a queer, sex-positive illness memoir in real time

It was 11am.

I was standing outside the hospital, my head reeling from the news. The tumour, the biopsy. All I could hear was the crawling of little baby rats nibbling their way through the city’s sewers below my feet and inside my head.

I was due at work at 12.

I had no one I could call. My husband had left me. Everyone was at work and I didn’t dare tell my mother. How did you tell the one who’s brought you into the world that you were about to get kicked out? – I couldn’t.

I did the only thing I could think of: I walked.

I walked, seemingly aimlessly, just to calm down my amygdala’s response. I had read somewhere that walking engages your eyes and that as they dart from left to right, it slowly quietens the trauma response. So when panic takes hold, I walk.

The streets weren’t busy, I guessed everyone was already staring at spreadsheets and asking ChatGPT what to do. I walked up an avenue I knew well. There was a coffee place where I once had breakfast; a florist where I bought my ex a bouquet; the building entrance where I had held a friend after his therapy session; I had met a date just around that corner over there and slept with him in the alleyway. Every step revived a memory, before long I was surrounded by the echoes of a life on its last breath. It was overwhelming but strangely comforting. I had lived a life and it was reminding itself to me.

The memories turned into iterations of myself that stood, fully realised, right before my eyes. There was little me, scared and hunched over in a corner frightened by the screaming; bigger me staring down the barrel of a rifle; teenager me stepping on a scale and hating themself; young adult me dancing to Abba; the me that starved themself; the one on the other side of the world; the one in the snow, staring at a corpse; the one begging to be loved; the one at a keyboard, hoping to type the rage away; a joyful one riding a bike; a thousand different me’s lining the street, daring me to acknowledge them all. To remember the whole of me: Leo, Jerry, JJ, Jerome, La, Paul, all of my skins. They were screaming in a single voice, “It’s too soon. We don’t want to go.”

I don’t want to go.

They joined me as I walked. Together we tried paying attention to the gentle flow of our gait, then, our strides – hoping to root ourselves in the moment – by and by I felt every footfall against the pavement and as I did so, they started to fade away. As my weight shifted from my heel to my toe, their presence withered. They were not totally gone, they are never totally gone. They were within me, holding me gently. I regained a sense of where I was, what was happening and soon I realised where my feet were taking me. I was going to work.

I was being a good little soldier. One that would turn up, slap on a smile and perform. Dance, little monkey, dance! – and I would dance.

I had been told well: Listen to the man and do as the man says. Yes, daddy! Capitalism and productivity would prevail.

I was a couple of blocks away; it was too late to call in sick anyways…

I remembered the three thoughts I’d had: 1. I’m going to die. 2. I have wasted my life. 3. I have never been to Thailand.

I reached for my phone.

I wouldn’t dance afterall.

How do you tell your boss you’ve got a tumour? How do you break the news? I mumbled at first, “I’m… er… I received some really bad news today. I won’t be coming in. I can’t…” I could sense the emotion rising in my throat so I said, “I’ll leave copious notes. I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry.

In the First Wives Club, Diane Keaton walks in on her husband in bed with her therapist. She loses her mind and starts yelling. All she can scream are “I’m sorry”s as she stumbles backwards into a wall. I felt like I had walked head first into said wall and that I was apologizing to it for the inconvenience.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry, this is an inconvenience.

I’m sorry, I made your day more difficult and that you have to shuffle things around.

I’m sorry, I have a tumour.

I’m sorry, I can’t dance for you today.

I’m sorry, I won’t be dancing for you today.

I’m sorry, I have given you all of my time.

I’m sorry, I have given you my youth.

I’m sorry, I have given you my creativity, my joy and my smiles.

I’m sorry, I have given and you have taken.

I’m sorry, I let you.

I’m sorry, I’m going to die.