About bleeding wounds
“The year of magical thinking”
As someone that is interested in witchcraft, I expected to read about the Law of Attraction and manifestation.
It was inevitable for me to understand that this was not a book about positive thinking techniques, when I picked up Joan Didion`s piece and read the first chapter.
It was about the trauma that Didion went through after she had lost her husband of 40 years due to a heart attack.
She challenged me.
The book challenged me because when I read about her experiences, my own wounds began bleeding. Wounds that I was not aware of having in the first place. Over and done. It´s the attitude that has gotten me where I am right now.
See a problem, solve it, move on.
Reading Didion´s personal catharsis demanded me to shift my attention towards hurt and not from it. So here I go. Here is my story.
Here is me bleeding. Maybe it will make you bleed, like Didion made me bleed. To make me understand that bleeding makes us less weak and more human after all.
I remember the chairs in the hospital being very hard. They were so uncomfortable that every time I would fall asleep on them, I would feel it in my whole body for at least two days. Mind you, I was 19 years old at that time. Barely an adult.
I slept on those hard uncomfortable chairs at least three times a week. Something about the hospital environment, the lack of space, the dull white colour, made me want to close my eyes until it was over.
It was not over. Not yet.
We still had about three months of chemotherapy to go. Only then they would check my mum again to see how many of the lumps had survived to finalise the surgery plan. I barely cried. I barely complained. I barely talked during that time in my life.
Everything I wanted was my mum to be happy. Make the food she wants, watch the movies she likes, play the card games she enjoys. I forgot to have a social life. I forgot myself.
The moments that I had for myself, with myself, outside, where when I used to go on walks at dawn. Germany in January is a winter wonderland full of frozen grass, cracking sounds, birds singing their songs to wake and my breath evaporating right in front of me. Those were small moments of peace.
My morning ritual to survive another day of dishes, loud family members, doctors appointments, cooking, laundry, calling, planning, washing. Why was it me who was doing those things? I can say with conviction: no one had ever asked me to take on any of those responsibilities I listed.
For some reason, I just knew it had to be me. I was quick at cooking, efficient at cleaning and good at organising appointments. Why would I burden anyone else than myself in the family?
What did I do before this? Who was I before I became someone that lived for the survival of someone else? I did not remember. I did not want to. It caused me pain.
If I would think of my friends who did not call, if I would think of the countries that I did not visit, if I would think of the local university that I did not go to, maybe, I would not be able to get up that morning. All those observations come back to me, like I am recognising them for the first time. The magical thinking of just getting it over with is what kept me alive. What seemed to be keeping me alive.
It is also what tightened my chest after a long day, what made me snap on minor comments or what made me wake up sweating after a nightmare. The focus on survival deprived me from living in total.
All this I noticed in one moment. One single moment.
It was about two years later.
About one year after my mother´s surgery. I moved away, started a new life, started making friends and studying at university. We were throwing a party in our university accommodation.
The night had moved on and I was sitting in the hallway, on the floor. I was having fun, talking to people, laughing and drinking. But the floor was hard. The floor, the surface that I was sitting on was so incredibly hard and uncomfortable.
Images of my mum´s pale face and hospital walls popped into my mind. My chest tightened. My eyes became watery.
My palms sweaty. I hurried into my room. My sight darkened.
I will leave you with this image in your head, to continue with your day. That´s what we do. We continue. We go on. Or with the words of Didion: “Life changes. Life changes fast.”
But what stays with you in your dreams? What are your last thoughts before falling asleep? What starts bleeding when I cut your wound?
