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On turning twenty-six

There’s an ache that lives in my chest. My phone lights up at night, and I know it isn’t you. It’s a pre-set reminder, like clockwork for three hours. Did you take your medicine?

There are all these things that I struggle to talk about, because I love you.

I got sick fast, when I was seventeen. That summer, it was the way I felt after I took a walk (but those walks were long, so maybe it was just that.) My doctor told me we caught it early. Rheumatoid arthritis is very treatable, he said. You’re lucky you came to see me early, because now you’ll never even have it. I leave behind twenty-five today, and I feel as if I’m hurtling towards the turning point: when I’ve been sick for longer than I haven’t been.

When you’re seventeen, you think that bad things happen to bad people. Or–not even bad people, but irresponsible ones. You think that you can prevent cancer by not smoking; accidents by wearing your seat belt. (You think that you can scare off domestic abuse with a tough smile and good storytelling.)

But I swear, I did everything right. I took my pills. I let my doctor hold my hands in his and slide fine needles in between my knuckles. I went from hospital room to hospital room, having my blood tested, my joints palpated, my bones x-rayed. I exercised, I ate well, I did my homework. I stopped seeing my friends, and spent my time with specialists instead. The way that you’re supposed to.

I saw him again in three months, then three more. I took my pills. I kept walking, stopped sleeping. Fifty-year-old ladies in my sociology classes started telling me to drink lemon juice.

By then, the year had turned over. I was frustrated, but my doctor was serene: even now, he’s one of the gentlest people I’ve ever known. His wife had a baby. The goal is one hundred percent recovery. He tells me that every February.

I was seventeen, then eighteen, then nineteen. I met a boy I thought I might like. I saw my doctor. He told me he was pregnant again. I rolled my eyes: can you say that if you’re not the one who’s going to be lying on the delivery room table? He taught me how to fill a syringe, how to choose the right needles and disinfect the skin. I cried. I sat on my office floor on Friday nights and punctured my soft stomach and thought about how much I wanted to slice my belly open onto our yellowing kitchen floors. I cut out gluten instead.

The boy told me that I filed in an entire half of him. We stayed up until eleven, twelve, one in the morning. He took photos of my scalp in the snow.

I stopped walking. My feet ached too much to stand on them for long.

And then I got sick slow, and I still am. My hands started coming back to me, but there’s always a trade. My doctor added supplements, and then some more. My bathroom floor was a mess of hair that I couldn’t seem to keep around. I stumbled into the boy with his girlfriend between lectures.

I wish I could say that I remember exactly what happened next. I remember meeting her and thinking that she was the most delicate thing I had ever seen; wanting to hold her in my palms until one of us broke. But then everything after that gets messy, in a way that only real life can, because real life is rarely literary. He asked me to come over; told me she was out of town.

It doesn’t work if he’s looking at you, and you’re looking at her, and she’s looking away.

I saw her five years later, still fluttery and fine-boned. They had broken up, gotten back together, and broken up again. She was seeing someone else now, and I was still sick, still sicker. She asked me for my number. I gave it to her: maybe this time, he’d be looking at her, but she’d be looking at me.

We texted. I took my pills. My doctor increased the length between our appointments – four months. Six months. A entire year.

My phone lights up at night, and I get to tell you everything.

This post contains photos from Berlin and London 2018. To read more about them, please refer to the following links: The Jewish Museum and Daniel Libeskind, the Berlinishe Galerie, and the V & A.

Outfit details: Uniqlo Rayon Long Sleeve Blouse, black mini skirt (similar), Ecco Aimee Sport Tie Sneakers in White/Muted Clay.

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