There were beeps from machines, the hum of people just outside the room working, the occasional alarm that a new patient was arriving. But everyone in my room had gone. The doctors. The nurses. Even the nurse that transported with me to this new place. Gone. Now we waited. I waited. Alone in a room.…
There’s no villain in this story. That’s what makes it so hard to write, explain, and live. I have a complex medical history. It’s been active lately. I’m still seeing doctors and putting in more energy than I have to try and untangle this. Maybe it’s one of my autoimmune diseases progressing. Maybe it’s something…
He asked if I wanted chocolate. I said dark chocolate. Marshmallow, mint, peanut butter cream. All the chocolate, I said, with a little emoji to show I was being a bit ridiculous and also completely serious. He brought home milk chocolate. It wasn’t the end of the world. It never is. That’s the thing about…
The quiet moments where I’m trying to find myself Do you do something for fun? I used to do a lot of things for fun. Womanhood, adulting, motherhood, and the pace of our current world has made that harder and harder. Not to mention the constant chatter about doing things to be “productive.” I have…
Maybe I’ll just sleep… I try not to talk. I take in the smell. I hear the rain sounds layered with instrumental music in the background. I feel the table creak as they move around me. I hear their breath and try not to feel weird about it. I drift in and out of sleep.…
Notes on medical misogyny There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from being right. Not the satisfaction of it. The exhaustion of it. The weight of having to prove, repeatedly, to people with medical degrees and institutional authority, that something is wrong. And that wrong thing deserves to be made right. I have…
On bodies, borders, and the price of care that never appears on a bill I have a complicated body. I always have. Autoimmune thyroid disease. Gastroparesis. Celiac. PCOS. Neurodivergent. Most of it present from birth. Most of it diagnosed before I was twenty-five. I’m in my 40s now. Which means I’ve spent nearly two decades…
On the little joys and being content The line moves in small shuffles. Carts bump forward, rubber wheels ticking over the seam in the concrete. Someone ahead is balancing a forty-pack of sparkling water on the edge of their cart like it might make a break for it. At the exit, the receipt checker stands…
A Texan, a Canadian winter, and the slow work of belonging I have lived in Texas. I have lived in the Swiss Alps. I have, on multiple occasions, considered myself a person who understands weather. I was wrong. Texas weather is a threat. It comes at you like a reality TV villain. All dramatic, loud,…