I guess if I was honest with myself I would say that I knew something was wrong long before I started looking for what was wrong. I started feeling tired all the time and achy. More than just getting older achy...but achy. Like deep in the muscles. I'd turn my head to the side and my neck would hurt all the way down to my leg. It was strange. So strange that I knew something was wrong. Something big you know...something that would change a lot.

And I wasn't really ready to change anything.

I started with random Google searches trying to describe exactly what I was feeling and all of the answers came back with results I wasn't ready to admit were a possibility. So I continued to think of it as a random search. Nothing I needed to worry about personally.

And then I started feeling faint at the most inappropriate times. Lightheaded to the point of falling before I could catch myself even though I could sense the ground coming up to meet me in darkness with sound. Muffled sound...but sounds I could pick up on knowing if someone saw me and was on their way to help me, helpless as I lay there vulnerable to whatever might happen next. My purse stolen, car stolen or something happening to me personally at the hands of a stranger.

And I'd always hope a woman with kids would get to me first.

I started to have to force myself to eat and I didn't know if it was because I didn't have the energy to cook or whether or not it was simply because I had no desire to eat. Like I felt it was a waste.

So I started trying to get my affairs in order because I didn't want someone to come into my home when I couldn't and find my life in disarray. I didn't want that to happen because I've seen the reaction to those who keep what the old folks called..."nasty homes" and no...my home wasn't nasty...but I wanted to feel like they believed I was completely together because my home was in order.

Because everything was all arranged.

And I started shopping online for my bag that I knew I'd need eventually. A bed jacket, loose fitting pajamas with a button front, silk pillowcases and super soft and warm socks.

I got my bag monogrammed.

Because I like my name.

I got everything ready in a morbid, sick kind of way which filled my time so that I had an excuse to not go and tell the doctor, and not Mr. Google, what I was feeling. Gambling with my time.

And then I woke up with a bruise on my thigh that I didn't remember getting and I became fixated with it as it seemed to grow right before my eyes and as I was standing in the mirror gauging my body's changes the ground came up to meet me again and this time the darkness was hot...with a coolness in the middle of it. Like a fan blowing outside in the dead heat of summer.

Before I closed my eyes behind the darkness...I knew I was in trouble.

No mothers with children were around.

Just me.

And whatever was living inside of me.

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