waiting room

it’s 60 degrees in december. i don’t know if i’ll have a job in january. and the lump in my chest is benign, but i don't know that yet.

no one else knows it’s there, besides the doctor who found it. i figure the brief catharsis i’d get from telling anyone wouldn’t outweigh the guilt i’d feel, infecting other people with an anxiety whose only cure is time. there’s nothing to do but wait, and i’ve only been doing that for a week. people who have dealt with serious illness — who have actually suffered, and written about it much more eloquently — have often said the waiting is one of the hardest parts. (agnès varda made one of the best films of all time about it.) patience is a virtue that eludes me even under better circumstances, so a mere week of waiting — particularly at the end of a year half spent on strike, where all we could do was hold out and wait — still feels torturous.

it only takes a few days of feeling powerless over everything but your own thoughts to become convinced that higher consciousness was a mistake. if humans really did evolve because a monkey ate a magic mushroom, it’s a miracle that monkey didn’t immediately kill itself. but all of that spiraling is about to end, because i am about to find out whatever my body is hiding from me. schrodinger’s cancer is about to be diagnosed or dispelled. i really hope it’s the latter, because if the number of hours i have left on earth is significantly lower than i assumed, i’ve just wasted one of them in the waiting area of the radiologist’s office, mind spiraling at lethal speeds.

as i wonder who i should contact about writing a will, the receptionist finally calls my name, my full name, which always catches me off guard. you only hear it at the doctor or when your mom is mad at you.

this woman is not my mom, but she might be mad at me. “ultrasound?” she monotones without looking up. normally i can respect the clock-in-clock-out mentality, but this is a weird energy to bring to work when your job involves talking to people who are worried they might be dying.

“yes.” i decide to mirror her vibe and pepper in a touch of cuntiness. “my appointment was for 8:30.”

“are you wearing deodorant?”

“what?” panicked, i sniff my collar. it smells fine to me, but i did wear this sweatshirt yesterday. even in the context of this present situation, smelling bad without realizing it ranks high among my worst fears. “do i smell bad?”

i don’t mean it as a joke, which is convenient, because she does not take it as one. “you can’t wear deodorant for an ultrasound,” she explains. “it can interfere with the machine.”

“oh. okay. nobody told me that. well i can wash it off in the bathroom or —”

“unfortunately we’ll have to reschedule,” she interrupts, typing something on the same computer she just told a previous patient wasn’t working. “do you have availability next week?”

NEXT??? WEEK?????????

i beg for an alternative. i offer to go home and fully shower if they can fit me in today. she is unmoved. i get the sense if i threatened to stab the greasy communal sign-in pen into my eye she wouldn’t have blinked.

eventually it’s clear we’re getting nowhere. my throat closes up mid-sentence as i struggle not to cry, or scream, or vomit. that finally gets her to glance up. whatever she sees in my face makes her concede a crumb of empathy. “don’t worry. almost all ultrasounds come back negative. and you’re young.”

i clamp down on my tongue to stop myself from biting out what i want to say: “thanks. thanks so much. do you seriously think i don’t know most ultrasounds come back negative? do you think i haven’t spent every waking moment on WebMD for the past week? i was hoping for something more concrete, like a scan from a machine built by scientists and engineers that a doctor could look at, but your fucking hunch is a close second. do you also want to tell me that most biopsies also come back negative?? WOW!! are you taking new patients??????” i want to storm out and stomp across the bridge home in the freezing wind just to soothe the heat of my seething rage. i want to blame this on the US healthcare system but haven’t figured out how.

instead, i swallow the unkindness i want to unleash on the woman before me. for all i know, “don’t worry” might be the most emotionally generous thing she’s said to anyone all week. she could also be an irredeemable bitch! but such judgments are outside my purview. in a week i will not remember her face. i smile. “next week is fine.”

---

another week passes, doubling the time i expected to have to keep this to myself, and i grow comfortably more insane. all the usual things help: getting up early, going for a walk, listening to music, being around people, exercising. infuriating! some days i don’t do any of that. one of the greatest rights a human can exercise is the refusal to do something guaranteed to make you feel good, for no discernible reason.

i continue to stew on the receptionist’s use of “don’t worry”. i’m not worried! i’m angry. my time has been disrespected, but worried?! why would i be worried! the doctor said she’s not worried, so i’m not either! i do lament the fact that it’s on The Good Tit. and i seriously grapple with the possibility of a slow, wrenching death for the first time. i’ve had a few close calls but they’ve always been freakish, sudden accidents. my family’s baseline physical health has been blessedly healthy, but shit happens. i almost got hit by a truck last month. if anything, my mind has been a far greater danger to me than my body. i always figured if i were to go young it would be something like that — even though on some level i know that the most coveted ending life can give is the privilege of aging, a slow and gentle wasting away in itself. these endless thoughts of death are obviously amplified by relentless images of barbaric, agonizing mass murder in the news. it makes me wonder if we all go to the same place. i hope not. i hope there is a hell.

it seems reasonable to demand that, during our three-minute interaction, the receptionist should have considered all the conclusions i’ve come to in the past week. she does not know i have already decided i would not tell anyone. that i would take a trip to oregon and never return. that i would have a party and invite everyone before i go. maybe a fake wedding — that’s the only thing that seems to get everyone you love in the same room, until the next thing, the thing which requires your presence but not your participation. she does not know i’ve been thinking about how to ask for my sister’s social security number in a way that’s not suspicious so i can make her a beneficiary on my accounts and in my will, which i still don’t know how to make. she doesn’t know that i’ve been calculating how to soonest hit my deductible before the exact date my health insurance would run out if my contract isn’t renewed for next year. she does not know that every unexpected pain or twinge confirms the secret fear that there is something horrible growing inside me, has maybe always been there. she does not know how angry i am at myself for all the times i was not present, the nights i wish i remembered more of, everything i meant to do and didn’t, everything i never said, all the love i was too scared to seize; to say nothing of all the things i might miss, books i want to read, films i want to watch, faces i love growing lines i might not get to see. maybe my assumption of a quick death was a coping mechanism — the FOMO is more tolerable when you don’t know it’s coming.

on the other, less self-obsessed hand: she very likely did know what i’ve been thinking. just because she has zero bedside manner doesn’t mean she’s ignorant of the harm people’s minds are capable of inflicting upon them. it’s very possible she’s gone through this herself. our exchange was a particularly low moment, but parts of this period of temporary insanity have taken my mind to less myopic places. (nearly) every frazzled or nasty person i’ve encountered has allowed me to practice empathy i did not know i possessed. how many of them have just received terrible news, or are waiting to? how many times have i crumbled with gratitude at the smallest kindness when i most needed it — a free cup of coffee, a door held open, a well-timed compliment? maybe even, under other circumstances, a “don’t worry”? how often do i offer up that love to strangers in return? what a gift it is, one i’ve ungratefully received, to have known enough love on earth to make even the thought of leaving so painful. i would miss everything, even curmudgeonly old bitches at the radiologist’s office.

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my childhood friends and i celebrate an early christmas together. i can’t wait to see them, but am dreading it a little, because it’s hard to keep a secret eating you alive from people who knew you in kindergarten. thankfully, as always, my own shit melts away in the presence of friends who have become family. there are new jobs and degrees and relationships and a BABY to celebrate! our conversations about parenting and money and dating are as meaningful and fulfilling as the endless late-night AIM sessions we’d have about books and music and, even though no one was doing it then, dating. in the years of my childhood before my sister was born, i was excruciatingly lonely. my friends always saved me. they are doing it again now, without even knowing, just through the gift of their company. time flattens out. we are five, fifteen, twenty-five, someday we might even be thirty. everyone is going to live forever.

the next morning, we linger over breakfast before two of us catch the train back to the city. the conversation doesn’t drag for an instant. we lament the fact that this is the first year christmas doesn’t feel at all like christmas (work, family, the hottest december on record, active genocide being waged in the biblical birthplace of christ, etc). i still don’t disclose the lump, but lean into the rawness and confess this gathering is the thing i’ve most enjoyed in months. that’s not something i’d usually say out loud. maybe i should change that.

we switch to the subway. my friend is getting off one stop before me. before she goes, we share a long hug goodbye and i promise, for real this time, that i am going to visit the city i thought she’d only called home for a year, but it’s been three.

she disembarks, and the entire train spills out with her. alarmed and alone, i double check the station: this shouldn’t be the last stop. are we being held? did the route change? there’s no announcement, not that i can make those out half the time anyway.

the momentary silence lasts just an instant long enough to become purgatorial. it’s only long enough to take a breath. and in that breath it comes to me: whether it’s today, next week, in a year, or in fifty, i don’t want to die alone. inevitably, something like this will happen to me again, and inexplicably, we’ve built a world that doesn’t support being sick or disabled, whether from birth or through age, even though almost none of us will spend our entire lives fully able-bodied. we have only each other.

these are things i’ve said before, and meant, but always carved out my own life as an exception. for a while i craved — and relished! — a ferocious independence. i never seem to realize how cold, how stubborn, how needlessly stupid i can be until it’s pointed out to me. (“why didn’t you ask for a ride?” “you can’t date if you don’t put in any effort,” “do you want me to hold one of those four bags while you put on your mask?”) but that’s beginning to change. maybe it’s the unforgettable, worldview-changing solidarity and altruism i saw during five months on strike. maybe it’s the thought of getting sick and suffering alone. maybe it’s being confronted, over and over again, with the evils of the world, and realizing one of the most powerful things a person can do is refuse to be afraid of loving other people. whatever the reason, in this moment alone on the train, it’s all caught up with me. i fear i am dying, and can think only of all the love i’ve received, and not been able to return.

for someone terrified of revisiting the loneliness of their childhood, i’m building the prime conditions for a lonely adulthood. i love my sister more than anything in the world, but don’t think i’ve put in the hours of quality time to prove it. i keep imagining i’ll have more time to bond with my parents, and never prioritize it. i adore my friends, yet i can barely say out loud that i treasure their company. i enjoy physical intimacy with people, and afterwards i turn away to prevent the emotional equivalent. i over-invest myself in a job i love because it’s an excuse to not try anything new. i get hung up on relationships that could never have been, that i didn’t even really want, because it stalls the vulnerability of being actually known. i find out i might be sick and let the knowledge fester inside of me along with whatever else might lurk there. all my martyrdom is cowardice. i fear the full extent of my love would be too much, so i convert it into borrowed time, a currency with no return, backed by less than nothing.

the tide of passengers floods back onto the train, and i am not alone.

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there’s a new receptionist at the radiologist. i don’t want to point fingers, but i get in much faster this time.

the moment i’m seen, i confess: “i put on deodorant this morning but remembered like ten minutes later. i washed it off right away and changed my shirt and can clean it off more here. please, please don’t reschedule again.”

the nurse frowns. “it doesn’t matter if you wear deodorant.” and steps out to let me change.

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within the same hour, i find out i am both healthy and employed for the new year. my friend tells me to buy a lottery ticket but i forget to. it doesn’t matter. i’ve already won.