Nothing but roots.

I’ve been going through a lot of my old writing recently, something I’m apt to do when faced with a big life transition. I tend to return to previous periods of evolution, searching for guidance on how to feel, how to react. It’s been an odd experience, to pour through years of writing and suddenly notice how the dreams I had once crafted with striking detail now seem so absent from my life. 

Growing up I always thought that I would live with a pen tucked behind my ear, a life on the run. I thought I would live in a perpetual state of travel and transition, a life of total impermanence, traversing languages and time zones and existing without an address. I imagined that love would come in waves, break with the current, and get washed out to shore. I never thought or expected that love would be my sun, a star around which my entire life revolved. 

I used to write about so many things, about the cities I would conquer with my words and the bodies I would break beneath me. I had so much passion, I thought it would scorch everything and everyone around me, destroy all of my relationships.

Yet here I am. I look back and notice how the practicality of reality has weighed on my decisions. Boxes packed around me, on the cusp of a brand new life. 

Since moving out of my family’s house, I haven’t decorated anywhere that I’ve lived or anywhere that I’ve worked. My reasoning was always that this apartment, this desk, this space was transient - I would exist here for a certain period of time, and then I would move on. This was also the case in some of the flings I had while in an open relationship: I always saw the expiration date. What was the point in investing my money, my time, my energy, my love in anything that I knew would inevitably end? 

This next move is different, though; there is no end date. And it’s strange, because I’ve spent my entire life thinking about my next move, about the future that existed right around the corner, and I feel very removed from that line of thinking now. While I’ve had to bury a few dreams to get to this point, I now have nothing but roots to dig into the ground. 

My Week in Numbers (also known as, My Week with E. Coli)

  • Number of work sick days taken: 3
  • Number of medical visits: 5 
  • Number of ride shares taken to and from medical appointments: 7 
  • Number of blood tests drawn: 2
  • Number of hours attached to an IV drip: 1.5 
  • Amount of weight lost: 6 lbs. 
  • Number of times I had to poop in a little cup: 4
  • Number of times I threw up: 2
  • Number of bathroom trips: Probably 80. 50 of those trips probably within 36 hours. 
  • Number of antibiotic pills taken: 6
  • Number of full meals eaten in 5 days: 1 
  • Longest stretch of uninterrupted sleep in 5 days: 4 hours
  • Number of times I tried to fall asleep standing up, because I thought doing so would alleviate my stomach pain a bit: 1 
  • Number of times I considered dialing ‘911’: At least 2
  • Number of times I thought I might *actually* die: 2 
  • Number of times a fart wasn’t only a fart: Too many
  • Number of excruciating, crippling, blindingly, agonizingly painful stomach cramps experienced within a 72-hour period: Innumerable. Well over 100. 

Well, I’m pretty certain I got E. coli poisoning last week. From some fucking kale salad from fucking Mixt Greens, which needless to fucking say, I WILL NEVER FUCKING GO TO AGAIN. It was awful. For almost 72 hours straight, I could feel my intestines writhing, twisting, crunching, as if trying to rip apart my skin and escape my body through terrifying, aggressive force. Like someone had punched their hands through my stomach, grabbed my intestines and were wringing them out like wet towels. For days I was doubled over in constant, unyielding pain, agonizingly waiting for even some small hint of relief that no pain medication, no water, no sleep, nothing would bring. 

Today is the first day that I finally feel alive again. Today, I ate the first meal I’ve eaten since Tuesday. I have no lessons learned, no advice to bequeath to any unlucky readers who may be unfortunate enough to also experience E. coli poisoning. I have a fairly high threshold for pain and discomfort, and I feel like I only barely survived this. It was the worst, most intense, most persistent pain I have ever experienced. I find it hard to imagine that any other pain, short of childbirth, could be worse.