Yesterday, I maundered about my birthday and why I never liked it in the past. As is my wont, I rushed near the end because I was tired of writing and because it was getting too wordy. I talked about how I had gotten to the point of neutral about my birthday during the pandemic. Neutral to slightly warm. I got myself a nice little treat, gritted my teeth as I talked to my parents, and that was about that.
I didn’t hate my birthday as I had in the past, but I didn’t much care about it, either. I would tell anyone who asked when my birthday was, but I didn’t proffer the date on my own. This year, however, everything changed. I wasn’t expected to live to this birthday, so it feels extra-special. I call these my bonus days and I’m glad that I’m still alive to enjoy them.
This is new territory for me. I was suicidal for decades, both actively and passively. It wasn’t until the last five years or so that I didn’t want to die. Or at least, that I didn’t NOT want to be alive. I wasn’t glad to be alive, but I didn’t want to die, either.
When I woke up from my coma, I was angry, scared, and ready to fight whomever needed fighting. I didn’t know who that was, but I was sure it was somebody. It was an abrupt return to life, and I was not happy about it. At first. Then, when I was able to process what happened to me, I became profoundly grateful to be alive. It might have been the powerful narcotics and sedatives coursing through my veins, but I was thankful in every bone of my body to be alive.
I was verbally effusive to everyone I ran into. I thanked them for taking such good care of me and for bringing me ice water. This was an ongoing thing, by the way. The hospital was really hot. I prefer to be cold. I asked every nurse to bring me a glass of ice water. it didn’t matter how many I already had; I always wanted more.
Side Note: A nurse I know on Twitter told me I was not just imagining things. There is a special brand of ice machine that every hospital has. Her colleagues go in on their days off with a cooler in order to stock up on ice.
Side Note II: I’m including the Wang Leehom birthday song because, well, it’s indicative of the evolution in how I view my birthday. A friend on Twitter shared it with me many years ago. We had a huge laugh over it because it’s cheesy as fuck. It’s a very Asian version of rap and we had fun dunking on it.
But! And this is important. It made me smile every time I watched it. Sure, I was making fun of it at the same time, but it lifted my spirits even as I was snarking. Now? I unironically enjoy it. It’s fun and lighthearted, so what’s there not to love?
Back to the hospital experience. Or rather, the medical trauma I went through. It’s made me view my life in a radically different way, obviously. I mean, it’s hard to die twice and not view life in a different light.
Many lifelong issues have simply disappeared. My body issues? Gone. Now, I only have admiration for what my body went through and how it pulled it off with flying colors. When I first woke up and spoke to Ian, I told him, “When you pick a fight with the devil, you better be stronger than hell.” I went on to say that I had done it–twice. Yes, I was high off my ass, but the point stands. That’s the tagline from an ’80s video trailer from Dark Souls III, by the way.
I can’t really give advice to other people based on what happened to me, though. I mean, I could, but it wouldn’t really be applicable. “Want to stop smoking? Catch walking pneumonia, have two cardiac arrests, and have a stroke while you’re at it.” Your results may vary, of course.
That’s what happened, but I can’t guarantee a similar outcome if you go through the same thing. I wasn’t supposed to survive, and I certainly wasn’t supposed to snap back with no rehab. The only lingering issue is that I have some short-term memory problems. Very slight and I can work around them by writing notes. Other than that, I am back and better than ever. I have no other lingering effects from wat happened to me. Why? Who the hell knows? I have thought about it a lot (believe me when I say a lot, I mean a lot), and I can only shrug and move on. I like to say that it’s Taiji, luck, and love that got me through the medical ordeal, which is the best guess I have.
I researched it for hours months after I got out of the hospital. What happened to me and what I should make of it, I mean. Most everything I read said that I should not be alive. Why I was alive was a mystery. The fact that I got immediate CPR probably helped. As id being rushed to the hospital. And being put on ice. And on a ventilator. And being rushed to Regions, which is the best heart center in MN. All of that helped a whole hell of a lot.
Decades of body issues? Gone. Decades of gender questioning? Mostly gone. Decades of hating my face and thinking I’m ugly? Gone. I’m cute AF, yo! I stopped smoking (duh) and never picked it up again. Low self-esteem? Out the window! In fact, I border on arrogance now. You can’t say shit to me! That’s not true. I’m still an empathetic person. That’s in my DNA and I don’t now how to turn it off. But I have realized that many things that took up so much of my mental energy…just don’t matter.
It’s not something I can say to people, though, because there’s no way to make it relatable. And, to be frank, I would sound like an asshole. Friend: “I hate the way I look in this dress. It emphasizes my hips in an unflattering way.” Me: “You know what really is unflattering to your hips? Death.” That just isn’t going to fly!
I don’t mind talking about what happened to me. In fact, it helps me process what happened. But I don’t know how to say it to other people in a way that would help them. I know that if in the middle of my eating disorders, for example, someone told me it didn’t matter because life was so much more than that, well, let’s just say I would not react positively to that. No one would, which is understandable, because it’s condescending.
I don’t know. I want to be able to tell people that they should embrace themselves in all their messiness. I’m fat, out of shape, and old. I went through something I should not have survived. I didn’t just survive, though; I thrived. Welcome to the first year of the second half of my first century. I’m enjoying the hell out of my bonus days.