Before I Die

Though the sun is shining, I do not feel it.

It is streaming in through my open window hitting my bare arms and legs, however I do not feel it. I feel everything else though, the cool air, the pounding of my heart, my heart beat in the tips of my fingers. I feel everything all at once but the warm sun beating down on my cool body I do not feel. It frightens me the tiniest bit, like I am somehow broken, and not working properly anymore.

I think my ribs may be broken for the furious pounding of my heart, each breath is pain and though I do understand why it still annoys me, frustrates me to tears because none of this is right. None of this should be happening. But it is. And no amount of sulking and crying will ever change that, I just… feel so damn alone, almost like I am walking this earth by myself, with no one to guide, influence or shape me in any way.

I know I am as much to blame as my diagnosis for being alone, because I could go downstairs and sit with my parents in the lounge room and pretend for a while that I am okay. That I am not sad but I won’t… I can’t. If I were to deny my sadness I would be denying a whole part of myself and that seems dangerous.

Downstairs I can hear my parents arguing over me and it makes me feel uneasy, almost as if everything in my life is changing. I realise a little belatedly that it is and I feel stupid for ever thinking this, my terminal diagnosis, wouldn’t change anything. I’ve barely been home ten minutes and already everything is different. It is like I am finally seeing things for what they really are, and I hate it.

I just want to go back to before.

My phone vibrates next to me and I know who it is before I check the caller ID, the only person who would bother to call me after a seemingly routine doctor’s appointment, my best friend Jett. We have been friends since kindergarten and he is the only I bothered to tell about my doctor’s appointment last night. I know he would call to check in on me but I had not expected it to be this hard to answer the phone and tell him the truth, my truth.

That I am dying.

But it is.

And I am shocked. I want to cry until all of this starts making sense again, but I know deep down it never really will, because I am seventeen and I am dying, and if that is not the most unfair thing ever than I don’t know what is. I am suddenly unsure in my skin, unsure of answering the phone and letting Jett know the truth. I know the longer I keep it from it the harder it will be to tell him ultimately, but I cannot make myself pick up the phone and talk to him…

I just can’t.

So I end the call not bothering to answer it, and send him a quick text message letting him know everything is alright, I’m just busy with my parents. I know that will settle him for a few hours but eventually he will want to know everything my doctor said to me and what it all means because he cares. He cares more than I can fathom at this moment in time. I hate lying to him, pretending everything is just fine when in reality it is all falling to pieces around me but I cannot speak at this moment. I just want to feel sad and empty and broken for a little while.

So I lay down on my plush carpet and I feel everything.

*

I don’t make it to school Wednesday or Thursday but I do make it Friday. I think if I spend one more minute alone in my room listening to my parents fight I will surely go mad. So I strap on my ass kicking boots and force myself to get ready.

I find myself in the shower early Friday morning crying, crying tears that I didn’t realise I even had left. Crying for everything that I am losing, everyone I am leaving behind, and everything I will never be able to experience. It seems infinitely unfair to me, to be dying at such a tender age, a critical time in my life, just after my eighteenth birthday.

I am suddenly terrified of death, before I was initially diagnosed I took for granted growing up and growing old with someone by my side to hold my hand now I am alone and not growing any further. The thought of death leaves me breathless like I am suddenly going to throw up stomach acid and bile seeing as though I have barely eaten these past few days.

I am suddenly panic ridden, nothing has ever provoked anxiety quite like this experience has. I am annoyed at my body reacting so, I just wish it were all different. But it isn’t I remind myself, with determination I didn’t realise I possessed I turn off the water and dress quickly, forging an idea in my mind. An idea of life and living before death. Of experiencing thing’s, I may never get the chance to in other circumstances, things I won’t get a chance to experience if I don’t hurry up.

My days of wallowing and self-pity are done, I am determined, more than ever to simply live before I die. My lips are chapped from the salty tears burning against them, I feel useless like I am used up and empty despite my determination I cannot turn off my emotions of sadness and regret. I go about drying my wet hair, it is cut in a short pixie style having only recently started to grow back from chemo treatment.

I take in a fortifying deep breath and make my way downstairs for the first time in nearly three entire days. I have refused to leave my room before today after my doctor’s appointment, and my parents have only half-heartedly argued with me to spend more time with them and not alone dwelling on my expiry date. But I haven’t listened, I needed to be alone to comprehend what is happening to me. And it is happening to me, much against my will, something I always assumed was more powerful than it actually is.

I am annoyed suddenly that all this is happening against my will, that I have no say in the end. That the next few months are all I have left, I am so frustrated I am causing a headache. I have yet to actually accept or grasp what is happening to me, really grasp it and understand it, but I think I understand that not everybody gets the opportunity to live long happy lives, and I am decidedly not one of them. I am an outcast, a loner, the weird girl with cancer who is now dying.

Only no one but my parents know and I want more than anything to keep it that way, for how long I am not sure. All I know is I am not ready to talk about my diagnosis. I am however ready to live and laugh and love before I die.