SCA

How often must we be reminded of our fragility? How corrupting breakability? As Ingrid sings, "To stop the muscle that makes us confess ... it's fairly simple." 

 My heart stopped last year - three times.

 Tachycardic wrestling, a race to the pharmacist, necessitating unawareness, confusion, fear and then nothing. A sense, as it were, of an ending. 

 Sadly, as stubborn as this will is, arrhythmia is not my ticket. No answers, just symptomatic blips on the screen of my life. Wires and plugs, contrast magnetism, consultations, appointments, saltwater triage at thirty thousand feet, expert opinions yet no conclusion. 

 Is this just the season of autumnal uncoupling? The moment where I end and then I begin again? Each beat leading to, not less, but simply different, existences? 

 After all, this is not the first time that I have died... I'm good at it now. 

 These eventualities lead to existential review ... So each defibrillation, each misfire, each stop and false start takes me back to the five and seven stages of grief. This journey I seem to need to traverse on repeat.  

I am not alone in this - it is the way of the pilgrim - we all walk/limp/crawl this valley of shadow and silence. Perhaps, after all this, I was not meant to walk with you.