Summer has a certain song. Its own lilting, intoxicating melody as the days lengthen into a river of gold. A fast driving rhythm, because everyone knows those days disappear fast and there is always so much to DO with all that light. Summer feels like it is never-ending and vanishing all at once.
At my age, summer’s song had started to become familiar. There is less of the unexpected, out-of-control desperation that marked high school summer. There is more of the unexpected, out-of-control desperation that marks an adult’s. The kitchen sink backed up and then spewed over the ceiling. The AC leaked. The car got a nail in the sidewall of the tire. There were plenty of lost keys, phones, and books. There was a move and things disappeared into the summer’s twilight, never to be seen by human eyes again.
There were moments of summer’s joyful song that graced the humid, languid air. I went for a walk and got a picture or two of a butterfly with my cell phone. I saw a ballet and went to a ballpark. I spent an amazing few days with family, only partially clouded by surgeries and appointments, and we watched movies and talked and enjoyed each other’s company, even in the face of what was to come. I talked with my sister, a lot. In those moments, some of the usual pulse and drive of summer could be heard, all bright brass and triumph.
But this summer, the song was mostly drowned out by the sound of an IV pump whooshing for 8-10 hours a week and the hum of the hospital’s HVAC. I had 7 different procedures and have collected 6 new scars. One device was removed. Another was implanted. I am still getting used to the shape of my new body. I couldn’t hear the normal throb of the summer beat over my own voice whispering “be brave be brave be brave” over and over.
Yet it was the silence of being alone that was the loudest. There isn’t any point in company for most of my hours in the hospital, because I sleep through much of it. I didn’t always want people around when I was lying about on a sofa, clutching ice packs and trying not to think about how greasy my hair felt, recovering from the latest set of holes that had been punched in me.
The problem is that 7 procedures and countless more appointments adds up to a lot of time alone. I saw one friend for a dinner, after a day when I’d been sick and finished it curled on her sofa. I was sick at the ballpark, sick at the ballet. One friend I only saw when she gave me a ride to pick up meds across town. My best friend was having such a horrible year herself that we didn’t even spend any time together, even though we live in the same town. We made countless plans and scrapped them. I went into anaphylaxis again and again. The silence of being alone was so profound engulfing I screamed and screamed inside and still couldn’t drown out the emptiness.
It’s so difficult to communicate that loneliness. After all, I didn’t really *need* other people around. Physically, I could survive. I was getting cards from people too far away to even consider coming out. And my other friends didn’t seem to require any company — at least any of my company — while they pursued their lives. I would be putting people out by what, asking for them to come sit there while I slept? Who would even ask for that? It was illogical. Besides, it happened for so many hours that I felt it was important for me to normalize it. And normal life did not require the active reassurance of my friends, surely? I had books on tape. I had e-books. I had games on my cell phone. I could survive. I would survive. And obviously, I did.
And so it was the summer that wasn’t. There was simply not enough in it to count as a season. I feel like mourning the passing of a year – because summer marks the end of the academic year – and all that was not achieved. I feel like rejoicing because once again, I am alive and the summer is over. It was a period of mourning and pain, and now perhaps there is a fresh academic year. But mostly, I still feel that I am screaming into a void as the fall leaves begin to appear on trees. And praying that the next season doesn’t become the fall that wasn’t, too.
titanium * butterflies 