I should like to collapse, right here on the bathroom floor, so thoroughly and completely that I bang my head, just enough for a noise, not a bleeding, not a concussion, but a thud declaring to the world: something is happening. Or at least, to my loved ones, who will rush me to the hospital where the doctors will run tests and tell them efficiently, brusquely, to stop their fussing; this moment is all about me.
The tests will reveal I am suffering under incomparable stress. It is a wonder, the doctors reveal, that I’ve lasted this long. It would have caught up to me eventually, but that last thing my loved ones said, that nag, that reminder, that smart but insensitive joke, was the poison that sent me over the edge.
The doctors will inquire over the state of my well being, my self care, as I lay there to all the world unconscious– but able to hear, of course.
“She worked very hard,” my friends will wail, my coworkers will nod, and my boss will hang his head in his hands.
“Too hard,” must say the doctor.
There will be no long-term repercussions of my collapse. It is not a terminal case, and because it has been caught when it has, it, like most things in this world, can be cured.
I will be prescribed three months by the sea, required, paid for by insurance, the same insurance that is covering my hospital stay without a rise in premium or any copays whatsoever. In this world where I collapse, such things have been eliminated.
In this world, I will tell my loved ones, “I could use a break.”
And they will say, “Why didn’t you tell us sooner?”
And I will reply.