A week didn't used to go by without me getting dizzy.

Now I can't even remember the last time.

I figure it was about two months ago. Maybe more.
And the strange part isn't that it hasn't happened.
The strange part is that I wasn't keeping count.

Because I always used to.

The question

With dysautonomia, the dizziness was never the only problem.

The problem was the question that came before any plan:

What if it hits?

What if it hits at the party?
What if it hits in front of people I don't know?
What if I have to go lie down with my legs up in someone else's house?

The answer was almost always the same: better not go.

Thursdays

My dad's friends get together to play dominoes.
Every Thursday.

They'd invite me.
I wouldn't go.

Not because of the dominoes.
Because of the question.

Now I go every Thursday.

I'm still not very good.
But I go.

Another day

In "Laying the Groundwork" I wrote about my sister's birthday.
That I went. That I didn't get dizzy.
But that I still wasn't at ease.
That I'd get nervous thinking about what I was going to say.

I said that was a topic for another day.

I'm not going to say that day has come.
It's still hard for me.
I didn't become an extrovert overnight.

But something shifted.

I care less now about people seeing me.
If I say something absurd, well, I said it.
If I make a fool of myself, well, I did.

Nobody died.

What's around me

I also stopped comparing myself so much.

It used to weigh on me a lot, seeing everyone with their partner.

My sister.
My brother.
My cousins.

Everyone.

It was another question, close to the first one:
When's my turn?

These days it doesn't hit the same way.

Sometimes I still think about it. I won't lie.
But I don't stay there anymore.

I try to think: someday.

What I don't know

I don't know exactly what changed.
Maybe it was several things at once.

I also don't know if the dizziness will come back.
Probably, at some point.

But for years, what if it hits? decided where I went and where I didn't.

Lately I don't even ask it.

And on Thursdays there's dominoes.