Today I realize how much the same we are. Our sicknesses, I mean. Although showing up in different orifices with different light, they are all an inheritance from the same virus. Our pain is one. Our breasts and our skulls lumped with tumors, our skin grading itself off like cheese. All our bones--curled little snails, those are all one pulsing pain, one violent scream.
I am going in for my MRI on Saturday, and I am resentful for this technology. This picture of my insides will turn the mystical, the glimmering unknowable into a dull-print diagnosis. And I will have nothing left to worship or fear.
It's possible I have MS. That I'll have to face a life of compromise and surrender. Constant surrender to the leeches on my nervous system telling me what I already know--I want to kill the self and exit this body. I want to become a river of sorrow and exaltation.
The truth--I won't see these results as punishment. I am already too tired for martyrdom. And, more, I know this pain will free me. I will no longer be caught in the web of wondering which way, and I will finally eat what I am given. I will cherish the flickering joy because probably it will be less frequent and more potent. I will be less shocked by disappointment and weariness. They will become like two old friends that are always fussing over the same dramas. And I will love them for who they are and listen to their whining over coffee (as if by ritual).
Yes, this new plot will do nothing but propel me forward in my evolution. Its weathering will turn my soul smooth and hard like a river rock, and others will want to hold me in their palm and remember their own gentleness.