The Serenity Prayer. Or, How I Learned To Go On Worrying And Hate The Bomb (In My Chest).
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Every kitschy boutique in the universe will have a small wooden plaque hanging from a nail next to the cash register, which is inscribed--in a stenciled, "I stitch lace for a living" script--with something called the Serenity Prayer. Even if you don't frequent kitschy boutiques, you've still seen one of these at some point in your life: your third grade teacher had one; or your grandma keeps one hanging in her kitchen; or there was one in the nurse's office when you got your first flu shot.
For those of you who've been living under a rock your entire life, the Serenity Prayer is a bit of gorgonzola cheese that goes like this:
God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
The courage to change the things that I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference.
I've never been much for that particular prayer, which is why I feel no guilt whatsoever about spending an entire post bitching about the second line.
That post is this one.
That line is, "Accept the things I cannot change."
Because, honestly? Fuck that line.
A week from today, I go into see my heart doctor. She's an adorable Indian woman who is going to give me a hug, ask me how I'm doing, and be genuinely excited about whatever progress I've made. This is the doctor who called up a contact in the UK to try and hunt down a surgeon for me if something should happen while I'm in Europe.
I like her very much, and my beef is not with her.
I will come into her office, and sit down in a chair with a roll of butcher paper taped over it. Then the doctor will bring out a computer monitor and set it up on the counter; a long cable, terminating in a plastic paddle, comes out of said monitor. The paddle goes over my heart, and will gather all the information that Skynet has accumulated over the past month, and download it directly to the computer. It's pretty neat, actually. Once that's finished, the monitor can display every single beat of my heart since my last checkup.
That's where they look for Irregularities. (And yes, it deserves the capital letter, because it's had a capital letter in my mind since the first time I heard it applied to me in the hospital.) If my heart has skipped a beat, or gone too fast, or half-assed its duties in any way, the computer will tell us so.
And if that's the case, Cambridge is off the menu.
That's right. If my heart continues to suck, I will lose the chance to do something I've been dreaming of doing since I was about ten years old.
Here is where "accept the things I cannot change" can go straight to hell, and take it's stupid plaque with it.
I don't want to accept this. And I don't see why I should have to. I mean, there's the pragmatic answer, of course: it's not something I can change by sheer force of will, or personality, or a sense of humor, or whatever other powerful qualities I've ever been told I have in my back pocket. I've just got a faulty heart. That's the long and short of it.
But God, you don't have any idea how much I wish that wasn't the case.
I hate being unable to get a carton of milk from the top shelf of the refrigerator, because it will stress my left arm. I hate being unable to get sexually involved with someone, for fear of accelerating my heart rate. (Feel free to laugh at that one, because it's true, and it's fucking hilarious.) I hate being unable to get myself from one place to another in my own car. Granted, all that won't last forever. A few months, tops, just until Skynet gets used to its new home. But there are other things too, things which are a bit more permanent. I can't wear bangles on my right wrist, ever, without obscuring the dainty little medical alert bracelet that's set up camp there. No more drinking. I have to be patted down by not one, but two security guards at the airport, lest the metal detector deactivate Skynet altogether. I go around with a plastic card in the pocket of my purse, so that in a medical emergency, whichever poor bastard is closest to my prone, unresponsive form can call the right ambulances.
My friends get freaked out when I make jokes about all this. I don't think they understand that that's all I can do. This may have changed their lives, given them faith, sure, I guess...but for all intents and purposes, I wasn't there. I missed this entire experience. Even now, the memory of the month I spent in the hospital is hazy. All I know is that in the twelve minutes I was out, I didn't see anything. Not a bright light, not my dog Lucky who died when I was ten bounding out of the bright light, nothing. I really wish people would stop asking me.
In the past two months, I have cost my parents more money than they spent on our house. They worry frantically when I'm not home on time. My older brother discovered that I'd "died" and that his girlfriend had MS on the same day. I'm a fucking burden, and it kills me.
Accepting what you cannot change is a weak platitude, perfect for gracing the desks of people who are content to sit back, and let things happen to them. That's fucking unacceptable. All my life, I've been what happens. I happen to people, I happen to situations, and I happen to ideas. They change because of me. Maybe that's arrogant, but it's the way it is. Or the way it was.
Now I'm trapped. And I hate it.
But the worst part? I feel so guilty. I mean, I died. For twelve minutes. Clinically dead. Bam, out, adios, ka-put. And then I woke up. No, I don't want any damn applause. What I want is not to feel hideously ungrateful every time I resent what happened. I do, though. All the time.
"Emily, oh my God, how are you feeling?"
What am I supposed to say to that? I know what I want to say.
"Pretty fucking bad, actually. I couldn't wear the shirt I wanted to yesterday, because my surgical scar was showing, being all ghastly and whatnot. Also, I hyperventilated when they drew my blood for the third time this week, worried that my half-unfinished semester would keep grad schools from taking me seriously, thus ruining my life plans forever, and I fell asleep with my fingers on my pulse, feeling for skipped heartbeats. Tell me, how are you?"
Instead, I smile, crack a joke, and say I'm great.
I don't want to have to say that. I don't want to have to say anything at all. I want none of this to have happened.
Yeah, yeah, I know. I lived, what more can I possibly need? Cry fucking moar.
Whatever, I don't care. This exercise in self-indulgence has gone on long enough, and there's a very good chance I'll scroll up and delete every single word.
All I know is that if I am robbed of Cambridge by my fucking useless, faulty, pathetic excuse for a heart, I am going to lose my mind.
Maybe that's something I can accept.
+
Every kitschy boutique in the universe will have a small wooden plaque hanging from a nail next to the cash register, which is inscribed--in a stenciled, "I stitch lace for a living" script--with something called the Serenity Prayer. Even if you don't frequent kitschy boutiques, you've still seen one of these at some point in your life: your third grade teacher had one; or your grandma keeps one hanging in her kitchen; or there was one in the nurse's office when you got your first flu shot.
For those of you who've been living under a rock your entire life, the Serenity Prayer is a bit of gorgonzola cheese that goes like this:
God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
The courage to change the things that I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference.
I've never been much for that particular prayer, which is why I feel no guilt whatsoever about spending an entire post bitching about the second line.
That post is this one.
That line is, "Accept the things I cannot change."
Because, honestly? Fuck that line.
A week from today, I go into see my heart doctor. She's an adorable Indian woman who is going to give me a hug, ask me how I'm doing, and be genuinely excited about whatever progress I've made. This is the doctor who called up a contact in the UK to try and hunt down a surgeon for me if something should happen while I'm in Europe.
I like her very much, and my beef is not with her.
I will come into her office, and sit down in a chair with a roll of butcher paper taped over it. Then the doctor will bring out a computer monitor and set it up on the counter; a long cable, terminating in a plastic paddle, comes out of said monitor. The paddle goes over my heart, and will gather all the information that Skynet has accumulated over the past month, and download it directly to the computer. It's pretty neat, actually. Once that's finished, the monitor can display every single beat of my heart since my last checkup.
That's where they look for Irregularities. (And yes, it deserves the capital letter, because it's had a capital letter in my mind since the first time I heard it applied to me in the hospital.) If my heart has skipped a beat, or gone too fast, or half-assed its duties in any way, the computer will tell us so.
And if that's the case, Cambridge is off the menu.
That's right. If my heart continues to suck, I will lose the chance to do something I've been dreaming of doing since I was about ten years old.
Here is where "accept the things I cannot change" can go straight to hell, and take it's stupid plaque with it.
I don't want to accept this. And I don't see why I should have to. I mean, there's the pragmatic answer, of course: it's not something I can change by sheer force of will, or personality, or a sense of humor, or whatever other powerful qualities I've ever been told I have in my back pocket. I've just got a faulty heart. That's the long and short of it.
But God, you don't have any idea how much I wish that wasn't the case.
I hate being unable to get a carton of milk from the top shelf of the refrigerator, because it will stress my left arm. I hate being unable to get sexually involved with someone, for fear of accelerating my heart rate. (Feel free to laugh at that one, because it's true, and it's fucking hilarious.) I hate being unable to get myself from one place to another in my own car. Granted, all that won't last forever. A few months, tops, just until Skynet gets used to its new home. But there are other things too, things which are a bit more permanent. I can't wear bangles on my right wrist, ever, without obscuring the dainty little medical alert bracelet that's set up camp there. No more drinking. I have to be patted down by not one, but two security guards at the airport, lest the metal detector deactivate Skynet altogether. I go around with a plastic card in the pocket of my purse, so that in a medical emergency, whichever poor bastard is closest to my prone, unresponsive form can call the right ambulances.
My friends get freaked out when I make jokes about all this. I don't think they understand that that's all I can do. This may have changed their lives, given them faith, sure, I guess...but for all intents and purposes, I wasn't there. I missed this entire experience. Even now, the memory of the month I spent in the hospital is hazy. All I know is that in the twelve minutes I was out, I didn't see anything. Not a bright light, not my dog Lucky who died when I was ten bounding out of the bright light, nothing. I really wish people would stop asking me.
In the past two months, I have cost my parents more money than they spent on our house. They worry frantically when I'm not home on time. My older brother discovered that I'd "died" and that his girlfriend had MS on the same day. I'm a fucking burden, and it kills me.
Accepting what you cannot change is a weak platitude, perfect for gracing the desks of people who are content to sit back, and let things happen to them. That's fucking unacceptable. All my life, I've been what happens. I happen to people, I happen to situations, and I happen to ideas. They change because of me. Maybe that's arrogant, but it's the way it is. Or the way it was.
Now I'm trapped. And I hate it.
But the worst part? I feel so guilty. I mean, I died. For twelve minutes. Clinically dead. Bam, out, adios, ka-put. And then I woke up. No, I don't want any damn applause. What I want is not to feel hideously ungrateful every time I resent what happened. I do, though. All the time.
"Emily, oh my God, how are you feeling?"
What am I supposed to say to that? I know what I want to say.
"Pretty fucking bad, actually. I couldn't wear the shirt I wanted to yesterday, because my surgical scar was showing, being all ghastly and whatnot. Also, I hyperventilated when they drew my blood for the third time this week, worried that my half-unfinished semester would keep grad schools from taking me seriously, thus ruining my life plans forever, and I fell asleep with my fingers on my pulse, feeling for skipped heartbeats. Tell me, how are you?"
Instead, I smile, crack a joke, and say I'm great.
I don't want to have to say that. I don't want to have to say anything at all. I want none of this to have happened.
Yeah, yeah, I know. I lived, what more can I possibly need? Cry fucking moar.
Whatever, I don't care. This exercise in self-indulgence has gone on long enough, and there's a very good chance I'll scroll up and delete every single word.
All I know is that if I am robbed of Cambridge by my fucking useless, faulty, pathetic excuse for a heart, I am going to lose my mind.
Maybe that's something I can accept.
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