Her smooth movement, wreathing beauty, she spoke fast and directly. She was soft around the edges, though her hands her quite rough and calloused. Her energy was compacted into her short stature, easily excitable, her vivacity often exploded out of her small frame into the world around her. Her head of brunette hair turned golden in the light, a bundle of highlights framing her round face, I thought she was rather delightful. I recalled meeting her for the first time, I remember seeing her face outlined by gleaming hair and her eyes stared back at me, soft and wide. I was already an energetic person, and her energy only spiked mine, she was a shot of espresso poured into my full cup of coffee. That was what I loved about her, she never made me quiet my voice, for she laughed and spoke with more poise and volume than anyone I’d ever met. The jokes we made together weren’t funny in the slightest, they were made up of obscurity and personality, but that was the way we communicated. Nothing mattered if it made sense, for we would always find a way to make anything sensical to us, and if it wasn’t possible it would become our new laughing matter. She became a routine for me, I became a routine for her, we cycled in and out of eachothers days like the sun and the moon. I would consistently sit in on her math classes, and hours later, there she would be waiting for me outside my classroom. Most days, I was seeking her excitement whether I knew it or not, she had a way of getting you like that. She wasn’t all excitement and chaos though, for she was riddled with talent and intelligence, the kind that made you feel like you couldn’t even compete. You couldn’t compete with her either, she was unbeatable, and she knew it. Confidence and strength were coiled into her hilarity and beauty like a package wrapped in solid gold with satin ribbon, but just like a gift, she was even better on the inside.

The forest was small, spanning over unbroken land sandwiched between wealthy homes and golf courses. The grass overgrown, often going uncared for in the hot months of the year. The trees reaching soft moss covered and plentiful branches down towards the ground, attempting to pull the moisture from the dirt below, but it too was cracked and dry. It wasn’t always like this, in the spring the fertility of the soil was high and the flora and fauna danced at you with life, they drew you in deep to the shaded and moist woods. The different seasons brought varying stages of life, the best seasons being the spring and autumn, when the mixture of rain and sun created a grand lively scene of greens and browns. The days of the year where the sun made beams shine through the trees were some of the most beautiful, golden hands reaching out from behind tall green bodies, grazing my cheeks with soft fingertips as I passed by. I spent time there through the year, not just when the sun beamed down, but also when the rain beat down and the air was sharp and freezing. I would hike up the small hills to a bench that shaded me from the heavy rains, though it did not stop the rain from finding me, it softened the beating when it did. I spent time at night in those woods too, blind and tracing the trail by memory, wandering home through the few miles of muddy trails. I brought my friends there, introducing them to my sacred space, showing them the shortcuts and trails, telling them the stories. The nearby golf course produced foot traffic through the main trails, families and couples walking through, dogs and children at their heels. Though the trails weren’t always busy, people tended to clear out as the sun began to lower in the sky, I believe that this may be because of the feeling that lingers around once the light has fallen. When the darkness sets in, the trails become a mystery and the road home becomes unclear, but after years of walking the trails, I grew comfortable with the unknown. The last time I was there, I was on a nightly adventure home from a friends house, and the fastest route home was to cut through the woods. It was early December and the air was ice cold and the ground was slick and unstable, but nonetheless, the walk home was gorgeous. My only light being soft dim white light from above, like a layer of satin over the top of the trees, which looked like eldritch beings watching over me on my walk home. I wound through the trails, not a sound other than my footsteps could be heard, the silent peaceful air was meditative in a sense. The land there is harmonious, in different ways, sometimes the birds and the wind match each other and other times the rain fall matches my footsteps. The land is being built upon though, houses being sprung and families inhabiting them, the structures will slowly begin to encroach on the woods until they are nothing but level ground and houses. It doesn’t deserve to be destroyed for housing, as it contains more life than you would see in any home or apartment, it contains the world of natural growth. But of course, who would need that here? Who needs a forest in the place where there could be a parking garage or more overpriced student housing?

A head full of lead gripped by sweating palms, eyes sewn shut, breaths quiet and dwindling. The wooden desk below softened as it blurred in front of watering eyes, then covered as my eyelids drew shut, too heavy to keep open. I became lethargic in a matter of an hour, just before this I could at least control myself, but now I felt as though I was a victim to my own body, stuck inside myself. My body antagonized me, gripping a fistful of nerves, siphoning energy to the last drop, pushing a needle through each eye. It had become expected, a nervous anticipation through each day, I began wondering when the brutality would come. There was not a day that went by where I knew how I would feel, for every moment of peace and sanctity was interrupted by the beast, the storm that came with no warning.

I recalled the doctor's office, small with barren white walls. The room smelled of alcohol and stale air. This would be the first of many appointments with the new doctor, the first of many blood draws and labs, really it was the first of everything for me. It had all just begun. My new doctor was young, but old enough to have wise eyes, eyes that you could trust. I filled her in about the beast that writhed my body, I told the tales of its havoc as one would speak of a mythical legend, she only quietly nodded in agreement. The doctor didn’t speak, but her face told me millions of things, the most prominent of which being concern. Her brows furrowed and eyes wide open. I felt as though she had just told me I had terminal cancer by looking at me, though I didn’t feel as scared as she looked. They ran tests on me, stealing vials of my blood, scans of my chest and neck, swallowing up all my time. The beast that gripped my body wasn’t scared away by the tests and trials, instead it writhed in dark corners where it could still eat away at me, undetected. The tests took pauses now and then, giving allowance time for the labs to be deciphered and picked apart, and in that time I grew more sick. The fatigue became a thick sludge inhibiting my thoughts from moving through my brain, the body pains were that of an animal being mangled by its predator, I was a blameless victim to the relentless violence of my body. The doctor took her time working through solutions, talking to me about treatment plans for something we didn’t yet understand, she spent the time explaining what she knew, avoiding what she did not. It would be a matter of months until we understood any piece of the disease that soon would riddle my body. 

It was February, maybe about 9:00AM, the weather was awful that day, the rain came down in thick sheets and the wind spun through the skies, imitating a tornado on its way through. I came into the office once again, wetting the paper with the ends of my sleeves while I filled out paperwork. It was busy that day, the waiting room full to each corner with faces, I awaited the familiarity of the nurse. She came to call my name only a few minutes later, then she guided me into the small office. The walls seemed to shrink in on me every time I was there, It felt as though the room warped and collapsed inwards on me as each minute passed. Time moved slowly, thirty minutes had passed and the blankness of the room had started to seep into my bloodstream, everything was beige and white and numb. At around 9:45, I was greeted by my doctor, who crept into the office apologetically after the long wait. I didn’t mind, I never did. She pulled an ultrasound scan from a folder, she skimmed the paper thoughtfully, I could tell by the way her eyes darted from the page to me. She was considering the best way to word what she was going to say. Though chosen quite carefully, the words came out of her mouth like a flash flood. They broke past her teeth and lips, the dam has broken and the sentences swam. I could only pick out a few words from her ocean of vocabulary, things such as “abnormality” and “cells”, but the few words were all I needed to understand. She explained, slower, that due to an autoimmune response, a small hormone producing organ was being rapidly killed. She went on, saying that the damage and response were irreversible, but it was treatable. The treatment plan was lifelong medication, which was relieving in a sense, no surgery yet, no procedures, just pills. Before I left, they ran more blood tests, stealing up what was left of me. Then I was sent on my way, but I do believe a piece of me stayed.

It was not detrimental to me to be diagnosed with a chronic condition, but at that moment I viewed myself entirely differently. I did not want to be “sick”, I did not want to be fragile or seen as someone of lesser ability. But I was all of those things, in one way or another I fit the criteria. Some of my abilities were taken from me, but in time I would compensate, patching over what was lost to me. I wasn’t fully on my feet, but I would find ways to stand, ways to face it all. The beast that lurked beneath my skin and bones was not something to fight against, rather it was something to begrudgingly coexist with. Nothing would remove it now. We did not get along well, but considering we lived in the same body, we would just have to make do. We were stuck together, me and the beast.