Anniversaries

Yesterday marked a double anniversary for me, the fifth of one and the first of another.

The first is my Death date. I spent the last half of my twenties being ill and by the spring of my twenty ninth year I decided I'd had all I could take. The doctors didn't know or care to find out what was causing my suffering and I had calculated another fifty years of suffering if whatever it was didn't kill me. Worse than the aching body, the constant congestion, the persistent soar throat and crushing exhaustion was the measurable decline of my mind as it drifted farther into a swimming fog.

The words went first. While writing a paper on women in politics I spent twenty minutes trying desperately to remember how to spell the very common word "which". This is how the rapid descent began and in only a few short weeks I was fumbling around not just for spelling but for the words themselves. I started to have difficulty following conversations, first what other people were saying but soon I couldn't remember how I'd started a sentence by the time I got to the end of it which is actually a much more important skill than you might imagine.

I already had enough credits for a Bachelors degree so I checked out of University though all my courses had been Honours level. Completing the final term seemed hopelessly impossible. I developed strategies to cope with the encroaching fog but, being overwhelmingly exhausted most of the time my favourite strategy was just to avoid people and not have to communicate at all. If people couldn't be avoided I learned to just watch their faces. If they seemed happy I would try to force a smile back. If they seemed upset I would try to feign sympathy. And it was a feigned, this empathy, because most days the only thing I could think about was how exhausted I was.

Eventually, I stopped fighting and the fog enveloped me entirely and one day I realized I couldn't tell how the person in front of me felt. I couldn't remember what feelings were. Intellectually I was terrified, but within a few days the only thing I knew was that I was tired and in pain and the world bothered me and this was no way to live.


So I decided to die. Actually, I cursed up at the ceiling and dared there to be a g*d and I dared that g*d to make a miracle happen because eighteen doctors later I was all out of good options. Of course picking a good date to kill yourself isn't easy, at least if you want to be somewhat sensitive to people who might miss you.


Easter was only a few weeks away, along with my brother's birthday and I really didn't want my suicide dampening that day for him, so I thought about May. Nothing says, "Thanks for giving birth to me Mom," quite like killing yourself so I moved on to June. June, it turns out, is Father's day and my father's birthday, and July is my Mother's. Why not, I decided, have one last summer with the family, really push yourself, make the effort to enjoy it as much as is possible and end it, appropriately, in autumn. I settled on August 31st for a tidy finish.



Three days later I was so sick I went to the clinic. I knew it wouldn't help but I was in too much pain to do nothing. But, the doctor was away on vacation. So I walked home and called a friend to cancel our plans for the evening. "Again?" she said, disappointed. I always canceled plans. I was never up for going out. As we talked about my ailments for the hundredth time she suggested something that triggered a google search, which lead to a skeptical internet purchase, that saved my life.

By Easter, again appropriately, I was only a week into my self treatment but already the brain fog had lifted. I was beyond jubilant, beyond excited, I was ecstatic. By the time August 31st rolled around I was healthy. I was happy. I couldn't stop grinning. The world is a beautiful place. Life is a beautiful thing. To be given a chance to truly appreciate that like I have been is a blessing beyond words and I haven't been able to stop being grateful since. So I mark my death date anniversary every August 31 in my own way, often with others who have no clue what they're helping me celebrate, but it's important to me that I mark it.


But this year, the day also marks a year since I've been kissed. Which is sad, in a what kind of loser am I way, yes, absolutely but what worries me more is the thought that the last kiss I had might be the last kiss I ever have. It was not a good enough kiss to be the last one ever. It wasn't even good enough to be the second last. Even worse than this though, is the paralyzing fear I have, that I will be kissed again and it will be even worse than the last kiss, so maybe it's best to leave well enough alone...