I am writing a story. I am writing a story with my days and my nights and my body and its pain. I am writing this story and I don’t know what it’s about but I know it’s long and tedious and not well-written. And I am beyond exhausted with this particular plot line that refuses to get to the fucking point already. The one that goes like, “Im fine, I’m here, I’m whole” and then without warning, “I am BLEEDING. NO, LISTEN TO ME, IM BLEEDING AND IT WONT STOP AND I NEED TO MAKE IT STOP AND MY GOD I HAVE NEVER BEEN THIS SICK AND IM REALLY TOO YOUNG FOR THIS TO BE HAPPENING, RIGHT??” The one with scene after insufferable scene of me lying motionless on my bed, anemic limbs heavy and useless. This one, this story that won’t seem to reach it’s god damn climax be is triumph or tragedy. And I’m starting to feel like it’s not actually me writing this story, it’s that one prick in every creative writing class I’ve ever taken, who can’t write a narrative arc to save his life. You know the one who writes pages and pages of self-indulgent description just luxuriating in his own words. This story can’t get past the tiresome details: the blood splashed down my green rain boots, the nurse who sees it before I do, the piteous wailing on the toilet, in the shower, folded over in bed. Over and over and over. Month after month after month. The feeling of driving home from work and suddenly the terror takes hold in my stomach because I know what’s happening and I can do less than nothing to stop it. Less than nothing because I am in fact the one doing this. I am the one bleeding. Passive but somehow entirely to blame.
For a year I’ve been trying to psychologically jump ship. No thank you, not my kind of story, I’m not a fan of sagas and I’ll just set the book down now. But it’s finally dawning on me that if I don’t write the ending, it’s going to be one I can’t live with. I waffle between absolute self pity and acknowledgement of the fact that I am far better off than I could be, could have been; that I have something my ancestors didn’t: options. So I weigh those options even though it still doesn’t feel like this can be my life, like this could be the hand I’ve been dealt. Yes, please remove that organ but leave those. Or maybe we can just take out the not so good parts of that organ? Yes, just scrape it right out. Perfect. Leave the rest, please. Because you see, I’ve failed her, my body. This perfectly strong body that I thought would just go on taking me everywhere I want to go. I must have done something wrong and now she can’t keep going unless I make the tough call. Now it’s my turn, I have to do it for her. I have to write the final pages and get us out of this ordinary tragedy.