She was so
kind. I don’t remember her name because I wanted to look at her face, not her name-tag, and it was unusual enough to be immune to sideways glances. She told me everything she was going to do, sometimes more than once. She
kept asking me how I was doing. She called me “sweetheart.” She looked at me
like her job was to take care of me and only me.
I don’t
know why I had such a strong reaction to her. I wasn’t nervous or worried in
the slightest about my health (I think the lump is just a cyst) or the
procedure (it was just some pictures) but I felt taken care of and listened-to
for the first time in what has felt like years. I even admitted, in
conversational tones, as if she cared, that the only thing that I had been
worried about was being made to undress. I laughed about how my hands had been
trembling from fasting and gratefully accepted apple-juice from her.
I know this doesn't sound even the slightest bit unusual, but it is for me. We were through
in less than twenty minutes, and I didn't want to leave. I shook her hand when
I thanked her and I didn't want to let go.
Now I am at
home, paralyzed by things no one wants to hear, trapped between choices no one
wants to validate, writing paragraphs straight from a teen-ages girl’s emo
diary. Good Lord.