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Growing Old in the Anthropocene
I awoke last Sunday with a heaviness in my chest. This is not a metaphor. My first conscious sensation was of a subtle yet undeniable weight right where I imagine my heart to be. The sensation was difficult to articulate. Not quite a tightness or pinching, nothing, in fact, that I would describe as in any way painful. This was . . . a weight, as if the fibres in my heart had become denser through the night, or (my mind began to rouse itself and pick up the pace) a small mass was festering somewhere in my chest, or (now wide awake as I blinked my eyes into focus) I was having a heart attack.
I laid in bed for a long time, keeping very still.
The sensation didn’t go away. Like a stubborn pebble in my shoe it nagged at me all day. The more I was certain that it was there, the more intently I would turn my consciousness inward to feel for it. Alarmed, I tried to distract myself — coffee, The Economist, a book, TV, my bird feeders. It didn’t go away. Not that morning, not that afternoon. Early in the evening I made the egregious error of googling “chest heaviness” (note to readers: if you are prone to worrying or are interested in preserving your sanity, never do this). I spent the next 45 minutes tumbling down a deep and terrifying rabbit hole, wondering if I should call my parents to apologize for not calling more often or if I had any Amazon orders I needed to…
