In Whch the Other Foot Drops

So, my little peonies.

I am dead. I am a soundly crushed thing, so bested and beaten that I can't summon muscle tone, apart from these typing fingers. I really don't even want to get in to why, as any mention of it leaves me cold.

I have spent the better part of my life as a battering ram, daring the challenges to come so I could rejoice in the moment of impact. No matter how bad it got, some combination of attitude and pig-headedness got me through to the other side. I can't fight anymore. There is nothing left in me. Only a resonant, empty chest where every thud rolls from wall to wall like a cathedral. Only brittle, hollow bones like a bird. And yet, there seems to be just a little bit more. Enough to get me out of bed, to see my teeth brushed, my errands run. I do feel at the end of my rope. I'm not much of a crier, but lately I've found myself sobbing like a child, sagging against trees and support beams of bridges, unable to stop myself. The tears of a child who has tried everything to win the game, but just doesn't seem to have anything resembling a winning hand. I am out of things to try. I am out of rose colored glasses to change the tune of the song, when I can't turn off the radio. I am out. I have been wrung dry. I am fucking empty.

I turned off the lights to go to sleep last night, tucking myself in with the last remnants of my stoicism.

"We are fine. This is fine. It's a matter of attitude. Find the blessing. Find the lesson. We are fine."

Over and over again, I repeated this in my mind. But, ladies and gentlemen, we are not fine. I am not fine. Somewhere in the middle of this mantra, the dam broke. Cue the floodgates. Not small tears, but big, juicy, fat ones. Until they were no longer separate droplets, but great sheets of salt water pouring down my face, into my nose and gaping mouth, stretched wide with pain, almost yawning.

I don't think I've ever come closer to suicide. I could have reached out and brushed up against it's plated scales with a finger. Closer, maybe. I could feel it's cold breath like hands on my shoulders, pulling. In all of my years, in all of my battles of every kind, I have never been so close to letting myself be pulled under. Over and over again, images of me telling my family and friends the news would slap up against me like waves, tugging.

What is the plan? What is the plan? All I need to find my way out of this hopelessly tangled necklace is to find the best plan. How can I make the best of this? How can I best survive this? How can I survive this at all? What is my next move? In a quiet moment, sticky with half-dried tears, I realized that I had exhausted my options. There were no feasible maneuvers on the chess board. There was no good way, anymore.I watched my future play out in my mind's eye. It wasn't enough currency. The price was higher still.

I pictured all of the ways I could end. All. Of. The. Ways. I formulated a dozen prototypical plans. After twenty three years of trying to do what I thought everyone else would want me to do, and succeeding, despite all universal interference screaming at me to cut it the fuck out, the straw floated gently down, nestling amongst its brothers before the added weight snapped the camel's back in two.

I knew how I would do it, after an hour or so of bizarre, frenzied planning underneath the covers with wide, panicked eyes. For the second time in my life, I realized that I COULD do it, too. Stabbing down in one swift motion before the better half of my brain could catch up with me, much like ripping off a band-aid. Easy as a dream.

I waited for some idea to flicker into my mind, to save me. One did. I spent the rest of the night covered in snot, planning a move to Massachusetts. My heart started to beat a little faster. Is that a thing that someone could possibly do? I ironed out the details in my mind, as far as my ironing arm could reach. I could pawn my belongings. Pile what was left into a car. Drive. Drive. Drive. Put a thousand miles in between me and this exceptionally sweaty hell on earth, where god has salted the fields, ensuring that no brilliant seed of mine would take root. Where every effort blows away in the wind, weightless. Anchor-less. Drop this degree as easily as one brushes away a mosquito. It's weight on my shoulders would make the dropping easy. Just let it slide down the ol' arm, catching for a second on the fingers, then...thump. So beautiful. To just let this go. To hit reset. To start back where I was before I ever came here and did this forbidden thing out of fear of poverty, and the fear that I would not find my way to successful adulthood unless a pre-packaged way had been rolled out like a carpet before me. Choose the pre-sets, Davis. You can't go wrong.

The universe started giggling when I made my choice, I think. The laughter has surely by now grown into a roaring guffaw. I picked all wrong, and have done, my entire life. I have allowed my incessant worry wart-ism to inform all of my major life decisions. Before I began nursing school, I knew it was the wrong choice. I remember vividly the moment when I realized this, sitting in the front row of my favorite psychology class, in the last semester of my first undergrad degree. I knew I would much rather be going to graduate school for psychology, but I was already so far into my nursing applications,and my mom was already so happy and invested in this future for me. I was afraid to tell her. I was afraid to move on this knowledge. I closed my eyes and hoped it would pass.

I have paid the price for letting my fear lead me by the hand. I wonder how much longer I will have to pay that price.

I wonder what the answer is. I wonder where my muscle tone is. I wonder what to do. I wonder how to do it.




I woke up, this morning.