“I Fell On Black Days” Essay Snippet

Following is an excerpt from an essay I wrote regarding my long descent into the underworld of chronic/complex illnesses and the resolve that can erupt from no real resolutions at all. I will be publishing it in full soon, stay tuned.

“Whatsoever I’ve feared has come to life
And whatsoever I’ve fought off became my life” – Chris Cornell 

“How can I be any other kind of conflict than purpose?” This question poured forward from a trusted mystic and friend recently, as I stared into her downcast eyes and earnest face through the computer screen. Her messages channeled from the guides and inner wisdom of her subjects, always powerful no matter the physical distance between us.

“That sounds like a thought I would have”, I mused – albeit a now dispossessed one. That indiscriminately human tendency to wrest meaning from hardship and ascribe symbols to the mundane was a mortal activity I had participated in most of my life. Willingly, enjoyably. But I couldn’t cipher my stories of sickness into anything remarkable anymore. The notes were flat and uninspired. Being ill this long had become strident and senseless.

I had looked forward to the twice-a-year sessions with my clairvoyant and wise reader for about six years now, basking in her incredible esoteric wisdom, but I felt barren that day. I hoped that my ailing insides were viscous enough for the messages I received to stick, like honey or sap, coating the interior of my diseased anatomy.

By this point, my rap sheet of symptoms had multiplied like an overeager root system. Chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia-like pain in every inch of my body, inability to regulate temperature, a terrifying onset of anxiety, brain fog thicker than the treacherous mist we experience on the mountain in Idyllwild I dwelled on, high blood pressure, worsened periods, constantly pulled chest ribs, a deepening of digestive problems, cracking skin, errant chest pains, difficulty climbing a short flight of stairs, and eventually inability to even lift one of my four animals – a 20-pound poodle mix – who has a degenerative spinal condition. My trunk and fruiting branches were a deceit; the diseases something one had to squint and contort themselves to see most times. Somedays, the wilting was more evident.

I came into this world in Tulsa, Oklahoma, both sickly and with a wicked sense of self-possession. Beginning around the time I was three years old – wearing ringlets of strawberry blonde curls and a sassy expression – my paternal grandmother would tell me, “You would argue with the devil and win”. I postulate this fight and fervor – and the diligence with which my parents attended to my needs as we navigated my childhood illnesses – is part of how I was not a card carrying chronically ill person by the time late adolescence rolled around. I even felt naively invincible in my later teens and young adulthood. I could run without having an asthma attack finally; sometimes my digestive organs did not swell and cause me to spend the day hunched over in pain. I was good…for close to 15 years.

And then, starting eight years ago…