Tonight was an emotional roller coaster, and it started with Garth Brooks.

“Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)” came on, and I was doing fine singing along until the line, “All my cards are on the table with no ace left in the hole, I’m much too young to feel this damn old.” Then my voice cracked and the tears started.

That song has been complicated since Jake passed, and tonight it hit me right in the solar plexus. Between missing him and waiting for a transplant, it set the tone for the whole night.

When I got home, I checked on the fundraiser, and seeing the total did me in all over again. We’ve raised nearly $3,000, and we haven’t even really tried yet. It is overwhelming. It also makes me feel guilty and weird, if I’m honest. I know it is necessary, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. My brain keeps trying to tell me to give it all away to people who need it more.

Then Amazon showed up with the stethoscope I thought I’d want for listening to my new heart. Instead, I was overwhelmed by the need to listen to my Frankenheart. That took me out too. I can’t fully explain the complicated feelings I have about leaving this heart behind. They may not be rational, but they are real.

This heart has its own strange, familiar rhythm, and it carries more than blood. When I was little and not feeling well, my mom would place her hand in the center of my chest, close her eyes, and feel my heartbeat. It was more comfort than diagnosis, but it always made me feel better. Somehow all of those memories feel bound up in this heart, in its beat, in its rhythm.

After that, it all got quiet. I just sat with everything that has happened in the two weeks since I was listed. The blood draws, injections, phone calls, paperwork, packing, and all the ways I’ve tried to prepare. And still, so much of what comes next is a mystery.

In my best version of events, I walk in on the day, high-five my family and team, march into the OR like a WWE star, hop on the table, and ask if they’re “weady to wock,” like my nephew did when he was three.

I suspect the reality will be less badass and more like a tornado of feral kittens in my mind and stomach.

Now it’s later than it should be, and I’m still awake because my brain will not quit spinning. Tonight feels like one of those nights where the weight of everything lands at once, and there is nowhere to set it down. The personal, the global (seriously!), the practical, the emotional, all of it is just piling up in my chest and rattling around in my head.

I’ll tell you this, I’m not sure the human nervous system was designed to process heart transplant and the possibility of nuclear war in the same day but here I am…

Thanks for reading.