I sat looking at pictures of me from before I got sick. I don't look like me anymore. I think differently too. I've gone through so much in the last few years. I really can't remember what it was like before being sick.
I saw a picture of me helping Halle open gifts at her first birthday party. You know that part of your neck up front you can see that sticks out on each side of the trachea? I used to be able to see that. I tried really hard while standing in front of a mirror to make that happen again. I couldn't even force it. No matter what I did, my neck just remained this pudgy thing with a round head on top.
I had braces and no longer have the gap in my front teeth like I used to.
I graduated from college and have had so many great opportunities laid out before me.
But the reality is: I died and nobody told me. There was no funeral and nobody sent flowers or set up one of those funds at the bank to give to my favorite charity in lieu of the flowers. I didn't see any kind of obituary and as far as I know, I wasn't buried. I just died and then disappeared, very slowly over a long period of time.
I kind of think of it like being in a coma, unable to recognize what's happening to you. Right now, this very minute while I write this with tears blurring my view of the screen, I am remembering back to being in the hospital after the first surgery and seeing myself walking through the halls in a circle, pushing a tank of oxygen and my heart monitor on wheels with my ass hanging out the back of my ugly blue gown. It's been like a dream, one that I'm not convinced I've awakened from yet.
I died. I just know I did. How else can this be happening?
