At 5:00 a.m. I woke up and my first thought, wonder of wonders, was not hey, let's go tinkle, which, at my age, waking up in the middle of night is all about making a tinkle, but this morning my first thought was:
I am pregnant with a 27 pound bowling ball. No wait, a cannon ball, and it is about to ignite.
Then I realized, stupid girl that I can be, that I did not have pain in my reproductive parts but rather in my digesting parts. So I wasn't pregnant, but I did have a full belly.
I ate chicken but so did Kim. I'm the only one sick. And I did it to myself - when I went to bed I had extra saliva like I wanted to hurl, but I made myself ignore it. Till 5:00 a.m. at least.
Once, I actually hobbled around till someone pointed out to me that I was limping and I looked and sure enough, I had an infected ingrown toenail. I had breast discharge when I was five month's pregnant with Carly or I might have been one of those idiot girls who shows up at the hospital with no idea what is about to come undone only to be told: You are in labor, moron.
How on earth can someone not hear what her body is saying?
The simple answer is you have to be trained not to hear it, to have it say something so unbearable that you make yourself not listen. It's the ultimate denial, to not hear one's biological self.
And lots of girls can do it. It's the only way to get through a childhood when your body says someone is doing things to me that are wrong. You're a kid and powerless to help yourself so you quit listening.
Then you can't listen when you need to. I am better at it. I at least knew I should have let myself vomit at midnight. Today, I have not had any appetite at all and I'm so tired from waking up hurting. I have some vicodin downstairs and I hurt to bad to go down there and get it. I bet I move it to the bathroom upstairs after this.
I feel pretty old. Carly is on her way to pick me up and I am going home to bed. I am 49 years old and my father died 14 years ago, and still this hurts in new ways.
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