Context

While I was still half asleep the other morning, I started to daydream about being a wife and a mother. This fantasy felt very natural and powerful. Everything was up to me. I said “yes”. I took the ring. I took someone into me and I created a baby. I grew a baby, like it was the earth and I was the sun.

As I woke up again to the reality of this body that will never be a sun, I realized that it wasn’t a child or a husband that I was craving, it was context.

I feel adrift in the most foreign and unusual way, like an alien that isn’t even welcome on its own planet. Context was the tie that unraveled from my life 6 years ago, when a series of events all unfolded at once.

First, I got sick and I never got better. Then, I found out my boyfriend had bought a ring and wanted to get married and have a baby. At the time, he was the love of my life, but after nearly 10 years, we broke up. Since I honestly thought I was dying, but there was no name for what was wrong, everything fell apart. After that, 3 of my closest friends all got pregnant within 3 weeks of each other and another got married within 6 months of that. When I found a new boyfriend, I felt like I was on solid ground again. Even if it was too soon to be dating and he was struggling with addiction, he was kind and supportive. I didn’t have to pretend not to be sick when I was with him. He just pulled me in close and held me. He was like the eye of the storm. He also represented a normalcy I couldn’t reach when I was alone. With a boyfriend, I could at least pretend that I was on the same path as my friends. When I lost him, I also lost my job and I had to move back in with my parents. And more friends got married, moved in with boyfriends, got pregnant and started school. It was at this time that the pandemic started and I got a name for what was wrong with me, but I also got sicker and had to get treatments, injections, and surgeries.

Now, I am sitting in a college cafe, trying to drift back into memories for a moment, because it was so easy to be in school. And it would be easy to start a new job, get married or start a family too. Because it puts life into context. My life has been cracked open, so I have no edges and I can just fall endlessly into space. Without context, what is a life?

Before the nunnery

After flirting for the first time in ages, I found that in the wake of years of medical trauma, isolation, and a decline in my physical and mental health, it is really disheartening to play the part of a normal girl.

It made me feel like a cleverly disguised alien attempting to fit in with humans. As if the closer I got, the more likely it was that someone would see the differences. Or maybe like one of the less feisty Disney princesses, like Snow White. How did she really feel when she woke up? Cool to have a good looking guy kiss her awake, but wasn’t she poisoned? She probably had to deal with some trauma and make sense of a world around her that felt pretty unsafe and scary. It wasn’t really the best time to meet someone, no matter how charming he was.

For many people in my age group (30s) the worst case scenario is to be alone. I’ve heard a lot of, “I’m so sorry you’re alone. I’ve got my best friend” and “oh if only you could meet someone.” Many people don’t even share their happiness with me, because “I’m alone”. As if love is the only cure to my incurable illness. I get it, love is cool. I’m not against meeting someone if it happens, but after losing basic functions, facing death in its cold, smug face and having to live with my parents as an adult (arguably scarier), being alone is absolutely not my worst case scenario. My worst case scenario is losing my autonomy and independence. I’m more scared that I won’t be able to be alone, than of being alone.

I certainly don’t want to descend into the woods and live like the artists before me, but I’m sure there are some options between finding a soulmate immediately and running to the nearest nunnery.

I just ask that if someone does kiss me awake any time soon, they give me some time to adjust to what it means to be awake in this new world.