Double Dose

I decided to knock out one fear while preparing to overcome another. I have digital piles of pieces I write but am too scared to let anyone see, and how can I ever become a writer for a successful primetime comedy if I don't spread my wings and fly?!?!

I wrote this excerpt after a painful and stressful day health-wise, and even if you want to give your eyes a bath in Listerine after reading it, I'll still be proud for having the lady balls to put it on the Internet for all to see.

...

It was one of the warmest days of the year so far, a day I could have worn sandals walking if I’d wanted to scrape the shit out of my toes. It was also the day I had my first arrhythmia in two years.

Two years can seem like a short period of time when it’s time spent with a lover or in Europe. Two years can seem too short, but two years can also seem John C. Holmes long. Two years can seem like a safe distance between you and something in your past you never want to see again, like a psycho ex or in my case, abnormal heart rhythms.

On the day in question, I wasn’t doing anything particularly taxing because that doesn’t jive with my consistent role as a woman too paranoid of her own body. I was only walking a .4 mile trail, not even half the distance of what most people exceed in a day. I was actually in the homestretch, going downhill, patting myself on the back, congratulating myself for not sitting inside again, for abandoning my Netflix! For not stuffing my face uncontrollably with cheese, when suddenly, I was struck by what must have been invisible lightening.

In an instant, I was bathed in fear before making the gloomy realization of what was actually causing the dread: an unrelenting irregularly fast pulse. I’m always late to the party, even the ones in my own body.

But once I got there, oh, how I tried to crash it. I stopped moving. I bent over. I coughed my deepest cough. I massaged my neck, my chest. I kept moving. I continued the strange Macarena, but none of it worked to quell the beast. My heart beat on as if it were running a marathon I never gave it permission to enter. There seemed a valve broken in my neck, something that was supposed to close and halt the speeding pattering in my chest but never did.

It was only 30 seconds, but when the most vital organ in your body is uncontrollably spasming and doing so at a speed that is unnatural even during exercise, 30 seconds is a goddamn lifetime. 30 seconds is not normal. 30 seconds of heart malfunction could mean death if it’s bad enough, and constant fear of the next one if you live.

I was alone and didn’t want to end up a case of dead-for-days-before-found. You know, located only by my god-awful smell and found rotting and half eaten by bloodthirsty squirrels?

I wasn’t on a magical island in the middle of nowhere, but it would be a while before someone found me if I collapsed. I didn’t have time to waste if I wanted anyone, be it a meth dealer or the pope, to know where I was.
...

There ya have it. A portion of a portion of something I'm writing. Drink it in, smell its musk, rub its soft fur against your face.

P.S. Can you guess what fear I'm preparing to overcome? It's not as obvious as you think, especially since I didn't include all of the story. You get chocolate* if you guess right!

*This is not a joke.