On Repetition

There are days when I confuse healing with time. I tell myself, quietly and with conviction, that because I’ve done this before: prepared a post-surgical bed, lined up medications by time and dosage, set reminders for drain cleaning - it should be easier. That the repetition of the act will eventually smooth its edges. That familiarity should reduce suffering. That if I can do it again, it won’t feel the same. But it does. It always does. And that, too, becomes part of the repetition.

Again. Again. Again.

I have packed and unpacked the same overnight bag for the hospital enough times to know which shirt I can wear without lifting my arms. I know which bras are softest. Which bras work for a little while, but aren’t enough support in the long run. I know how to arrange the surgical drains so they don't pull. Pin them into the bra with a safety pin. I know the weight of the bag. I know how the zipper sounds. I know how to fold and refold the same pair of leggings, the same pair of hospital socks. The same socks. The same socks.

I have washed my hair the night before surgery the same way each time. I have used the same shampoo. The same scent. Dial soap. Antibacterial. I have made the same lists. Packed the same snacks. Bought the same unscented soap. Stashed the same heating pad in the same corner of the same couch. The pillow stack, the blanket, the water bottle. The ginger chews. The Colace. The stool softeners. The prescriptions. The protein bars. The bendy straws. Always the bendy straws.

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche posed a hypothetical: if you had to live your life over again, exactly the same, every moment repeated, would you say yes? He called it the eternal recurrence. For him, it was a measure of affirmation - an existential litmus test. Could one embrace life so fully that even its pain would be welcomed, again and again? But he offered no comfort. Eternal recurrence is not salvation. It is exposure. It is the body returned to its undoing.

I have laid in bed, propped upright, arms tucked to my sides like a T-Rex. I have calculated time by the schedule of medications: four hours, six hours, eight hours. I have written it down on paper. I have logged it in apps. I have set alarms and timers. I have asked others to remind me. I have forgotten anyway. I have cried. I have forgotten why I was crying. I have cried because it was time to take another pill.

In her book "Cruel Optimism," the theorist Lauren Berlant describes the attachment to something that promises joy, stability, or fulfillment, but structurally cannot deliver it. We stay loyal to these fantasies, not because they are real, but because they help us endure. A relationship. A nation. A dream of the good life. They give form to the waiting.

What is recovery, then, if not cruel optimism? The belief that the right protocols - rest, hydration, patience - will lead to wholeness. Not just healing, but redemption. Narrative closure. The tidy end. We align our routines with the fantasy that someday this will all have meant something. That the pain will be worth it. That the body will reward the discipline.

But what if it doesn’t? What if the discipline is the reward? What if the healing never arrives, and the body—despite its rituals—remains uncertain, unwell, incomplete? What if what we are building is not a bridge to health, but a holding pattern? What if the checklist is the new architecture of denial?

Berlant does not mock our hope. She sees it. She sees the way people organize their lives around it. She sees the way it keeps us afloat. But she also shows us its cost: the exhaustion, the self-blame, the lingering grief that comes from believing we did everything right and still did not arrive.

To live inside cruel optimism is to live inside contradiction: to know the promise might be empty and still need to believe in it. To enact the same gestures, prepare the same meals, take the same supplements, rest at the same hours, not because they will change everything, but because the ritual helps us survive the not-knowing.

The body begins to remember before the mind does. The nerves remember. The skin remembers. The ache settles in even before the scalpel returns. Repeat. The body remembers the repeating in the patterns. I think I can outsmart it, but I can't. I try to breathe differently. Eat differently. Think differently. But the body, always, pulls me back.

I know how to clean the drains. I know how to strip them. I know how to measure output. I know how to lie to myself about what the numbers mean. I know how to hold the bulb in one hand, the measuring cup in the other. I know how to squeeze. I know how to pour. I know how to write it down. I know what the red means. I know what the brown means. I know what the clear means. I know when to worry and when to pretend I’m not worrying.

I know how to mark the bruises. I know how to trace the swelling. I know how to track the fever. I know how to ice my chest and not freeze the skin. I know how to wrap the heating pad around my shoulders. I know which pain is normal. I know which pain is not. I know how to say "it's fine" when it's not. I know how to say "I'm fine" when I'm not.

I know how to wait. I know how to count days. I know how to count nights. I know how to hold my breath between appointments. I know how to pace. I know how to pace. I know how to pace.

I know how to answer when people ask how I am. I know how to say, "I'm healing." I know how to say, "One day at a time." I know how to say, "It's a process."

They say that repetition is the mother of learning, but I don't want to learn this. I don't want to be good at this. I don't want to be efficient. I don't want to be fluent in surgical recovery. I don't want to be practiced in pain.

And yet, I am. And yet, I do. And yet, I repeat.

Again. Again.

There is something perverse about this kind of repetition. It is not chosen. It is not curated. It is not the slow mastery of a craft. It is the slow erosion of self. I am not becoming better. I am becoming more exhausted. More precise, yes. More efficient, yes. But also more brittle. More hollow. More tired.

When I brush my teeth, I hold the cup in the same hand. When I brush my hair, I wince the same way. When I look in the mirror, I search for swelling in the same place. When I lie in bed, I stare at the same crack in the ceiling. I count the same lines in the drywall. I trace the same memories.

I remember each time I said goodbye to my body. I remember each time I was marked in blue pen. I remember each time I felt the warmth of the surgical gown. I remember each time I was wheeled into the OR. I remember each time the lights got too bright. I remember each time I woke up not knowing where I was.

Repetition is not just doing something over and over. Repetition is the refusal of time to move forward. It is time circling itself. It is grief re-entering the room. It is pain resurfacing. It is hope being folded and refolded until the corners fray. It is memory becoming muscle. It is muscle becoming fear. It is fear becoming normal.

There is a rhythm to this. I know the rhythm. I live by the rhythm. Prepare. Surgery. Recover. Wait. Flare. Repeat.

There are days I want to break the rhythm. There are days I want to scream. There are days I want to sleep through it. There are days I want to forget how to do it. There are days I want to unlearn the language of recovery. There are days I want to burn the checklist.

But even that is a kind of repetition. Even rage repeats itself. Even rebellion circles back.

What anchors me, sometimes, is not the hope of healing. It is the predictability. I know what tomorrow looks like because I've lived it. I know how to hold the ice pack. I know what books I won't read. I know what messages I won't return. I know the sound of the microwave heating broth. I know the hours I will be alone. I know the silence. I know the echo.

Nietzsche's eternal recurrence asks: if you had to live your life over again, exactly the same, would you choose it? My answer changes by the hour. There are moments I can say yes. There are moments I cannot speak.

But the truth is, this is not philosophical. This is physical. This is the same body. This is the same pain. This is the same hour, again.

Again. Again.

And somehow, despite it all, I get up. I refill the ice trays. I count the pills. I fold the blanket. I rinse the drain bulbs. I mark the output. I eat the protein bar. I sit in the sun, if I can. I lie down again. I write. I delete. I cry. I begin.

And I begin.

And I begin.

Because that is what repetition does. It doesn't allow you to finish. It doesn't allow you to arrive. It only allows you to continue.

I continue.