I Don’t Mind What Happens

True story.

I swear it’s funny.

I had a terrible accident before Memorial Day weekend, and even a month later, the back of my body is still covered in red cuts, ugly burns, and purple bruises.

I have spent the last few months focused on healing what is going on inside my body, so it didn’t even occur to me that the outside of my body was vulnerable.

Until it was!

When it happened, it took my mind a minute to catch up to my body.

One of the few things I remember in the moments immediately after (before I passed out again) was the horrified look on the face of the person in front of me as I waved my arms and declared in a high-pitched, almost manic voice that “I am FINE, totally fine!” as I sprayed them with the blood from my arm as if they were the blank canvas of an about to be painted Jackson Pollock rage-fueled art piece from his Drip Period in the 1950’s.

It was not my finest moment.

Now, my insides quite literally match my outsides.

Homeostasis at its finest.

I am the drip of condensation spontaneously appearing and clinging to the side of a glass of ice water on a hot summer afternoon.

My one big lament, which I shared over ugly, tear-filled laughter with the women I work with, is that my final hot girl summer is now on pause.

I thought 45 would be it, and after this, I could simply retire my bikinis and fade into the ether like dust in the wind. I could be the self-satisfied white noise that plays at the end of a record before the needle lifts.

Nope.

The universe and my explosive brain had other plans.

Apparently, 46 will be my final hot girl summer. And then I can retire my number and jersey and become a hall of famer, offering commentary or something.

I woke up this morning wondering if the last few years have simply been a fever dream. Words spoken out loud in the stillness of my bedroom disturbed the early morning fog that coats this valley.

I woke from one of those unpleasant, recurring dreams that snag on your psyche like the loose thread of a sweater doing battle against a sharp nail or splinter of wood.

With a tug on my heart and a mind trapped in amber yet liberated from self-consciousness in a way that only repeated seizures and strokes can offer you, I whispered the thing you are not supposed to say out loud.

I wonder if I died that night, and what I think is my life is actually just me not realizing that I’m dead.

Waking up every day, repeating the same tasks, carrying the burden of perseverating on these same thoughts and feelings that I can’t seem to shake.

What if this is me trapped between worlds? Not quite here nor there. A smile in a photograph from a sunny afternoon. A memory that remains when everything else has faded. A song you hum in the aisle of a supermarket on a late-night dash to grab coffee for the next morning.

Waking up with that ache after a month of pain and recovery (and not a MILD concern that my brain is on the verge of exploding yet AGAIN), I was met with the reminder that today is one of the hardest and softest days of my calendar year.

Anniversaries are a dark gift. This one will forever be a 4-dimensional chiaroscuro where the endless canvas of darkness reminds me of the powerful pull of those slivers of light that burst through every now and then.

A memory. A dream. Moments of feeling as if it all made sense.

A reminder to be kind, gentle, and forgiving with myself, even when it is the last thing I want to do or the last thing I feel that I deserve.

So, on that note:

Thank you to the back of my body for kindly taking the impact that my face would not have survived quite as well. My teeth and cheekbones are forever grateful.

Thank you to my resident photographer (and handler) for making me feel pretty enough to take this photo from the front, of course, because the back of my body looks like an expansive dark nebula (bruises) with shooting stars (scabbed cuts), and fiery comets (burns).

Forever a child of the universe.

Laughing my way to the truth at all times.

A map of jokes, tears, secrets, and dreams.

A little bruised, sensitive, tender, but no worse for wear.

A river coyote with an expansive aura, funny stories, and always embracing the paradox.

Made up of stardust and comets, thunder and whimsy, some nightmares, a few daydreams, dark little thoughts, and whatnot.

Always saying, “I don’t mind what happens.”

Praying it, humming it, smirking through it.

And really meaning it.

Sometimes.