scrubjayspeaks

[CW for brief references to self-harm and dieting.]

As we sat in Friday afternoon traffic on the northbound 101, I looked out the window and choked on all the words I wasn't saying. It was the middle of May, not yet unbearably hot for a long car ride, and the car, for once this year, hadn't had any kind of catastrophic meltdown on the trip. More importantly, I had just gotten out of my first appointment with a new doctor and had a prescription for blood pressure medication. After years of having doctors tell me to "just lose weight" rather than actually treating my (substantially genetic) high blood pressure, someone had finally agreed that treating the body I actually have might be more worth everyone's time. I was riding high on that victory.

I was also two weeks away from my first appointment to get HRT. As the wait between making the appointment and the actual date of it wore on, I found my idle thoughts defaulting to that more than anything else. Whenever I did, my stomach would swoop and my heart would pound. It felt like I was moments away from stepping onto a stage to give a speech.

Sitting in that car, sweating and stabbing at the radio in search of a channel playing something my mother and I could stand to listen to, my throat went tight. It felt like that speech was a fistful of gravel caught in my throat.

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