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.
