My eye has been twitching since April.
At first I assumed it was because of the end of the semester was fast approaching and I had eleventy-billion things to attempt to complete and 65 students to wrangle and oh yeah, what research was I going to try to get done and did I remember to arrange what ever the hell else I was supposed to be doing....
Generally when my eye has twitched in the past, it means I am over tired and in sleep debt. A couple of good nights of ten hour sleep and the twitch fades.
Not this summer. The right eye. Twitch.
I come to consciousness and before I open my eyes the twitch shudders through the lid.
Several times an hour. All day long.
In June, I asked my doctor about it - in between blood tests and mammography and your general "Hey, how the fuck did I end up 45 and now talking about a whole range of other bizarre physical issues that seem to be kind of happening, including my deathly fear of melanoma so can you look at all these spots on my leg and hey also while we are talking about legs, my right leg THROBBED for two days after flying, can we make sure I don't have a thrombosis for fucks sake?"
My doctor is lovely. "Do you think it is neurological?", she asks.
"Nah. I don't. I think it was stress and overtired and just end of the year bullshit", I say, "but it has never lasted this long. It's just annoying."
My first strategy, like my first strategy for most everything, is to ignore it. Create a wall of simple non-acknowledgement. If I fail to see you, you don't exist.
The results of this strategy are also typical of my former experiences. It doesn't work.
The twitch amps up. The shudder, which had previously lasted a few seconds, extends itself luxuriously stretching out into waves of twitching.
By August I am having never ending twitching in my right eye. This is a level of hell I had not know existed. A sub level.
Level .03 - Never ending eye twitch.
I am also consumed by a terrible fear of writing. My brain refuses to tell stories. My brain refuses to take data and consider implications.
"NO", my brain says, "I fucking think not." My eye twitched in sympathy.
I am forced to concede that something is causing my eye twitch. Something I am not addressing.
I try homeopathic remedies. Not much help. I decide to flee back to acupuncture. My plan of non acknowledgement, like all my plans of non acknowledgement, has backfired stupendously. What I try to ignore comes to me like a stone gollem, planting itself inside my body.
The words inscribed on this gollem are "Face this or suffer. SEE this, or suffer."
I do not know why I can't seem to learn this lesson. My instinct is to subvert and ignore. In this way, I pretend I am not vulnerable. Not to loss. Not to grief. My outer face is stoic, while my inner state begins to plot how to get my attention.
Inertia, I understand. Sadness, I deeply understand. Grief? Loss? I don't seem to be able to embody them and, as such, my body goes to war with itself. My efforts to stop my emotional bleeding mean that I sacrifice parts of me to preserve the luxury of not seeing.
Twitch.
See this.
Twitch, Shudder.
See this. Acknowledge this.
Twitch.
