I wonder sometimes if this is what they mean by somatization. My doctor, bless her heart, a young woman, bright, clearly burdened by student loans in this city, she just smiles and says “Miriam, your heart is a warrior.” And it is. It really IS. Seventy-six years old and still ticking along, even after… well, after everything. But then the numbers… the numbers become EVERYTHING. I mean, I don't even — whatever. It started subtly, maybe a year after Arthur died. I’d always taken my blood pressure, of course, a good teacher, always attentive to data, to… indicators. But then it was just, a little dip, a little spike. 128/78 in the morning, then 132/80 after lunch, and then, God help me, a 129/79 before bed. And suddenly, that 129/79 feels like a THREAT. A direct, personal affront to my continued existence. My heart rate will jump just THINKING about the cuff going on. My pulse practically races to get a good number, a comforting number, but then of course it’s all out of whack anyway from the anxiety of wanting it to be out of whack. It’s a performative anxiety, I think, like the body is putting on a show for the machine. I read an article once about the observer effect in quantum physics, and I think it’s like that. The mere act of observation changes the outcome. I’ve got the spreadsheet, of course. Arthur would have LOVED it. Every single reading, three times a day, every day, going back two years. The date, the time, the systolic, the diastolic, the pulse. Then I highlight the ones that are "good" in green and the ones that are "bad" in red. And there are so many more red ones lately. Not BAD bad, not like, stroke-inducing bad, but just… off. A little higher than yesterday afternoon, a little lower than this morning. A deviation. A signal. And my mind, my perfectly logical, analytical mind, immediately goes to the cerebrovascular accident. To the embolism. To the sudden, swift darkness. It's not a fear of dying, not really. It’s a fear of the PROCESS. The loss of control. The indignity. Sometimes I think it’s just… something to DO. Something to control, now that so much is beyond me. My students are grown, scattered across the country, making their own lives. Arthur is gone. The city is so expensive now, even with my pension, I feel it every month, the squeeze. There’s a certain… emptiness, I suppose. And so, the blood pressure cuff becomes my adversary, my confidante, my entire universe for those few minutes, three times a day. I argue with it. I plead with it. I will it to be normal, to be perfect. And then, when it isn’t, when it gives me a number I don't like, I just sit there, staring at the screen, and I think, "Well, here it comes. Any minute now." And then the moment passes, and the numbers are just numbers again. Until the next time. It’s a ritual, I guess. A very, very stressful ritual. A lonely one.