I am adrift when stress makes me lose my voice.
I feel like someone has reached down my throat and pulled something out, leaving an empty feeling. It’s like stimming, the voice loss (it’s called hysterical aphonia, apparently) caps the anxiety, but beneath my calm, note-writing demeanor, I am shaking with anxiety.
My family, as usual, is being understanding. They know because of the autism that things being moved causes intense stress, and because of carpet cleaning in my apartment, a lot of things are moved or temporarily missing. On top of that, I don’t have my dad, who if Jakey is my tether to this world, my dad is my lifeline, and my dad is not here now. He fell (my mom pushed him, actually, but I have forgiven her because he has, and because she’s helping take care of him) and broke his shoulder and hip. He’s in the hospital, in good spirits, being kept out of pain, but next he’s going to a rehab facility for weeks. The rest of my family has visited him, but I don’t want him to see me so stressed, not now. I miss him like crazy.
If you’ve read my previous posts, you’ll know I’m casually preparing for possible death next year. Things are progressing on that front. I have almost all the symptoms of ovarian cancer, including now bruising on my abdomen. I see my gynecologist early next month, and I will tell her everything I’ve been hiding from everyone else. And whether or not I will fight this illness, if I have it, will depend on how things progress through the rest of the month. My patron god has been granting me almost everything I’ve been asking for, including the illness. Whether I will ask for life or death…we’ll see.
I’m trying to remember my last days as Antoinette. I think, I’m not sure, but I think I was bruised then too. I know because the books tell me so I was constantly hemorrhaging. I know because I know that I was already dying before they put my head to that guillotine. As far as ways to go, it’s not bad, better than a long illness. Head down, take a deep breath, there is an awful sound, and eh voila, a life that felt longer than a lifetime was over. I was on the other side again, back to my work of counseling souls who are going to incarnate as gifted children. Part of me wants desperately to get back to that unbreakable peace. Part of me wants to stay here, where my dear, dear sisters are treating me like spun glass. I always took the part of Beth when we played Little Women. I think the only thing they would not forgive me is not fighting the sickness inside me. Maybe they would…someday.
I fear most telling my mother. She hates to feel sad, helpless, or guilty, so she jumps from all those to anger. If I am sick and I decide not to fight it, she will show her desperate love for me with intense anger. She probably won’t speak to me until the end, when she will beg forgiveness and I will give it. I’ve decided that much already.
Please, gentle readers who I do not know, don’t feel sad for me. I will live or I will die, and I would find at least some happiness in either one. I will keep writing to you as long as I can, and when my longing gathers again, I will speak to you from a new body, maybe remembering nothing, maybe remembering everything. A little while at least is left me, though it will rush by like dust on the wind.
My Longing Shall Gather 