Outline the Heartache.

I stopped writing for a while.  Well, here I did.  Writing, though, is a daily occurrence.  There's a new novel in the works, even though I'm still committing guerilla warfare on trying to find an agent.  Or something like that.  More like they are committing omission by silence or bizarre notes of "we love what we read, but we can't take you."  Sounds like the story of my life.  Always.  Auto, rinse, repeat.

There's a new academic piece coming out next month, or this. . . Depending on the press's literal press.  There's a new academic piece, part of the forthcoming monograph I have a soft offer on, coming out next fall.  My last monograph should hit paperback next month.  There's a short story under final review.  Wouldn't that be grand?  The one aspect of my life I haven't broken into the publishing world on that I always said was what I wanted to do.

As of recent, I'm waking up from seven days in the hospital with pneumonia.  There's something I'd never recommend, especially with five of those days in isolation from a stupid TB scare.  The nightmares of a kitchen that couldn't understand an allergy to everything in the red pepper family, to PAs telling me they couldn't read my primary care physician's notes (what the holy hell there) and that I had to contact him, to a resident trying to send me home about eight hours after I was admitted saying I didn't have pneumonia and I didn't need to be there (there was a comment that I should see a therapist), to pulmonary saving me (for lack of a better word) an hour later, to finally losing my shit four days in from a migraine (that I still have) and living on less than 500 calories a day.  I lost five pounds though, from someone who slept without help while there and didn't leave bed for four days that says something.  The first three I don't really remember.  I do remember some, and I've seen elongated texts messages I sent.  The girls who called me Auntie wished me Happy New Year and were sad I was in the hospital.  I cried a little.  I thought the texts I sent were instant.  Instead, they were hours and minutes apart.  I'd wake, write, pass out.  Auto, rinse, repeat.  'Tis the nature of my life.  Yet, my father didn't wish me Happy New Years, and I found out why later.  There's a way to feel your heartbreak, as the actions of others cut you like a knife.

All of that being said, life breaks you.  As we all know.  Some, more than others.  I will never understand what the hell I have done, but in the end, I know that actions will forever speak louder than words.  The person who sent a message on New Year's Eve wanting help, even addressing knowledge he knew I was ill.  I was in the fucking hospital.  My response: "Embrace the crowds and figure it out." Yeah.  NYC is crazy on New Year's Eve.  Don't ask me about crowds.  Certainly, don't ask me for mundane aid when I'm in a hospital bed.

The person who should have messaged when I was in the hospital, going in with atypical and typical pneumonia (since having one wasn't enough), and waited a week . . . claiming she didn't know.  That's a bunch of bullshit, and after all of these years, I'm done.  Break my heart, after I've defended and stood up for her.  Been there.  Always reached out.  In the end, I guess I always knew it would end like this.  Don't ask me to get over it anytime soon.  The anger is long dead, like my twenties and men I mistakenly loved.  Instead, the void remains.  Actions that happened during that week. . .things I hope to one day forget.  The person who thinks it is appropriate to make jokes about my recovering from pneumonia . . . Yeah, if someone did to that them, well . . . I have no words.  

As time has gone on, I've come to learn that people aren't just not not good people.  Instead, they are bad people with several embracing being terrible.  The amount of horrible people in my life appear to be growing.

In the midst of it all, I didn't have to apologize for having Lupus this time.  Instead, I had departments and colleagues reach out.  I'm a little blown away, as I've never had that before.  Offers of food, deliveries of groceries, and offers for taking- out are touching, to say the least.   The sting, and shame, of apologizing for having Lupus in 2014 has not left me.  I'm sure that physician mentioned above still remembers it.  I did so as I needed the paycheck.  In the end, that place damaged me and my career.  The Lupus and Arthritis life has never helped either.  That's a different story, for another day.

As I tinker away my days, barely working as the exhaustion is strong and God has taken aim at me as of late, the elongated solitude does little for my soul.  Those infusions, of Kate Spade straw Pepto drinks and unicorn tears, are out for a while.  As to how long, I do not know.  One physician who says he's going to find the answer as another remains silent and avoids a call.  One whom I think I can trust.  One whom I'm not going to beg for his care as he's made it clear that appointments with me are secondary, as he'll walk out to take a call or answer a text.  Gold plated health insurance aside, one that pays for nearly everything, still eats you alive with copays.  I'm out these days out of money, savings, retirement, and hope.  I'm always left to wonder how much I am not really worth it, as actions remind me . . .

In the midst of it all, you find yourself falling apart in a physician's office.  I didn't see that one coming.  Though, I guess I should have.

I am doing this alone and doing infusions alone.  Being stood up for them, when I needed someone two infusion rounds, bruised an already dark soul.  I've long known to never ask anyone for anything, even if I've long been there for them.  I make jokes.  I have bits I do for the nurses.  In the end, I'm the one still sitting there trying not to lose my cookies as I know I've long outlived predictions made on me and endless reminders of people let me know what is thought of me.  The chemicals, protected from the light, go in.  The steroids and painkillers, in endless bottles, bounce around.  In the end, they all fail me at some point just like a cheap, drugstore mascara.  This time, I also gave my mother pneumonia as she spent three days in the hospital, going in after me (and coming home before me).  There's a special feeling for that too.

On my final day at the hospital, an ex-pat friend of mine came to see me.  He was days away from heading back to Germany, and since I was no longer contagious (or in isolation), it was safe for him.  Two others offered, but one has small children, and the nurses all said the risk was too high for her.  The other: she just moved here from half a world away.  The risk was too great for her too, and we know each other from Instagram and that would have been entirely too much to meet someone as such.  So, a handful of texts and one visitor.  My flowers are still alive, from William that ex-pat I know.  We met in Bulgaria, a couple of years ago.  Perhaps he barely knows me or knows me just enough.

The days are long but do not outlive the heartache.