3 A.M. Search

My heart was doing something wrong.

That's all I knew.

That and the fact that I was awake at three in the morning

with my chest tight and a word I couldn't find

to describe what was happening inside my ribs.

I grabbed my phone.

My fingers already knew where to go.

chest pain anxiety or serious

Fourteen million results.

Fourteen million people who woke up at three in the morning

and felt their hearts doing math.

I read about the ones who went to the emergency room.

I read about the ones who waited too long.

I read about the ones whose chest pain meant something,

and the ones whose chest pain meant nothing

except that they were scared enough to stay awake

and type words into a glowing rectangle

at three in the morning.

One person's comment: could be a heart attack.

Another: probably just your anxiety talking.

Another: I had this and it was nothing. I had this and I was dying.

My heart kept its wrong rhythm.

My phone kept its glow.

I kept reading.

By the time the sun came up

I had convinced myself of three different diseases,

ruled out two,

and decided I was definitely going to die

in the next six months

or possibly already dying,

or possibly just anxious,

or possibly just awake too late

reading other people's terrifying medical narratives

like they were my own future written out

in forum posts and WebMD warnings.

My chest still hurt.

My heart still skipped.

But now I knew enough to be afraid

in multiple ways,

enough to know I might be dying

of something that kills you quietly

or something that's just my nervous system

practicing for a death that hasn't come yet.

I put the phone down.

My heart kept beating.

Not right, but alive.

Not dead, but terrified

of the ways it could be.