4 years

Today my body is too heavy for me.
It's been 4 years, 4 years since the night of the coma, when I went to sleep and didn't wake up the next morning.
This year feels different then every other year. Maybe it's because I got diagnosed this year, that this year we found out the diagnosis behind the condition that has been causing me pain for the past 3.5 years.
It feels like it wasn't that long ago, but it also feels like forever ago.
I feel too old for my body, like I've lived so many more years, seen so many more things than I should have.
I can't run away from the past. It follows me. I am physically tattooed, the reminder of what happened scarred into my skin - in my leg where they put the IV thing into my bone (still have no idea what that was!)
It's a weight I can't put down, these diseases that I pull along behind me like a ball and chain. It's more like they are weights packed in along side my bones. It is all inside of me. The battle I am fighting is one with my own self.

I don't know if many people know this but I am terrified of sleep. Some nights are worse then others. I used to have panic attacks. I thought they had gone away, mostly, until I had one when I was in the hospital for my glycosade trial.
Sleep terrifies me, which is kind of weird because I do a lot of it.
It's been that way ever since that day 4 years ago when I went to sleep for 4 days and almost didn't wake up.
I'm scared that I'll stop breathing, stop existing.

And so I make jokes and pretend everything is ok when really I'm sitting here at 11:30 at night afraid to go to sleep tonight.
I'm just tired of this sickness, tired of the memories of days I can only half remember, of what almost was.
It's scary, hard, makes me so grateful but also anxious. I lost myself since then, and am starting to find myself, maybe. I feel so far away from that girl and yet I am that girl.

4 years ago today...