It’s a hot, sunny, sticky summer day, a pool day. My worn out old rainbows slap the ground as I lazily trudge around, my heels worn down and black from the hot cement. A not-so white tee sticks to my sweaty stomach, no pants, just a pair of ruffled black bottoms paired with a colorful top peeking through the shirt. I walk through a crowded pool bathroom, avoiding naked old ladies and bare bottomed babies being chased by mothers holding lost bathing suits. Country music blasting, a book and a towel in my hand. I scan the pool, jam packed. Great. Couple making out or group of middle school girls staring at some “dreamy” boys? I choose the girls, hoping they’ll leave me be. I immediately toss off my shirt and flops, throw my book and towel on a chair and dive into the pool, the water feeling cool on my sticky skin. All of the sudden my arms are frozen and I can’t move or scream. My lungs start to hurt and the water is pulling me under, the light disappearing. “Help, someone help, please help” all the sudden I look up and my doctor is there laughing at me. It gets dark, my fingers are pruney and my body like a noodle. I wake up sweating, the same shirt in the dream sticking to my sweaty stomach. Goddamnit not this dream again.
At age six I was fearless, skipping monkey bars, playing kickball with the boys, picking up bugs. I had no worries, every decision was a thrill as I lept into every opportunity. Ten years later I look at a bug and scream, running away like a classic, stereotypical teenage girl. Unfortunately, my range of fears has changed quite drastically. Along with bugs and a horrifying dream, I am now deathly afraid of death. Blunt, I know. Might as well get straight to the point, no lollygagging, no bs, just the truth. Frankly, I don’t want to disappear forever leaving nothing but a me shaped hole in my place. Wow, you must be thinking why would she be worrying about death? Well, I have Cystic Fibrosis, preferably called CF, for it sounds less serious and less medically correct and scary. CF is something that makes my lungs not work right, feel kind of shriveled up and I sound as if I smoke at least three packs a day, though if you handed me a cigarette chances are I would light the wrong end. My life expectancy started at age ten, moved up to sixteen and is now forty, IF I keep up with all my therapy. If things aren’t all fine and dandy I usually end up in the hospital and that’s where the long lists of fears come into play.
Suddenly I’m not six years old hanging onto monkey bars, instead I find myself hanging onto dear life praying not to let go. I am sixteen years old, just got my license, and I can’t even drive more than one non-family member for two more years. How is it fair that every other high schooler is worrying who they should go to homecoming with, what they should wear to a dance, or how drunk to get every weekend, learning to hide hangovers. I’m learning how to hide picc lines and scars from surgery and what outfit to wear that will fit over the big tube wrapped around my arm. The worst of all is having to still act fearless, so my mom doesn’t stay up worrying, eyes red and puffy every morning from crying. In order to keep away from pointless arguments with my dad all because he is worried and I am stubborn and hardheaded. I wish I could be carefree and not have to take pills with every meal, do countless therapy sessions, or worry that my cough will scare off potential friends or raise questions like, “Do you have ebola? Or “you’re disgusting, get away from me.” Though that one isn’t as common, I still imagine that is what people think as I cough up a lung, red in the face sounding like a donkey. The reality is everyone dies, whether it be from drunk driving, a freak accident like acupuncture gone wrong, or old age. But, I am stuck fighting to live, staring a life expectancy straight in the face. Why get married when eventually I will leave my soulmate alone and heartbroken? Why even try having kids when they could be cursed with CF too? I wish I could say there are positives of all of this, but that’d be lying. My life is slowly deteriorating and I feel like i'm drowning, screaming for help, but all that comes out are the bubbles on the surface.
Now, this is where my dream comes into play. I have been having “The worst pool day ever” dream as I like to call it since I was fourteen and none of it ever made sense. Why is the last thing I see my doctor laughing at me? I have begun to understand that my doctor is laughing because in my dream I will ultimately die and it is supposed to warn me it will be from CF if I don’t get it together, hence why my doctor laughs. I am not the perfect CF patient, I am not going to lie, sometimes I skip my therapy or do not take my pills, but the big tube in my heart is starting to make me realize I need to get it together or else I will never have the chance to not be scared. Today I fear for my life, dying being closer than the day before. Slowly grazing my fingertips over the end of my life, I fear dying, sixteen, unaccomplished and worst of all, lonely. But, with a little positivity, time management skills, and dedication I am going to kick CF’s frickin butt and live to die of old age checking out some granddudes at the pool with my ladies. So yes I may fear spiders, sharks, dying and now pools, but one day you’ll see “me Frinks, the oldest woman alive” on the headlines of every newspaper. Please read this at my funeral. That’s all, thank you and goodnight.
Xoxo,
Me, the girl who never knows what to write and always ends up off topic.(This was supposed to be about summer)
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