got them back when he told me a few weeks later that he didn’t want this, didn’t want us, that there was no path forward, that he didn’t love me now.
This was the year that something inside me twisted. It twisted and untwisted for a few weeks, giving me an occasional deep ache that sort of felt like a pulled muscle, but not quite. A part of me was so restless and unhappy that it writhed and twisted until one night it twisted so hard it cut off its own blood supply and began to die. And it hurt, it fucking hurt so much. Sitting on the gurney in the emergency room, unable to hold on to any other thought than pain, I just wanted it to stop. And the only way to make it stop was to have a surgeon cut me in three places and take out the parts of me that strangled themselves.
Nothing about this year was anything I could have envisioned.
I didn’t know that bodies could fly up in the air so high, coming right out of their shoes. I didn’t know that I wanted to be in love, that I would be so willing and bold and foolish. I didn’t know that there was something within me that needed to die and be excised and that it would be so painful.
From this year, I will always carry the memory of the car and the way it hit his body without slowing down and the ambulance just sitting there at the scene. They loaded the man inside, but didn’t leave, didn’t drive to the hospital. And how I knew for sure then, that he was dead, because there were no sirens, no rushing away to save him. I will always think of the song I had to listen to over and over for a month after this, because it was the only thing I could stand to hear when I kept seeing the car and the body and the shoes.
From this year, I will always remember the way I asked if he loved me and he said yeah, I love you. And I said good, because I love you too. And how hard he kissed me and we laughed with joy and wonder and stayed up till almost 2 in the morning saying it over and over. It was so good and then it was awful and it will always be both but it was still brave. I will always think of the angry songs I listened to after that phone call when he ended it all. And the songs that I still can’t listen to because they make me think of him and I don’t want to think of him.
From this year, I will always have the scars on my belly. I will never forget that pain and the relief I felt to wake up from surgery with an ache that was new and different and so much easier to endure. I will always wonder if there are more parts of me that want to twist themselves up. What other sudden internal torsions are possible, what other things want to die just to get out of my body.
Because of this year, I don’t know what to envision next. Because of this year, I feel so grateful and so brave and so uncertain.
