By: Monet Polny
The plant had been there before I was born. None of my family had an established account there. Everyone in our small suburbs talked about the place of course. It was a relic of the deceased and disgraced patriarchy that had once been our state.
The fees to get in were naturally enormous. Few, let alone a college student could afford its dues. I had convinced myself after my first heartbreak that the plant wasn’t an option. Instead I invested in seven dollar containers of organic ice cream. While the cashier was ringing up this purchase, she observed the blank look on my face and the fatty snacks I was clinging to.
At a loss I said, “A bad breakup is all.”
“Awwwwww honey…” her punctuated Southern drawl was unmistakable. She leaned towards me, as if she was about to exchange state secrets across the bleached counter. “They have a place to fix that now, you know?”
From my middle class purchase, she had assumed I could afford the plant’s fees.
Tight-lipped I said, “Thank you for the information.”
My second breakup was even worse. Whichever old historians and writers called your first breakup the worst were grossly mistaken. I’ve come to discover that each time a person’s heart breaks, the debris that remain do remain painfully inside you.
I watched him cheat and I realized I was asexual. By the time my physical attractions caught up to my emotional ones, he was on a plane to Austin, Texas. A brief reconciliation ended with sudden abandonment. Three years later I sat in the waiting room of the plant. I couldn’t see anyone until the contract was signed. The first page resembled old-school health forms from doctor’s offices. After filling in my medical history, there was the emotional history section.
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Do you have someone to pick you up after your appointment?
I circle NO in big block letters. I pointedly told no one significant that I had come here. The plant is considered taboo as therapy once was. Plus, everyone considers the surgery extreme.
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Reason(s) for visiting today.
With the red pen the receptionist gave me, I stain the paper with the ink blots of my story. My last man pursued me throughout college. He became my best friend and confidant. When he broke up with me, the friendship on his end disapparated. I was shut out of his life. Last week I didn’t look both ways before crossing the street. I was almost hit by a car and I didn’t feel good or bad about it.
When I enter the consultation room, I’m relieved to see my advisor is a woman. We speak briefly and exchange pleasantries at first and then
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“Have you tried taking depression pills?”
I nod mutely. Then, after a moment, “Nothing has helped.”
“I’m concerned for you,” she says and her sudden kindness makes my chest pinch inward.
She continues, “I’m not supposed to tell you this. Advisors aren’t allowed to.” She leans forward and her tone softens. “I had the surgery too. It’s the best decision I’ve ever made.”
“Really?”
“Truly. I’ll say this, when men were attempting to oppress us, at least they created a way for us to not care about them. Through this surgery, all the hurt we feel is replaced by strength.”
“But you don’t – “
“No, we don’t literally give you strength. In the surgery, we just remove what hurts your heart to give it space to properly heal. Heartbreak is removed so that normal emotions can prevail.”
The surgery lasts three hours. I can’t explain how I felt when I woke up, that was a blur. What I can say is that the newness first hit me when I walked outside of the plant. I opened the steel double doors to a blast of sunshine. The glare caught me off guard but I quickly adjusted to it. What I next observed was a repositioning. Instead of feeling as if my chest was about to cave in, nothing was there. My body felt fifty pounds lighter, as refreshing as a good night’s sleep. It was a lightness I hadn’t felt since I was a naive child. I am an adult chasing butterflies. I’m wearing little red rain boots regardless of the weather. My feet are itching to dance with no embarrassment attached.
A car horn goes off in the parking lot in front of me. Stepping out of the car is my most recent ex-boyfriend. From his wallet he willingly extracts a dozen green sheets of paper. We cross in opposite directions. He, down a road I’d previously passed, and me, down a road far from him.
To date I don’t understand how my bill at the plant was paid. My advisor could have taken pity on me; she had offered to cut a few costs. The ex-boyfriend had been on his way to the plant with several bills – maybe it was his money that had aided me? However, it wasn’t until many uneventful decades later I considered that he had gone to the plant for the same reasons as me.