addie and lots of coffee.

As humans are most naked vulnerabilities are often exposed when we are ill.

Today there was nothing I wanted more then my mom, or at least someone who can pretend to take care of me.

I remember the first time I got really sick away from home, ironically it was in New York, I think I was 16 maybe just 17, I got some sort of UTI and I thought the world was going to collapse on me, it was one of those pinnacle moments I felt like an adult because no one was there to coddle me anymore, I remember so clearly feeling alone and grown up.
I remember taking myself to the hospital in the taxi and explaining to them how I thought I was going to die from the pain. I couldn't stand up straight. I remember getting a shot of antibiotics and not having any ones hand to hold. The nurse must of known I was scared, he put his hand out for me and I squeezed for dear life.

I remember last summer when I was in France, it was just a day or two before the tour was coming through Alpe d'Huez, I had been out on my bike all day and just got back in time to cook some pasta when my mom called to tell me she had cancer and was going into her second surgery the next day. I remember the same sensation then, feeling alone and trying to cry so quietly that no one would see or hear that anything was wrong.

I remember the terrible feeling I had of guilt, I remember starting the what ifs, I remember when she said the C word I automatically thought about every other person I've loved and lost that year. I started to think about how badly my mom wanted grandchildren and that even if I tried she would maybe never get to see them if things got worse. I remember feeling helpless there as much as I did when I was in that ER room ten years ago. Is this what being an adult means, feeling vulnerability yet going forward anyway?

I have always had some theory about illness in nature, there are humans who are 'public bleeders' and there are the ones who hide the problems so well you'd never know anything was wrong. Birds do that too, that's why they die so quickly sometimes, they try to hide weakness and illness from their flock and by the time you notice something is wrong, they're gone. I always wonder if that's where I get my ideas about survival, from the birds. I guess it somehow makes sense in a logical manner.

Never say you're not ok.
Never say you need help.
Never show you're weak.

And the irony in all of that is that I have realized that the ones who ask for love or help the least often are often the ones who need it the most.

How do you begin to ask for what you need when you've spent you're whole life hiding?