A Little Unsteady

  It’s not that I don’t know when I’ve over extended myself. It’s just that I would rather pretend everything is perfectly normal right up until everything isn’t. Moose knows my limits. He knows the signs that I have pushed myself too hard and he presses me to admit that if I don’t stop, rest, slow down, let people help me, that I will start showing those signs.

  I hate that I stutter. Years spent learning to speak smoothly, to speak past the trips of the tongue, to wrap myself in the strength and confidence of the character of myself who is Good At Public Speaking. I hate that I lose all of that when my sickness begins to pull at the threads of my disguise and unravel the person I have worked so hard to pretend to be. I hate how my sickness drags me down, further and further, until the words pool in my mouth and weigh down my tongue and I have to push forward against their drowning tide to drag forth that one word which will communicate the thing that matters most to say in that exact moment. I hate the sound I make when the roof of my mouth catches my tongue and won’t let go. I hate the weakness that sound shows.

  I hate that I stumble. I want to walk, I want to run, I want to fly free of this crumbling castle with its prisoner in the high tower that sings “Hold, hold on, hold onto me/ ‘Cause I’m a little unsteady/ A little unsteady.” I joke about my cane and my walker and how broken I am to need these things in my life. I hate them, I hate that I need them, and I hate how I am without them. Hand up, a little out stretched, ready to catch and spring back from the wall that comes rushing up to me. I hate how I look when I’m well, a woman too strong to be parading about with the tools of the disabled, mocking those who really need them. I hate how I look when I’m weak, a woman too young to be needing these tools of the disabled, too pitiable with her two small children and her brightly colored cane. I hate the sway I can feel when things are coming undone. I hate the weakness that sway shows.

  I hate who I am right now. I hate this body, falling apart around me, finding new ways to break and be broken.  I hate who I am when I’m sick. And I hate to admit that, really, I am always sick. I hate when the world reminds me that I am sick and I hate having to remind myself. I grieve for who I used to be. For the woman who could get up and dance with her children. For the young woman who could dance until 2 am. For the little girl who dreamed of dancing like her sisters. And I hate that I have to grieve for them, those long lost echoes of myself.

  I don’t hate myself. I just hate all of these things about myself that my melancholy mind wants to weep over and cry out “This is not me.”