I’ve started taking my heart medication again after quitting, due to an independent diagnosis of having “healed myself” believing the self care mumbo jumbo of reflection and meditation, which mostly actually consisted of forgiving myself my manic behavior, which I’d attributed to my vascoconstriction and secretly believed was an asset not a liability. I thought of it as a late millenial version of 19th century literary feebleness. I’d be like Dickinson or Proust—sick but killer in the books. But to poorly quote Laila, I will be the same (on this medication). I will just have lower blood pressure. Health first, my friends.

I have believed in the past that you wanted my heart to explode, and perhaps that is another reason I put off medical intervention. I’d been prepossessed with the meaning of blood pressure and cardio-mechanics. I undertook to learn everything I could about the cardiovascular system and its monitors. It is truly fascinating by the way, if ever you want to see my notes. It’s still beyond my real comprehension, but I continue to be morbidly fascinated with the idea of my heart exploding.

I learned the phrase “fair weather friend” quite late in life. In my late 20s. Someone from Massachusetts taught me the phrase in the context of sports fandom. A real Sox fan didn’t just show up after 2004. A real Sox fan was there for all of the 1990s.

We call the opposite of a fair weather friend co-dependency. If I had expectations of you holding my heart in your hands, it was because I was convinced you wanted it to explode, needed to be there to save me, but love means holding my heart because it is whole, not despite it. And if I exploded, I wonder if you’d be anywhere in the blast radius.

Santé