lexapro, day one. sept 1st.
strange and weird is an understatement for how i am feeling today.
i woke up hopeful. swallowing a doubly expensive pill because of my insurance woes at 10 this morning. in an effort to change myself and my life for the better. to quiet the noise in my head. to slow the racing thoughts. to decrease panic. to minimize mood swings. to level out. to be less overwhelmed, and more motivated to do something – anything, really.
i forgot it was the first, and i'd planned to start the medication on saturday, but decided not to put it off one more day, and to start on the first for some odd reason. seemed like a good idea at the time.
the instructions stated that it will take a month to kick in and feel a difference. the shrink is glad i'm trying it, but told me that it is a six month to a year long committment, which really almost scared me out of taking it.
but halfway through my session, i decided. i told her that i'd decided on my drive back from florida with brownies that i should do it. and that i got back and had a good week, before slipping back into bad weeks. and she said that's the misconception about depression and anxiety. you can have good weeks mixed in with bad ones.
in talking about my life events in the last month, she said that i already live a very high stress life, and have, and will. and that i've been through a lot in the last two years. and said that i need to think of this as a cup filling. all the stress of the divorce put some liquid in the cup. and then the house added to that, and family stuff, and work had taken me to the brink. and then this last loss was what it took to make the cup overflow. the drug will help drain some of the contents of my cup. and will help me get to a point where i can start emptying some of it out myself, in time. i won't have to worry about it overflowing (if all goes according to plan) and eventually my cup will remain half filled/empty, and as stress piles back in, i won't be paralyzed with anxiety while i watch it overflow.
we'll see.
this morning i took it after having about half a cup of coffee. i was nervous bellied about it, didn't get much sleep last night, and woke up worrying. but instead of letting that convince me to wait a day, it motivated me to take it, so i'm one day closer to not waking up like that.
and i got ready for work, and got back onto my bed.
i had a lot of work to do at home before leaving for the stores and delaware. it was a beautiful day out, and i was happy to be driving. until i hit traffic about ten minutes from the house. and more traffic twenty minutes after that. and still more twenty minutes after that. my thought for today was, 'sometimes you can only go as fast as the person ahead of you'.
i was feeling spacey almost immediately. and i guess being aware of the fact that you're taking a brain drug for anxiety can riddle you with more, out of fear and worry that it won't work, or that your body won't acclimate easily, or for me, that i'll be stuck on this for the rest of my life.
and i tried to quiet that stuff, to keep from panicking. it felt an awful lot like the old days of dropping acid, to immediately wonder if you're in the mindset to drop, and wait with a belly full of tangles for the shit to kick in.
i tried to positive talk myself mentally while i drove. 'it's okay. you won't feel anything for a month. you're going to feel better soon. everything is going to be okay. pretty soon, you won't worry or obsess or ruminate so much. take a deep breath. just drive. get where you're going. and keep moving forward.'
but by noon, my hands were shaking, i was feeling racy and stomach-sick. she'd told me it was okay to take an ativan if i felt uncomfortable, so i did. i'd taken an allergy pill when i got up to combat the congestion i've been dealing with for a few days now. and i think the coffee and the belly full of pills was not good for me. i don't want to take pills to combat pills, and the thought that i had a belly with pills floating in it was making the situation worse.
luckily, i didn't get sick. i still haven't eaten today. nothing sounds good. nothing sounds like it would settle my stomach. nothing looks good. not even shitty fast food, which is usually the perfect answer.
i'm hoping that it goes away soon, because i have to eat something. but i keep alternating feeling sick with being hungry. i ate enough yesterday to last a few days, but that is neither here nor there.
i had a hard time speaking today. forming sentences. completing thoughts aloud. focusing on anything, particularly driving, which is a horrible feeling, when you're stuck in three separate traffic jams, and wind up in a car for a few hours.
shaky hands. shaky legs. wobbly body. slower judgments. everything today took FOREVER. i felt very scattered, and more than once had to go back and redo something because i forgot half of what i was trying to do.
i just felt slow. getting ready, doing the work from home. getting every place i was trying to go, except, luckily, for the drive home. sorting through things in delaware. everything. or as kim is in the habit of saying right now, from hyperbole, 'all of the things'.
but somehow i managed to accomplish most of what i set out to do today.
i had to put off some pretty important things, cutting myself a break, because i was an overachiever this week and got a shit ton of work done in preparation for back to school traffic and business next week. i probably had worked all of my hours by lunchtime today, but kept going, and will continue to tomorrow.
had i been thinking clearly, i would have spent today working on more things from home, and had a full day in delaware tomorrow. but now i have two days worth of stuff to do, and i'm halfway done.
i drove home feeling strange. one part sad. one part nervous. one part heady. one part slower. one part cloudy. one part shaky. i'm in one of those phases where i check everything three times. i have a list. did i do that? can i cross it off? stay focused. cross things off. and keep to yourself, and try not to talk a lot. write everything down when you think it. and then don't forget where you wrote it. and then don't lose the list.
i tried to talk as little as possible today.
because when i'm quiet, i don't feel so strange. but when i open my mouth to speak, it's like i've developed a stutter or something. nonsensical things pour out. and there are long pauses while my brain matches subject to predicate.
i'm going to feel better soon. that is my mantra for september. and my optimism is telling me that, by the time aubree gets back, even if it's just for a visit, in october, i'll be up for a weekend in new york, and social outings with friends. i'll be up for housework. i'll have burned through all of the internet tv and won't have the desire to lay around and watch things in an attempt to shut off my brain, which is only ever a temporary solution and a profound waste of time. one that drops my brain right back off at the start when the credits roll.
yesterday, i came back from running work errands and popped in my netflix movie. one day, i'll think to read the little blurbs they write about movies before i watch them. i hate spoilers, so usually, i'll watch something based on who is in it, and intentionally not read the synopsis. i happen to love joseph gordon-levitt. mostly thanks to 500 days of summer. but there was a movie i watched a couple months ago that he was in, that was fucked up. and i still didn't learn my lesson. and found something else he was in. i watched 'mysterious skin'.
really really rough. and like always, i'm stubborn about finishing what i start. so ten minutes in, when i knew where it was going, i kept watching, until the end. buckle up if you watch it. two themes: pedophiles and teenage prostitution.
just awful. so fucked up.
but i finished that and sealed it up, feeling relieved that it was over, and kept working.
something really fucked up happened, right after that.
i was home from work early, i had a lot to do for work, but from home on my laptop. i didn't much feel like running errands, but didn't want to put them off, so i made myself go. came home, worked some more.
it's never unusual to hear sirens in phila. all day, all night, randomly. busier streets have more. the street i'm on now and the one from the apartment i shared with ever were frequent. halfway house apartment and the one i lived in alone, not as much.
i thought nothing of the ambulance, and plugged along.
two hours later, after the movie, mike got home from work and called out to me from the front door.
there was a sound in his voice that set off little warning buzzers in my brain.
'did you see what's going on outside?'
i said no, and dan and i followed him outside to the stoop.
a block up from my house, on my street, everything was cordoned off with police tape. crime scene units, tons of cops in cars and vans, news camera crews on all sides, one camera pointed in our direction. and of course, every neighbor trying to see what they could see for two city blocks.
the commissioner was even there.
a mother had killed her two children in their home. one block away.
word on the streets: she shot them on sunday. and they were all inside until yesterday at four, when the ambulance showed, and the flurry began.
i don't know the story. i don't like to watch the news. but i'll look it up online to see how much of what was said was true.
but how fucking FUCKED UP is that? killing children? i cannot fathom.
(she stabbed them, the grandmother came home and found them. twelve and eight. the rest was accurate)
and that experience on the stoop two short days after dan moved in led to a conversation about street smarts, and crime and violence in the city. and i'm pretty sure he was horrified.
i did my best to tell him that i only feel safe because the crime is almost always targeted. drug dealers and thugs taking each other out and the like. but mike kept saying things to detract from that.
and after we all sat outside and smoked and talked for a long time, we went back inside, making our dinners and going our separate ways. and that ill feeling didn't pass for a while.
* * *
i don't know. the last few hours since i started this felt normal. and now? back to weird. uneasy, but not bad. it's all in my gut. that sinking feeling you have when you get bad news. i hate that feeling. i live with that feeling often, because of all the worrying, panicking. but this is that feeling without the panic. it's like the aftermath. calming down, and feeling drained, depleted, empty. but still sick.
in an effort to not be a complete retard, i had one beer when i came home, with dinner. i really want another, because that is my habit. but if i want this to work for me, i'm going to have to save two beer nights for weekends and special occasions.
i thought today about trying to quit smoking. it was fleeting. i know it's awful, and expensive. but, like my ramen dinners, it's comforting.
today, all that driving, i'd normally have killed a third of a pack by the time i got home, maybe more. today i had half as many, because of the feeling in my stomach. it's not uncommon for antidepressants to accidentally help people quit smoking who didn't set out to.
and what's more, after a day of not being able to eat, one beer would normally set me a little off-kilter. but not tonight.
it's most likely in my head, but i am wondering if reuptake inhibitors keep alcohol and cigarettes from achieving desired effects.
maybe that long list of side effects will include some positive ones as well. cutting back on things that have exceeded beyond most people's idea of moderation for me personally won't be a bad thing. it's something i have known i wanted to do for a long time, but just couldn't.
having a few drinks to relax and fall asleep at night, smoking and thinking, smoking and trying not to think, they became my comforts when i left ever, and during all the rough patches since.
but i think that as long as i'm taking such a drastic measure to make myself feel better, knowing the things that don't make me feel better, and trying to ease up on them a little, seems like the right accompaniment.
smoking might be a little harder to squash. and i'm not by any stretch of the imagination saying that i'm trying to quit.
this entire process is going to be about breaking associations. taking back all the things that i experience daily, that have made me sad enough to cry when i happen into them, is the start of it. today i hit a few songs on the road that normally would make me skip them, because i just can't sit through them. because of where they make my head go. and call it my psychology background and training, but i made myself sit through them today, some little version of exposure therapy. and my mind went there, but i didn't cry. baby steps.
next will be baseball games on tv. i've missed quite a bit, in an effort to not think about who i'd rather be watching or attending them with. mike said last night that it's ridiculous to let someone take away an entire sport. and he was right. it sounds absolutely asinine. all the things like that, i need to start taking them back. the drives past the exit, the cars i'm stuck on the road with.
one day it won't matter anymore that once they stood for something very different. once they made me smile while i passed them. and i'll be better when they don't make me sad anymore. it will take a long time to get there, and it starts with averting my eyes now, which i've been doing for a few weeks. eventually, i won't even see them. i know this from my past.
all of the music was different just a few short months ago. and in a little while longer, they won't make me embarrassed and sad anymore. they won't make me feel such strong regret for getting swept up in things and carried away before i was so violently dropped.
they won't make me want to waste time. they won't make me wish time away. they won't make me feel the desire to be un-alone. and they won't make me sad to be alone.
the shrink said this is, at a minimum, a six month commitment. that she'd prefer a year. and that most people, after that time has passed, don't want to live without the drug, because they don't prefer their life before it.
and despite the fact that i knocked the dust off of my dating site profile today, maybe three months is a smart window to tell myself that i will not actively pursue a relationship of any variety. six months would probably be better, but i don't want to set myself up for failure.
because it turns out that i crave that attention. that interaction. i want to curl up with someone so badly. in three months it will be much cooler than it is now, and i think that six would just mean another unbearable winter. and at the risk of picking up where i left off with some other undeserving guy, i don't think it's safe to play in those waters right now.
things are starting to make a little more sense to me, when i step out of the cloud of that boy, and just put him aside. i was drowning in there. i have been. past tense isn't even appropriate, because several times a day, i go right back there again.
but to know that it is over, and that i can't imagine a future where it doesn't stay that way, it's giving me a little clarity, and i'm grateful for that.
i fell hard and fast. and i fell after being persuaded to jump. i'll be smarter next time.
because, really, that's all i can ever do.
with new scars and bruises. rebuilding that wall that i so smartly built for a year. i learned it the hard way once already, so the second time around should be a little easier.
is that optimism? i'm calling the placebo effect. but there it is, regardless.
happy pill. day one. done.
i survived, mostly without incident.
hurricane. august 27th & 28th
i'm laying here, i've been staring at my computer screen for about ten minutes now, unable to click on anything.
absolutely stunned. with a hot face.
i have never felt so stupid in all my life.
okay, that's an overstatement.
but really? why did he have to pop up on my dating site as a match?
we talked about it before we met. he was against it, said he didn't like seeing people he grew up with and how they presented themselves on the site.
and i got that email a month ago, and never heard back after that. the one where he explained that i'm awesome and amazing, and that he just doesn't think it's fair to date anyone in light of how he's feeling.
really? that was a speedy recovery.
and here i am, the day after i had a meltdown driving a few blocks from his house on a bridesmaid's dress errand that was two minutes from him. it killed me to drive past. to not say hi. to not do anything. but i did. out of respect for his situation.
when it turns out that his situation isn't a situation at all.
well, i take back what i said. no more wishing he was an asshole. because i think this classifies him as one.
what the fuck? i fell for it all. i cried. i have cried over this more than my fucking DIVORCE. and i still can't believe it. i can't believe that he is on dating site. i still don't want to get out of bed. and i don't even have it in me to go on a fucking spree out of some form of vengeance.
i haven't been writing because this has been going on in the background of my head for so long. and i just couldn't give it more attention than it already had. i have been trying to distract myself for two months now, maybe longer.
and i just don't get it.
and my instantaneous response is to email him and be like, 'what the fucking FUCK, dude?'
and i just can't do it. and i don't know if it's because i don't want to give him the satisfaction, or if it's because i can't handle infinite silence.
just last night, and i have been so good about not doing this (it was only following that meltdown that i had a moment of weakness after driving through the suburbs), i was having my last cigarette, and wrote an email i'll never send.
all this heartfelt bullshit. so longing. telling him i think he's worth waiting for. just last night. i feel so fucking stupid.
telling him i know that we're having the same weekend, staring at the leaks in our houses, and that even if things were as they had been, we couldn't hole up for a few days and ride out the storm together, because we're stuck at our homes. that i knew he was watching his basement door, waiting for the floodwaters to come rushing back in.
* * *
as expected, the hurricane was no more than a rainy day. it was gone before it was even supposed to arrive. and i feel lucky. all that vigilance, and getting my roof fixed this week, paid off. no leaks. the house stands exactly as it did before the hurricane.
i unfriended him last night on facebook. kit had friended him when she met him, and told me that his basement flooded with sewage. and i should be glad about it, revenge and all.
but i'm not. instead i feel bad, knowing this is going to create a lot of problems for him. his house is now as full of shit as he is.
today was a waste. because i guess i wanted it to be. and tomorrow at work, things will be as normal as they always are. back to work. back to the stress and grind that woke me up in a tossing and turning panic yesterday morning.
i actually did a lot of work this weekend. tying up a few loose ends that let me fall asleep last night feeling accomplished and more caught up.
but none of that mattered when i woke up fuming and panicked this morning at six. thirty minutes later, i gave up and took an ativan to fall back asleep. woke up at 1030 to drag around the house.
fall has been in the air for about a week now. the days warm up a lot, but in the morning, it's sweaters and long sleeves.
i'm not ready for it. as desperate as i was for summer to end, to hopefully close some chapter of my life that is my newest regret, my most recent installment of wishing i could go back in time to unmeet someone, i am not ready for the cooler weather.
partly because i had hoped that when things got cooler and the windows stayed open, that i'd have a greg shaped boy in my bed to snuggle up to. that he'd have recovered enough to want to be close with me again in the fall.
i guess that this is what i needed to start to give up and really get over it. i had a few weeks interspersed with actively changing my train of thought when he'd pop up. i had a couple weeks where i didn't cry over him at all.
but the last week, in the quiet of normal life without houseguests and fun times, i let my brain slip back into him. and i didn't force myself out, i just didn't act on my thoughts and feelings.
and now, all that i am grateful for is that i didn't cave. when i wanted to talk to him or say something, i didn't.
and for what it's worth, i remembered today that mark on his neck when i saw him last. i'll never be unconvinced that it wasn't a hickey now. i'll never be convinced that his heartbreaking email about all of his problems and his stupid brain was real. or honest.
and in the way i'm so good at executing, i can only wonder now if my response to him was what spawned this. that me telling him i'm not going to wait for him was his permission slip.
i just didn't expect it to be so quick. i didn't expect to see him on that site. i didn't expect to be an 86% match. i didn't expect to see a picture from just last weekend. i guess i thought that, when he was ready, he'd come back to me. for no strings attached, or for dating, or for something more.
ani has that line, 'sleepless and embarrassed about the way that i feel'. it's been in my head for three days now, changing meaning as it applies to my feelings in three different ways.
but the point is the same.
after a couple entries over the last month, i come back from my hiatus still stuck in the same place. still wondering how long it will be until i feel ready for something different. until i stop associating everything he ruined for me with him. until i can honestly say that i'm not heartbroken anymore.
maybe this will inevitably speed it up. maybe my session at the shrink tomorrow will help. i don't think that, from here, it can make it any worse, that's for sure.
this awful thing happened a couple weeks ago. i was at work, and got a call from my shrink's office. saying that i owed $200 in copayments. i knew there was a mistake, because i pay every time i go. so i called my insurance company.
come to find out, the idiot fucking bookkeeper had changed my insurance and not told me. or kenna had. or the broker did it on her own. but since april, my copay for my shrink has been $75 a session, not $35 as it has been since i started. so i owe for my five visits, and nearly canceled my appointment for tomorrow because i can't justify $75 for an hour of therapy.
no one knows what is going on. and no one has it as a priority other than me, so i'm still clueless as to what is going to happen with my insurance, but kenna said that she'd cover the difference because i need to go.
my own boss, telling me i need therapy. funny shit.
you don't change insurance on someone with anxiety disorders without telling them that it's going to more than double the cost of their visits to try to manage the anxiety.
it's bullshit. i'm still pissed about it, and there's still no resolution. all i know is that i didn't cancel the appointment.
and tomorrow, before that appointment, at noon, the new roommate dan arrives to the house with his mother to move in and pay rent and sign the lease.
it's just crazy.
things are starting to turn around, in a way. my financial situation should be improving, as long as he isn't a shawn 2.0 and pays rent and gets along with us. getting the work done that i did this weekend is going to make a few less things i worry about. the health department can show up and i'll actually be ready for them. it's crazy.
but my head stays such a mess that i don't feel better.
last night, i saw this picture from last summer. nina, alice, and i. and i was smiling. a real smile, not one hiding something. i was so happy and free last summer, when i knew that i shouldn't get mixed up with boys. when i knew that i needed to be alone.
but deciding that i was wrong about that, after the deadline had passed, and that all i wanted was to be the girlfriend of some amazing guy who looked at me the way i looked at him? i just wish i could undo it.
until that feeling goes away, i'm just going to keep wasting time. since time is all that can make it better. it should have already been enough. i've more than surpassed the twice-as-long-as-the-relationship halflife. it doesn't make sense. it probably never will.
i hope he figures it out. i hope that he has some clue of how much he hurt me. of how vulnerable i made myself, because i trusted him, and how blatantly he abused that.
and i wish i could mean it when i write/think/say that i hope he's having those excited butterflies with someone else now. that he can get himself out of bed for someone else. that he turns off the tv for someone else. that he sets down the jameson for quality time with someone else.
but i don't. instead, i hope he has a horrible go at it. or better yet, that someone does to him what he did to me. because i just can't take thinking that he's happier without me.
i got my ass good and kicked on this one. so many times over. coming out of hiatus to write the same exact shit i was writing a month ago. fuck... two months ago even.
and i still wish, in light of all of these things in my head, that he'd just call and apologize and say that no one is as great as me. that no one compares.
because just looking through all those guys on that site makes me want him more. isn't that sick?
i made up my mind and found what i wanted. and he stole it away from me. what a dumbass. i'd never have done that to him. and if, over time, i had, i'd never have done it in such a cruel, dishonest, and deceitful fashion.
i had him pegged all wrong. i took what someone said about him being the best guy ever, and used that as a supporting framework to justify my feelings for him.
how funny the timing, that some trumped up fake fucking hurricane wound up being the perfect storm to lead me right into figuring out that the whole things was built out of something that can't withstand any force of nature.
the sky is so blue. the clouds are so fluffy and white. moving at this incredible clip across the sky. i'm bundled up, slippers and all, on my back deck, getting blown to hell by the leftover winds. winds worse today than anything last night in the brunt of the hurricane. or 'hurricane'. whatever.
the weather is what i love the best. seventies, sunny, windy. undeniably autumnal. and i am not even smiling.
i cannot wait to smile again. for real. no underlying sad.
i think that tomorrow is the day that i get a prescription for medication, if for no other reason than not knowing when i can afford to go back to see her again. whether i fill it or not, whether i take it or not.
maybe it will be the thing that helps me sleep at night, that helps me turn off the worry that wakes me up before the sun every day. maybe it will help me stop obsessing over this. maybe it is what will make me care less that some jackass crushed me harder than i can remember in recent history.
i hate feeling stupid. i hate feeling like a sucker.
and i hate feeling like the debbie downer, which is why i've tried so hard to lock myself away from anyone and everything and just go through it alone, not write about it, not talk about it. until the last two weeks, i wasn't talking about it at all, because i was trying so hard to get over it and not think about it at all.
i had an experience yesterday, before that whole thing happened where i figured him out.
it was early afternoon. the rain had started, but hadn't gotten that bad yet. i was coming out onto the deck for the second cigarette of the day. because i'm so hardcore about smoking in a hurricane, i came out and opened the door, and turned on the step to grab the chair and umbrella to sit, relatively dry, and smoke.
and when i turned, the tractionless flip flop i was wearing hit the smooth concrete of the mudroom steps, and slid right off the edge. it happened so fast.
i caught air. to see it happen would have probably made me laugh. but i landed squarely on my spine, against the edge of the step, and slid down until my feet hit the wall at the bottom. the whole thing happened in about two seconds, but i swear it was slow motion.
for that split second, knowing that i'd landed on my spine, i thought 'what if i can't get up?'
i was dazed, and took some time to lift my arms, to make sure i could move them, and then to inspect the damage. they were both scraped up and bloodied, my hand, my wrist, my elbow, my forearm. i was able to pick myself up, legs shaking from the adrenaline. i touched my back, and there was no blood, surprisingly, because it felt raw and was burning like my arms. i walked into the kitchen, rinsed off all the blood and dirt, shook my head, and went upstairs to bandage myself up.
three big bandaids, cottonballs, and a bunch of neosporin later, i went out for the fateful smoke, after throwing those flip flops away, and grabbing shoes with traction. i had changed my clothes, which were filthy from the fall, and sat down. thinking, i sustained injuries in the hurricane that hadn't even (technically) arrived yet.
i couldn't believe that i fell. and that the rest of the weekend was to be spent in bed, watching internet tv riding out the storm. and that everything hurt, just to LAY there. it still hurts. my back is pretty bad, muscles all sore.
to lay there and do nothing, thinking about everything. thinking about how fucking LUCKY i was to not have broken my back. that for a split second, i thought i would be paralyzed. unable to work, to walk, to get up, to do anything normally.
and how, the way that i feel, that i've been feeling for months, didn't even make that feel like a relief. like the cancerous friend who should serve to make me realize that my problems are non-existant. like the people who have so much less than i do, and no good health to be grateful for. i work in hospitals. i see it all the time. and still i pout and feel sorry for myself. what the fuck is wrong with me?
maybe the drugs will keep my brain from fixating on the shit that keeps me where i am. stagnant, with no desire to climb out of it. unmotivated to do anything or see anyone that could potentially make me feel better.
being so powerless to something that has effectively taken all control over my own well being and happiness from me. something that has made me feel more sad than i felt over the thirteen years of being powerless to coffee.
i need to get better. i'd say that i want to, but anyone who knows me knows how i love to wallow in my own self pity. that i have thrived on it for as long as i can remember. that it always made me a better writer.
maybe that's why i gave up writing. to try to prove to myself that nothing good has come out of this wallowing. that nothing positive can be salvaged from it. to try to force myself to climb out on my own, because it served and is serving absolutely no purpose in my life. so i can decide on my own, not because everyone who cares about me tells me to, to move on. and let go.
luckily i've had no drive for sex in the last month, conservatively. otherwise i'd move on from this to add to the pile of heartless fucks. of stupid boys who mean nothing to me. who do nothing for me but make me feel like i'm really good at making bad decisions.
i wish i could go back to that, mid-march. when i didn't care and didn't want any of the things that i decided i wanted a few months ago.
i'd say that mr. right can show up now. and be the real thing, and sweep me away. but i don't even think i'd know it if i saw it. i don't even believe that i'd find someone worthy anyway. i have lost faith in it. and faith in myself.
i toy with the idea of going into solitary boy confinement again. that year apparently was not long enough, because a few nights with one boy fucked me up this royally. and this feels worse than getting fed up and divorcing ever, so maybe i need two years of being completely alone, just to be on the safe side.
i don't ever want to feel like this again. the trick with this one is that i honestly thought i'd never be heartbroken again. that it couldn't end. that this was IT.
yet here i am, thinking, 'yep. still heartbroken.'
i'll try to learn from it. at least i am capable of that. i'll try to make better decisions. to use better judgment. to proceed more cautiously.
at the end of the day, i just want some guy, some friend, to hold me and kiss me and tell me everything is going to be okay. to have a little fun with someone i trust. to have someone share their time with me, because they want to. but at the same time, something that means little more to me than that. i just want to be held while i'm sleeping. i don't even want to fuck anymore. and i certainly don't want to get attached.
and the sooner that i realize that doesn't exist? the better off i'll be. that no one is going to hold me and say that to me. that i have to be content with myself, making my own good time, and sleeping peacefully alone, without someone hogging the sheets and waking me up every time they stir.
i got used to it so quickly last summer, it should be second nature. and i was so happy with it then. so satisfied.
i'll get there again. even if it's aided. i was strong enough before to do it on my own. most likely because i was fueled by anger. once this switches to anger, i'll be okay. it seems to be the most powerful motivator for me. i just need to embrace that. and ride this wave.
because now i know that it was all about the inequity. that at some point he did lose interest in me, and just was too much a coward to say so, because he knew that i wanted more from him. he thinks he let me down easy, that's what i'm telling myself. it was the ultimate 'it's not you, it's me', and i bought it. for a whole month.
as it turns out, yet again, i put someone on a pedestal who didn't deserve to be, and it bit me right in the ass. maybe i don't learn my lessons. but i can guarantee i'll be more careful next time.
back to life. back to tv. back to work. back to the shrink. back to being alone, and at some point, back to feeling like it's what is best for me...
more fodder for botox. glad i didn't get it before this summer, because the frown lines run deeper now.
i can't wait to smile again. and be happy again. for real, this time. like i was before i met him. like i was in the beginning. before i felt like someone was going to complete me. which sounds as awful to me now as it did to me before i met him.
it might be a while again. until i write something else. last night just felt like such a huge deal that i started a post. and today as it started to sink in, i had more to say about it.
aubree leaves for brazil in the morning. for three whole weeks. it's crazy. i can't wait, selfishly, until she gets back. because, when she gets back, the family is coming for a house fixing visit, and she potentially is moving back up for a few months.
i miss my sister. i have been doing better than i thought i would. this weekend might make anyone else wonder, but it's been better than laying in the dark crying, which is what i'd anticipated.
somehow august was better than july. negligible trace amounts better, but better. by sticking my head in the sand, i avoided some things. by watching tv i avoided some other things. other people's problems and all...
this week is september. it blows my fucking mind.
i have decided that september will be better. it has to be better. next weekend is going to be a rough start to it, three days off to lay around and think. and after that? work is going to be insanely busy, with nine and ten hour days for me. it's how i got through the beginning stages of the divorce. i welcome it.
the leaves will change soon. and the house will look better and work better.
here's to october... i'll keep my head down and keep moving forward until i reach it.
absolutely stunned. with a hot face.
i have never felt so stupid in all my life.
okay, that's an overstatement.
but really? why did he have to pop up on my dating site as a match?
we talked about it before we met. he was against it, said he didn't like seeing people he grew up with and how they presented themselves on the site.
and i got that email a month ago, and never heard back after that. the one where he explained that i'm awesome and amazing, and that he just doesn't think it's fair to date anyone in light of how he's feeling.
really? that was a speedy recovery.
and here i am, the day after i had a meltdown driving a few blocks from his house on a bridesmaid's dress errand that was two minutes from him. it killed me to drive past. to not say hi. to not do anything. but i did. out of respect for his situation.
when it turns out that his situation isn't a situation at all.
well, i take back what i said. no more wishing he was an asshole. because i think this classifies him as one.
what the fuck? i fell for it all. i cried. i have cried over this more than my fucking DIVORCE. and i still can't believe it. i can't believe that he is on dating site. i still don't want to get out of bed. and i don't even have it in me to go on a fucking spree out of some form of vengeance.
i haven't been writing because this has been going on in the background of my head for so long. and i just couldn't give it more attention than it already had. i have been trying to distract myself for two months now, maybe longer.
and i just don't get it.
and my instantaneous response is to email him and be like, 'what the fucking FUCK, dude?'
and i just can't do it. and i don't know if it's because i don't want to give him the satisfaction, or if it's because i can't handle infinite silence.
just last night, and i have been so good about not doing this (it was only following that meltdown that i had a moment of weakness after driving through the suburbs), i was having my last cigarette, and wrote an email i'll never send.
all this heartfelt bullshit. so longing. telling him i think he's worth waiting for. just last night. i feel so fucking stupid.
telling him i know that we're having the same weekend, staring at the leaks in our houses, and that even if things were as they had been, we couldn't hole up for a few days and ride out the storm together, because we're stuck at our homes. that i knew he was watching his basement door, waiting for the floodwaters to come rushing back in.
* * *
as expected, the hurricane was no more than a rainy day. it was gone before it was even supposed to arrive. and i feel lucky. all that vigilance, and getting my roof fixed this week, paid off. no leaks. the house stands exactly as it did before the hurricane.
i unfriended him last night on facebook. kit had friended him when she met him, and told me that his basement flooded with sewage. and i should be glad about it, revenge and all.
but i'm not. instead i feel bad, knowing this is going to create a lot of problems for him. his house is now as full of shit as he is.
today was a waste. because i guess i wanted it to be. and tomorrow at work, things will be as normal as they always are. back to work. back to the stress and grind that woke me up in a tossing and turning panic yesterday morning.
i actually did a lot of work this weekend. tying up a few loose ends that let me fall asleep last night feeling accomplished and more caught up.
but none of that mattered when i woke up fuming and panicked this morning at six. thirty minutes later, i gave up and took an ativan to fall back asleep. woke up at 1030 to drag around the house.
fall has been in the air for about a week now. the days warm up a lot, but in the morning, it's sweaters and long sleeves.
i'm not ready for it. as desperate as i was for summer to end, to hopefully close some chapter of my life that is my newest regret, my most recent installment of wishing i could go back in time to unmeet someone, i am not ready for the cooler weather.
partly because i had hoped that when things got cooler and the windows stayed open, that i'd have a greg shaped boy in my bed to snuggle up to. that he'd have recovered enough to want to be close with me again in the fall.
i guess that this is what i needed to start to give up and really get over it. i had a few weeks interspersed with actively changing my train of thought when he'd pop up. i had a couple weeks where i didn't cry over him at all.
but the last week, in the quiet of normal life without houseguests and fun times, i let my brain slip back into him. and i didn't force myself out, i just didn't act on my thoughts and feelings.
and now, all that i am grateful for is that i didn't cave. when i wanted to talk to him or say something, i didn't.
and for what it's worth, i remembered today that mark on his neck when i saw him last. i'll never be unconvinced that it wasn't a hickey now. i'll never be convinced that his heartbreaking email about all of his problems and his stupid brain was real. or honest.
and in the way i'm so good at executing, i can only wonder now if my response to him was what spawned this. that me telling him i'm not going to wait for him was his permission slip.
i just didn't expect it to be so quick. i didn't expect to see him on that site. i didn't expect to be an 86% match. i didn't expect to see a picture from just last weekend. i guess i thought that, when he was ready, he'd come back to me. for no strings attached, or for dating, or for something more.
ani has that line, 'sleepless and embarrassed about the way that i feel'. it's been in my head for three days now, changing meaning as it applies to my feelings in three different ways.
but the point is the same.
after a couple entries over the last month, i come back from my hiatus still stuck in the same place. still wondering how long it will be until i feel ready for something different. until i stop associating everything he ruined for me with him. until i can honestly say that i'm not heartbroken anymore.
maybe this will inevitably speed it up. maybe my session at the shrink tomorrow will help. i don't think that, from here, it can make it any worse, that's for sure.
this awful thing happened a couple weeks ago. i was at work, and got a call from my shrink's office. saying that i owed $200 in copayments. i knew there was a mistake, because i pay every time i go. so i called my insurance company.
come to find out, the idiot fucking bookkeeper had changed my insurance and not told me. or kenna had. or the broker did it on her own. but since april, my copay for my shrink has been $75 a session, not $35 as it has been since i started. so i owe for my five visits, and nearly canceled my appointment for tomorrow because i can't justify $75 for an hour of therapy.
no one knows what is going on. and no one has it as a priority other than me, so i'm still clueless as to what is going to happen with my insurance, but kenna said that she'd cover the difference because i need to go.
my own boss, telling me i need therapy. funny shit.
you don't change insurance on someone with anxiety disorders without telling them that it's going to more than double the cost of their visits to try to manage the anxiety.
it's bullshit. i'm still pissed about it, and there's still no resolution. all i know is that i didn't cancel the appointment.
and tomorrow, before that appointment, at noon, the new roommate dan arrives to the house with his mother to move in and pay rent and sign the lease.
it's just crazy.
things are starting to turn around, in a way. my financial situation should be improving, as long as he isn't a shawn 2.0 and pays rent and gets along with us. getting the work done that i did this weekend is going to make a few less things i worry about. the health department can show up and i'll actually be ready for them. it's crazy.
but my head stays such a mess that i don't feel better.
last night, i saw this picture from last summer. nina, alice, and i. and i was smiling. a real smile, not one hiding something. i was so happy and free last summer, when i knew that i shouldn't get mixed up with boys. when i knew that i needed to be alone.
but deciding that i was wrong about that, after the deadline had passed, and that all i wanted was to be the girlfriend of some amazing guy who looked at me the way i looked at him? i just wish i could undo it.
until that feeling goes away, i'm just going to keep wasting time. since time is all that can make it better. it should have already been enough. i've more than surpassed the twice-as-long-as-the-relationship halflife. it doesn't make sense. it probably never will.
i hope he figures it out. i hope that he has some clue of how much he hurt me. of how vulnerable i made myself, because i trusted him, and how blatantly he abused that.
and i wish i could mean it when i write/think/say that i hope he's having those excited butterflies with someone else now. that he can get himself out of bed for someone else. that he turns off the tv for someone else. that he sets down the jameson for quality time with someone else.
but i don't. instead, i hope he has a horrible go at it. or better yet, that someone does to him what he did to me. because i just can't take thinking that he's happier without me.
i got my ass good and kicked on this one. so many times over. coming out of hiatus to write the same exact shit i was writing a month ago. fuck... two months ago even.
and i still wish, in light of all of these things in my head, that he'd just call and apologize and say that no one is as great as me. that no one compares.
because just looking through all those guys on that site makes me want him more. isn't that sick?
i made up my mind and found what i wanted. and he stole it away from me. what a dumbass. i'd never have done that to him. and if, over time, i had, i'd never have done it in such a cruel, dishonest, and deceitful fashion.
i had him pegged all wrong. i took what someone said about him being the best guy ever, and used that as a supporting framework to justify my feelings for him.
how funny the timing, that some trumped up fake fucking hurricane wound up being the perfect storm to lead me right into figuring out that the whole things was built out of something that can't withstand any force of nature.
the sky is so blue. the clouds are so fluffy and white. moving at this incredible clip across the sky. i'm bundled up, slippers and all, on my back deck, getting blown to hell by the leftover winds. winds worse today than anything last night in the brunt of the hurricane. or 'hurricane'. whatever.
the weather is what i love the best. seventies, sunny, windy. undeniably autumnal. and i am not even smiling.
i cannot wait to smile again. for real. no underlying sad.
i think that tomorrow is the day that i get a prescription for medication, if for no other reason than not knowing when i can afford to go back to see her again. whether i fill it or not, whether i take it or not.
maybe it will be the thing that helps me sleep at night, that helps me turn off the worry that wakes me up before the sun every day. maybe it will help me stop obsessing over this. maybe it is what will make me care less that some jackass crushed me harder than i can remember in recent history.
i hate feeling stupid. i hate feeling like a sucker.
and i hate feeling like the debbie downer, which is why i've tried so hard to lock myself away from anyone and everything and just go through it alone, not write about it, not talk about it. until the last two weeks, i wasn't talking about it at all, because i was trying so hard to get over it and not think about it at all.
i had an experience yesterday, before that whole thing happened where i figured him out.
it was early afternoon. the rain had started, but hadn't gotten that bad yet. i was coming out onto the deck for the second cigarette of the day. because i'm so hardcore about smoking in a hurricane, i came out and opened the door, and turned on the step to grab the chair and umbrella to sit, relatively dry, and smoke.
and when i turned, the tractionless flip flop i was wearing hit the smooth concrete of the mudroom steps, and slid right off the edge. it happened so fast.
i caught air. to see it happen would have probably made me laugh. but i landed squarely on my spine, against the edge of the step, and slid down until my feet hit the wall at the bottom. the whole thing happened in about two seconds, but i swear it was slow motion.
for that split second, knowing that i'd landed on my spine, i thought 'what if i can't get up?'
i was dazed, and took some time to lift my arms, to make sure i could move them, and then to inspect the damage. they were both scraped up and bloodied, my hand, my wrist, my elbow, my forearm. i was able to pick myself up, legs shaking from the adrenaline. i touched my back, and there was no blood, surprisingly, because it felt raw and was burning like my arms. i walked into the kitchen, rinsed off all the blood and dirt, shook my head, and went upstairs to bandage myself up.
three big bandaids, cottonballs, and a bunch of neosporin later, i went out for the fateful smoke, after throwing those flip flops away, and grabbing shoes with traction. i had changed my clothes, which were filthy from the fall, and sat down. thinking, i sustained injuries in the hurricane that hadn't even (technically) arrived yet.
i couldn't believe that i fell. and that the rest of the weekend was to be spent in bed, watching internet tv riding out the storm. and that everything hurt, just to LAY there. it still hurts. my back is pretty bad, muscles all sore.
to lay there and do nothing, thinking about everything. thinking about how fucking LUCKY i was to not have broken my back. that for a split second, i thought i would be paralyzed. unable to work, to walk, to get up, to do anything normally.
and how, the way that i feel, that i've been feeling for months, didn't even make that feel like a relief. like the cancerous friend who should serve to make me realize that my problems are non-existant. like the people who have so much less than i do, and no good health to be grateful for. i work in hospitals. i see it all the time. and still i pout and feel sorry for myself. what the fuck is wrong with me?
maybe the drugs will keep my brain from fixating on the shit that keeps me where i am. stagnant, with no desire to climb out of it. unmotivated to do anything or see anyone that could potentially make me feel better.
being so powerless to something that has effectively taken all control over my own well being and happiness from me. something that has made me feel more sad than i felt over the thirteen years of being powerless to coffee.
i need to get better. i'd say that i want to, but anyone who knows me knows how i love to wallow in my own self pity. that i have thrived on it for as long as i can remember. that it always made me a better writer.
maybe that's why i gave up writing. to try to prove to myself that nothing good has come out of this wallowing. that nothing positive can be salvaged from it. to try to force myself to climb out on my own, because it served and is serving absolutely no purpose in my life. so i can decide on my own, not because everyone who cares about me tells me to, to move on. and let go.
luckily i've had no drive for sex in the last month, conservatively. otherwise i'd move on from this to add to the pile of heartless fucks. of stupid boys who mean nothing to me. who do nothing for me but make me feel like i'm really good at making bad decisions.
i wish i could go back to that, mid-march. when i didn't care and didn't want any of the things that i decided i wanted a few months ago.
i'd say that mr. right can show up now. and be the real thing, and sweep me away. but i don't even think i'd know it if i saw it. i don't even believe that i'd find someone worthy anyway. i have lost faith in it. and faith in myself.
i toy with the idea of going into solitary boy confinement again. that year apparently was not long enough, because a few nights with one boy fucked me up this royally. and this feels worse than getting fed up and divorcing ever, so maybe i need two years of being completely alone, just to be on the safe side.
i don't ever want to feel like this again. the trick with this one is that i honestly thought i'd never be heartbroken again. that it couldn't end. that this was IT.
yet here i am, thinking, 'yep. still heartbroken.'
i'll try to learn from it. at least i am capable of that. i'll try to make better decisions. to use better judgment. to proceed more cautiously.
at the end of the day, i just want some guy, some friend, to hold me and kiss me and tell me everything is going to be okay. to have a little fun with someone i trust. to have someone share their time with me, because they want to. but at the same time, something that means little more to me than that. i just want to be held while i'm sleeping. i don't even want to fuck anymore. and i certainly don't want to get attached.
and the sooner that i realize that doesn't exist? the better off i'll be. that no one is going to hold me and say that to me. that i have to be content with myself, making my own good time, and sleeping peacefully alone, without someone hogging the sheets and waking me up every time they stir.
i got used to it so quickly last summer, it should be second nature. and i was so happy with it then. so satisfied.
i'll get there again. even if it's aided. i was strong enough before to do it on my own. most likely because i was fueled by anger. once this switches to anger, i'll be okay. it seems to be the most powerful motivator for me. i just need to embrace that. and ride this wave.
because now i know that it was all about the inequity. that at some point he did lose interest in me, and just was too much a coward to say so, because he knew that i wanted more from him. he thinks he let me down easy, that's what i'm telling myself. it was the ultimate 'it's not you, it's me', and i bought it. for a whole month.
as it turns out, yet again, i put someone on a pedestal who didn't deserve to be, and it bit me right in the ass. maybe i don't learn my lessons. but i can guarantee i'll be more careful next time.
back to life. back to tv. back to work. back to the shrink. back to being alone, and at some point, back to feeling like it's what is best for me...
more fodder for botox. glad i didn't get it before this summer, because the frown lines run deeper now.
i can't wait to smile again. and be happy again. for real, this time. like i was before i met him. like i was in the beginning. before i felt like someone was going to complete me. which sounds as awful to me now as it did to me before i met him.
it might be a while again. until i write something else. last night just felt like such a huge deal that i started a post. and today as it started to sink in, i had more to say about it.
aubree leaves for brazil in the morning. for three whole weeks. it's crazy. i can't wait, selfishly, until she gets back. because, when she gets back, the family is coming for a house fixing visit, and she potentially is moving back up for a few months.
i miss my sister. i have been doing better than i thought i would. this weekend might make anyone else wonder, but it's been better than laying in the dark crying, which is what i'd anticipated.
somehow august was better than july. negligible trace amounts better, but better. by sticking my head in the sand, i avoided some things. by watching tv i avoided some other things. other people's problems and all...
this week is september. it blows my fucking mind.
i have decided that september will be better. it has to be better. next weekend is going to be a rough start to it, three days off to lay around and think. and after that? work is going to be insanely busy, with nine and ten hour days for me. it's how i got through the beginning stages of the divorce. i welcome it.
the leaves will change soon. and the house will look better and work better.
here's to october... i'll keep my head down and keep moving forward until i reach it.
eeyore. august 7th.
i haven't been writing.
and what is ironic is that yesterday, while holding eight seats for my sister's graduation, i took the fresh blank journal i bought specifically for the purpose of starting over, putting that boy behind me, and having pages to fill in florida, and i took at stab at a first entry.
i got one page into it, front only, before my family showed up to take their saved seats. an hour to write a page?
because i don't succeed at putting things behind me (or even aside), that page was all about him. and after the ceremony, and after the subsequent party, i took it outside with me and wrote the backside of the page in the dark on my parents' porch. and then got into bed, and made it a few lines into the second page.
my eyes were tired, i wasn't nearly finished, but i gave up. i had nothing bright to say anyways, so i wasn't that disappointed in myself. it's hard work, trying to give up on something on paper. trying to give up on having hope in a physical way. trying to give up on someone.
and i closed the journal, turned off the light, and put on my sleep mask around one. and laying in forced blackness, i thought about returning to my house, which i still debate mentally referring to as my 'home'. and thought about how aubree's bike is going to be standing in the dining room, where it lives when she's not riding it. and i thought about how it's going to be a psych out. that it's not that she beat me home from work and parked her bike there. that it's going to collect dust when there's a lack of out-of-town visitors.
i wondered how many times i'd see her bike and call upstairs to see what she was doing. and i wondered how many times i'd look for her without thinking about what i was doing.
that succession of thoughts made me cry, tears welling up underneath my sleep mask. and i stubbornly didn't move the mask to wipe them away, and went to sleep instead.
the point of the story is, at the halfway point in my vacation, it's not that i want to stay here, it's that i don't want to go back.
i started back with my worrying a couple days ago. the first few days, i bragged that i wasn't worrying, didn't have to pop a pill, and didn't resort to drinking three beers a day. things were easy, and i appreciated the lack of stress.
my only worry then was how on earth i was going to last two whole weeks here.
but around thursday, i think, work worries crept back, and i didn't sleep well for two nights.
and last night, after writing for the first time in about a week, i guess it dredged up enough subconsciously to make me dream of that boy, which has really only happened a couple times since i met him.
it wasn't a nightmare, but it was a bad dream. he had withered into a frame consisting of skin and bones, which isn't far from what he's made up of. he agreed to see me, and we spent time separated physically, as friends. but at a point, i came up behind him to kiss the back of his neck while hugging him from behind, when the separation became more than i was comfortable with, when i couldn't be 'just friends', and his neck was all skin and tendons, and i woke up.
i woke up sad, in an empty bed, because aubree didn't sleep with me last night, and fell back asleep to have a bad dream about trying to catch a flight on southwest, where the lady at the counter tagged my bag that was a carryon, that had everything i needed in it, and had to re-sort everything instead of just taking the tag off. and while doing that, realized that i'd parked in short term parking, and that my bill would be $8000 if i didn't move my car before leaving town. wendy was in it, catching a flight before me with our old coworker from boston, and was busy being mad that i'm not making the trip to see her for her fortieth birthday as i'd promised, because i spent all of my vacation for the year between april and august this time.
i got out of bed to make coffee, and when i climbed back in, to wait until it was done brewing, i had a good cry out of nowhere.
today is supposed to be a fun day. we're going to my cousin's lake house to have fun in the sun, with beer, i've looked forward to it the whole time i've been here.
and it reminds me of last summer, the fourth of july, when kit was there with me, and spent the day with us before flying back to phila. last summer was so much fun. it was the best summer since the go-to summer of age nineteen.
i wanted this summer to be that way. and thinking that it would top it, when i met that boy and made all those plans, along with the plans to come home and try for a round two repeater. it has made this trip feel so much further from that.
this trip, the trip filled with nursing home visits, and aging grandparents, a funeral thrown into the mix, and only happily accented with aubree's graduation yesterday, has made me muted and sad, and not wanting to talk about it to anyone, or write about it for everyone.
it's made me check out, silent and heady. and when aubree's around, it is punctuated with laughing and giggle fits, but otherwise not so much.
getting away to nina's for two days and a night is going to be something that makes me feel better. and the drive back to phila with brownies is going to be fantastic, catching up by talking incessantly and sharing music for the better part of a day. but i still worry about the drive, and how we're going to make it back, and how i can possibly cram everything awesome about my city into one and a half short worn out from driving back days.
i hope she has fun. it's my goal to make it so.
this morning is quiet. everyone is at church except for me. and it makes me feel like an awful daughter. i just didn't have it in me, and i woke up too late to make it anyway. church feels like some great conspiracy that i want no part of. mass mindcontrol that makes me sad for my family and the majority of their friends, for getting sucked in, and putting so much time and money and energy into it, and furthering the cause of spreading hate and intolerance about people who don't line their lives up with their version of what will get them into heaven.
on the porch, writing now, the only sounds are a lawn mower in the distance, a plane flying overhead, and the low hum of the ceiling fan that draws the smoke of two cigarettes away from me and pushes the smell of stale butts in an ashtray closer to me.
i do feel a little better after a shower, but maybe that's because aubree came home, and pointed to the spot on the couch next to her, for me to sit in.
and i sat, and said, 'what is it?'
and she put her leg against mine and said, 'i just needed to touch you. it's been too long.'
oh, my sister. it's a big relief that she insinuates she'll be back to my house in a month or two. but like the mindfuck with the boy, i'm afraid she'll do the smarter thing, and work here and stay here. because it's what i did to my family. getting their hopes up that i'd return, and disappointing them epically.
all i want to listen to is jose gonzalez. because his sad voice and sad songs about love lost make me think about his problems instead of mine.
it's strange to me that, despite all those in-love feelings i was having so briefly, i don't feel love for him. i would have, i know. it was just a matter of time. i'm glad that i wasn't there, or this would be next to impossible to try to kick.
i'm disappointed that i can't leave that broken part of my heart here with my family and just get over it. i simply cannot go back to cry-all-day-in-bed tea when i return. i'm going to need hobbies and a set of friends who will take me out of my bed and into society, so i can fake it publicly, until i finally feel better about things.
my sister had a good cry on the way to graduation yesterday, and seeing her cry made me cry a little. we were talking about our own mortality, and that of our friends and family, thinking about the funeral, and whose will be next. what we want when we die, and what would be said about us when we do. that's never a good thing to think about, but it didn't bother me so much.
what bothers me more is believing fully that the next trip home will be an unplanned one. that someone will die before i come home for my brother's wedding in january. that i can't come home for christmas like i did last year.
it's just a feeling. from being overwhelmed with people saying they want to die while i'm sitting next to them.
what did bother me about thinking about my own mortality was that i don't know what my funeral would be like. i don't want a religious 'homecoming' sendoff. and i don't know anyone who would speak at my funeral. i wouldn't want one. i want to be burnt into ashes. and in lieu of a $10k funeral, i'd want everyone to go to paris instead, and toss my ashes over there. or some other place i say i'd like to go, but probably won't make it to in my lifetime.
or better yet, turn me into a diamond and wear me. but that's too sad.
but yeah. i can't imagine what would happen. and i guess we aren't supposed to when we're 33 years old. but shit happens. and let's face it... i lay in the sun as much as i can, smoke half a pack a day, drink like a fish, and don't eat vegetables. at the rate i'm going, it won't be too far off. and i have no will to change my deadly ways, so there's that.
my recent setback makes me think i'll never find that special one again. someone so ideally matched. the one i belong with. my partner for life. the one to procreate and get old with. i still think about the odds of finding it once, but not having it. finding it a second time, and it being stolen from me before i even got to enjoy it fully. is the third time the charm? will i be 60 when i find it again? or 45?
i had to hold a baby again. a three month old. and i had to leave the room again. to cry a little for taking away my mom's hopes of becoming a grandparent. again. it's a maddening cycle. at least it only crops up once or twice a year. i'm grateful for that. who's to say if i'd even want it or have it, even if the possibility arose? i'm not, that's for sure. not now anyway. and the way i see it, i've got about seven years to pull it together and luck out.
this feels like writing fiction, it's a different style than i ever use, and i don't know why or where it's coming from. but i'm pretty much over it. and you probably are, too.
today was a three beer day. and i feel whatever about it. i feel whatever about everything.
maybe what i miss most from the prospect is the lust for life that iggy sang about all those years ago. feeling like there's so much i want to do and see and learn and experience. i had it for a minute. and that is gone from me now.
for now, i'll take a two day with my best friend, a few more days with my sister, a road trip with a dear rekindled friend, and the ebb and flow of a working existence after all of that is a thing of the past. beyond that, i could give a shit. and wish time away, in hopes that it brings me one day closer to a more final finality with that boy who is so grown up and good that he tells me he won't put me through his own underlying eeyore.
i wish he was selfish and careless sometimes. and much less silent. even though i'm supposed to not be waiting. for a response. or for anything else.
and what is ironic is that yesterday, while holding eight seats for my sister's graduation, i took the fresh blank journal i bought specifically for the purpose of starting over, putting that boy behind me, and having pages to fill in florida, and i took at stab at a first entry.
i got one page into it, front only, before my family showed up to take their saved seats. an hour to write a page?
because i don't succeed at putting things behind me (or even aside), that page was all about him. and after the ceremony, and after the subsequent party, i took it outside with me and wrote the backside of the page in the dark on my parents' porch. and then got into bed, and made it a few lines into the second page.
my eyes were tired, i wasn't nearly finished, but i gave up. i had nothing bright to say anyways, so i wasn't that disappointed in myself. it's hard work, trying to give up on something on paper. trying to give up on having hope in a physical way. trying to give up on someone.
and i closed the journal, turned off the light, and put on my sleep mask around one. and laying in forced blackness, i thought about returning to my house, which i still debate mentally referring to as my 'home'. and thought about how aubree's bike is going to be standing in the dining room, where it lives when she's not riding it. and i thought about how it's going to be a psych out. that it's not that she beat me home from work and parked her bike there. that it's going to collect dust when there's a lack of out-of-town visitors.
i wondered how many times i'd see her bike and call upstairs to see what she was doing. and i wondered how many times i'd look for her without thinking about what i was doing.
that succession of thoughts made me cry, tears welling up underneath my sleep mask. and i stubbornly didn't move the mask to wipe them away, and went to sleep instead.
the point of the story is, at the halfway point in my vacation, it's not that i want to stay here, it's that i don't want to go back.
i started back with my worrying a couple days ago. the first few days, i bragged that i wasn't worrying, didn't have to pop a pill, and didn't resort to drinking three beers a day. things were easy, and i appreciated the lack of stress.
my only worry then was how on earth i was going to last two whole weeks here.
but around thursday, i think, work worries crept back, and i didn't sleep well for two nights.
and last night, after writing for the first time in about a week, i guess it dredged up enough subconsciously to make me dream of that boy, which has really only happened a couple times since i met him.
it wasn't a nightmare, but it was a bad dream. he had withered into a frame consisting of skin and bones, which isn't far from what he's made up of. he agreed to see me, and we spent time separated physically, as friends. but at a point, i came up behind him to kiss the back of his neck while hugging him from behind, when the separation became more than i was comfortable with, when i couldn't be 'just friends', and his neck was all skin and tendons, and i woke up.
i woke up sad, in an empty bed, because aubree didn't sleep with me last night, and fell back asleep to have a bad dream about trying to catch a flight on southwest, where the lady at the counter tagged my bag that was a carryon, that had everything i needed in it, and had to re-sort everything instead of just taking the tag off. and while doing that, realized that i'd parked in short term parking, and that my bill would be $8000 if i didn't move my car before leaving town. wendy was in it, catching a flight before me with our old coworker from boston, and was busy being mad that i'm not making the trip to see her for her fortieth birthday as i'd promised, because i spent all of my vacation for the year between april and august this time.
i got out of bed to make coffee, and when i climbed back in, to wait until it was done brewing, i had a good cry out of nowhere.
today is supposed to be a fun day. we're going to my cousin's lake house to have fun in the sun, with beer, i've looked forward to it the whole time i've been here.
and it reminds me of last summer, the fourth of july, when kit was there with me, and spent the day with us before flying back to phila. last summer was so much fun. it was the best summer since the go-to summer of age nineteen.
i wanted this summer to be that way. and thinking that it would top it, when i met that boy and made all those plans, along with the plans to come home and try for a round two repeater. it has made this trip feel so much further from that.
this trip, the trip filled with nursing home visits, and aging grandparents, a funeral thrown into the mix, and only happily accented with aubree's graduation yesterday, has made me muted and sad, and not wanting to talk about it to anyone, or write about it for everyone.
it's made me check out, silent and heady. and when aubree's around, it is punctuated with laughing and giggle fits, but otherwise not so much.
getting away to nina's for two days and a night is going to be something that makes me feel better. and the drive back to phila with brownies is going to be fantastic, catching up by talking incessantly and sharing music for the better part of a day. but i still worry about the drive, and how we're going to make it back, and how i can possibly cram everything awesome about my city into one and a half short worn out from driving back days.
i hope she has fun. it's my goal to make it so.
this morning is quiet. everyone is at church except for me. and it makes me feel like an awful daughter. i just didn't have it in me, and i woke up too late to make it anyway. church feels like some great conspiracy that i want no part of. mass mindcontrol that makes me sad for my family and the majority of their friends, for getting sucked in, and putting so much time and money and energy into it, and furthering the cause of spreading hate and intolerance about people who don't line their lives up with their version of what will get them into heaven.
on the porch, writing now, the only sounds are a lawn mower in the distance, a plane flying overhead, and the low hum of the ceiling fan that draws the smoke of two cigarettes away from me and pushes the smell of stale butts in an ashtray closer to me.
i do feel a little better after a shower, but maybe that's because aubree came home, and pointed to the spot on the couch next to her, for me to sit in.
and i sat, and said, 'what is it?'
and she put her leg against mine and said, 'i just needed to touch you. it's been too long.'
oh, my sister. it's a big relief that she insinuates she'll be back to my house in a month or two. but like the mindfuck with the boy, i'm afraid she'll do the smarter thing, and work here and stay here. because it's what i did to my family. getting their hopes up that i'd return, and disappointing them epically.
all i want to listen to is jose gonzalez. because his sad voice and sad songs about love lost make me think about his problems instead of mine.
it's strange to me that, despite all those in-love feelings i was having so briefly, i don't feel love for him. i would have, i know. it was just a matter of time. i'm glad that i wasn't there, or this would be next to impossible to try to kick.
i'm disappointed that i can't leave that broken part of my heart here with my family and just get over it. i simply cannot go back to cry-all-day-in-bed tea when i return. i'm going to need hobbies and a set of friends who will take me out of my bed and into society, so i can fake it publicly, until i finally feel better about things.
my sister had a good cry on the way to graduation yesterday, and seeing her cry made me cry a little. we were talking about our own mortality, and that of our friends and family, thinking about the funeral, and whose will be next. what we want when we die, and what would be said about us when we do. that's never a good thing to think about, but it didn't bother me so much.
what bothers me more is believing fully that the next trip home will be an unplanned one. that someone will die before i come home for my brother's wedding in january. that i can't come home for christmas like i did last year.
it's just a feeling. from being overwhelmed with people saying they want to die while i'm sitting next to them.
what did bother me about thinking about my own mortality was that i don't know what my funeral would be like. i don't want a religious 'homecoming' sendoff. and i don't know anyone who would speak at my funeral. i wouldn't want one. i want to be burnt into ashes. and in lieu of a $10k funeral, i'd want everyone to go to paris instead, and toss my ashes over there. or some other place i say i'd like to go, but probably won't make it to in my lifetime.
or better yet, turn me into a diamond and wear me. but that's too sad.
but yeah. i can't imagine what would happen. and i guess we aren't supposed to when we're 33 years old. but shit happens. and let's face it... i lay in the sun as much as i can, smoke half a pack a day, drink like a fish, and don't eat vegetables. at the rate i'm going, it won't be too far off. and i have no will to change my deadly ways, so there's that.
my recent setback makes me think i'll never find that special one again. someone so ideally matched. the one i belong with. my partner for life. the one to procreate and get old with. i still think about the odds of finding it once, but not having it. finding it a second time, and it being stolen from me before i even got to enjoy it fully. is the third time the charm? will i be 60 when i find it again? or 45?
i had to hold a baby again. a three month old. and i had to leave the room again. to cry a little for taking away my mom's hopes of becoming a grandparent. again. it's a maddening cycle. at least it only crops up once or twice a year. i'm grateful for that. who's to say if i'd even want it or have it, even if the possibility arose? i'm not, that's for sure. not now anyway. and the way i see it, i've got about seven years to pull it together and luck out.
this feels like writing fiction, it's a different style than i ever use, and i don't know why or where it's coming from. but i'm pretty much over it. and you probably are, too.
today was a three beer day. and i feel whatever about it. i feel whatever about everything.
maybe what i miss most from the prospect is the lust for life that iggy sang about all those years ago. feeling like there's so much i want to do and see and learn and experience. i had it for a minute. and that is gone from me now.
for now, i'll take a two day with my best friend, a few more days with my sister, a road trip with a dear rekindled friend, and the ebb and flow of a working existence after all of that is a thing of the past. beyond that, i could give a shit. and wish time away, in hopes that it brings me one day closer to a more final finality with that boy who is so grown up and good that he tells me he won't put me through his own underlying eeyore.
i wish he was selfish and careless sometimes. and much less silent. even though i'm supposed to not be waiting. for a response. or for anything else.
road trip. and vacation. july 29th through aug 1st.
i have not been motivated to write. at all.
there's actually stuff to write about. and i've been putting off.
i did get an email from that boy. and that was the start of the trip, so it comes first in coverage.
after i'd officially given up on hearing from him again. i was having the craziest day on friday. all the last minute prep before leaving town. i had made a list of about twenty things i had to do before working a store until close. another ten hour day.
i was in line, at the bank, and almost fell over when i saw his name in my inbox.
gigantic email. explaining that he's been going through some heavy stuff, and that he doesn't think it's fair to see anyone while he sorts things out.
it threw me off completely. it was a relief, in a way. i didn't do anything wrong. but still a bummer. and i was in front of a teller, fighting a meltdown, with tears filling my eyes. i made it to the front door of the bank, put my sunglasses on, and cried on the way to the car. once i got into the car, i lost it. ugly crying, reading the end of the email.
and all of the thoughts i'd been dealing with to that point switched gears into new and uncharted territory. and i thought it was funny that i had really given up on hearing from him. and was nervous to have a sixteen hour drive ahead of me, with new food for thought. but i was grateful to hear from him, at great length, explaining himself to me.
i was doing really well to that point. crossing everything off of my work checklist. i was on schedule. and the email threw me off completely, lost in thought and crying back to the city from delaware, after about a ten minute break of crying in the parking lot of the bank/beer store/cigarette store.
and lost in thought through blurry vision, i missed my exit for suck store, not even realizing it until i got to the city.
it meant more work, more driving, more racing around later in the day. aubree rode with me after her last day at her internship, to suck store, and back to work again, while i showed the newest guy how to close the store.
driving home after that, she said that we should leave that night. that i would be awake, that she would be awake, and that instead of trying to get something like a three hour nap before leaving at one, we could just pack and leave.
the thought made my stomach turn. sixteen hours of driving? getting in after being awake for 30 hours straight? could i even make it?
i told her that i wasn't saying no, but wasn't saying yes either. that we'd pack the car and see where we were. she hadn't packed a single thing, but she was completely packed within an hour. it blew my mind. her whole life in phila, packed in an hour? it took me longer to pack, and i just had clothes for two weeks.
she was done by 8. the car was loaded by 9. and we decided to go. we got showers, said goodbye to mike, and got into the car. i drove three legs, from 945 until about 4 am.
things got a little hairy at around 3. i was definitely getting tired, aubree was trying to nap to drive the next leg. my back was killing me from being in the same position for so long, so i was hunched up over the steering wheel, thinking too hard, and feeling too much, and being sleepsick. so when she woke up, and saw me driving like that, it freaked her out a little bit. she slammed a red bull and took over.
and i wrote for a bit, and had my cry. i'd been doing so well – i was actually proud of myself for holding it together for almost eight hours of driving and thinking.
once i didn't have to focus and drive anymore, i guess i just released it.
it's really over. and i let myself finish that sentence, in my brain, with a 'for now'. but the bottom line is that it's really over. and i'm glad that i already knew it, because it took a lot of the sting out of it.
i wrote him back across five state lines, in few minute increments. thought i lost the entire email at one point and got upset about that. but once i was home, and online again, i found that it had saved my draft.
once we got to the florida state line, we were both absolutely whipped. twelve hours of driving and a sunrise under our belts. awake over 24 hours at that point. it was wicked. but what's funny is that, before about 2 am, we were making fantastic time, but it felt like a lot of driving. and after 11 am, it seemed like it had gone by so quickly that we couldn't believe we were almost there.
we'd lied to mom and dad. we'd said we left at 145 in the morning, after sleeping, as planned. thinking we'd pull off a great surprise. we pulled into the driveway an hour ahead of schedule, and five hours before they were expecting us. we were bouncing and squealing excited to be home. screaming the last few songs at the top of our lungs on the way into our section of the city.
but the surprise was on us. mom was happy to see us, of course. and we got her to call dad into the house from mowing the yard, to surprise him. and he was happy to see us, too.
but we'd interrupted their cleaning and house prep for our arrival. and we hadn't anticipated it. so it was this strangely stressful surprise for them, i guess. they wouldn't let us help them. and from arriving, we were hyped up and from the driving we were cracked out, so we arrived exhausted and nauseous, but awake. and they kept telling us to sleep, but we couldn't.
we'd been home for an hour, and sat down at the kitchen table. looking at each other and communicating without words, making noises and cracking inside jokes. talking hood and laughing. it made me feel strangely self-conscious. because now aubree and i are so close and attached, i think that it probably freaks them the fuck out. they have to know what is going to happen next.
i actually felt guilty. i felt bad for giggling with her, and for having developed something like a secret language between us.
and things at home are very different. i knew that seeing the grandparents would be hard. and it has been. we went to see grandma a few hours after we got here, sleepless and unwell.
she's in the same nursing home other grandpa was in, where i spent so much time my visit last summer. i don't like that place. it's a jesus nursing home. there are creepy religious paintings everywhere. and a lot of sick old people. and sick people who are too young to be in a nursing home. it depresses the shit out of me. it's one step above a hospital.
when we walked in, my grandmother, who was not a religious person a few years ago, starting crying and praising jesus and the lord that we made it over and over and crying happy tears, and it made me really uncomfortable. she had surgery on her broken ankle, which is why she's there – for rehab and physical therapy. and she found out today (day three of vacation) that she can stay for two more months if she has to. so it looks like my time with her this trip will all be spent in that awful place. it sucks.
she's been doped up on oxycontin for years, but now it's mixed with percoset and something for her nerves, so she's not awake too much. and slurs when she is. it's not cool at all. and now she has no pressure to get better and get the fuck out of that place. and today, my grandfather's brother died after battling alzheimers for something like seven years.
so i think i get to go to a funeral on friday.
we finally slept that night. i've had weird dreams both nights i've been home, which is nothing new to me. but aubree's fan isn't working, and i spent the night sweating and tossing in a different bed. i guess i'm used to the (dis)comforts of my home.
but still, i slept twelve hours, which was much needed, and i woke up feeling mostly normal. visited grandma again. we had a pizza party for her, to bring some sense of happiness and normalcy to her in that home. and left from there to visit my dad's parents.
i was dreading it. rightfully so. grandpa of course had no idea who i was, but somehow remembered aubree. which surprised even her. and he slept most of the time that we were there. but when the two of them had our leftover pizza at their kitchen table, after watching dad help him into the kitchen, it got difficult.
he was somewhere else, mentally. and he said something about not wanting to be around anymore, because he is living a miserable existence. even though he can't tell you why he's so miserable. he knows that his mind is gone when he has tiny moments of clarity. and he's honest about not knowing who you are when you ask him.
i had to leave the kitchen, because i felt a cry building.
my grandfather, who favored me growing up, and made popcorn for us every night we stayed with my grandparents, is completely helpless, and is dying a shitty death. he thinks on a daily basis that he is in a ditch, either held in a cage, or just disabled and helpless. and that he just lays in a ditch waiting to be helped for hours a day. but he never even left his la-z-boy chair.
i can't imagine. i don't want to.
so i left the room, and held it together. but before that happened, grandma pulled a typical stunt.
i call her mean grandma for good reason.
we were sitting at the table, after a few loaded questions about my haircut when we arrived. and she said,
'now you'll never get a date with that haircut.'
what is so funny about it is that it's her same haircut. she's had it forever. i look a lot like her, which fucks with me on a daily basis.
so the fact that she said that to me? typical. and not cool.
my parents thought he'd think i was her when i walked in, remembering his wife before she was old, and thinking he was back in the 50s and 60s, which is where his mind is parked most days.
aubree and dad went to other grandparents' house to mow the lawn for them. mom and i rode home in my car. and i almost made it, driving back to the house, before i started crying. it caught her off guard. i didn't say anything, it was only quiet tears.
but we pulled into the neighborhood, and she asked me if i was crying. and asked why. and i told her that this happens almost every day, and that i'm crying because i'm sad. and didn't say more than that before we got back to the house.
this trip is just DIFFERENT. there is tension and strain and stress at home. mostly financial, between mom and dad. when dad is stressed, he takes it out on everyone else. he is once again the dad that i grew up with, and it's a royal fucking bummer. he was so cool for so many years, it was awesome seeing a dad that i never knew who was fun to be around. but now he's pissed and miserable, and is making it his job to make everyone else pissed and miserable.
i don't know how i will feel in two weeks when i'm back to work. i'm not supposed to be thinking about that right now, but i am.
this is a long trip for someone with nothing to talk about.
maybe tomorrow i'll actually get some sun. it blows my mind a little that i have yet to really be poolside relaxing. i'm losing days to nothingness already. but i've been pretty distracted.
and because i feel like everyone is watching me, i have cut my drinking back a bit. and with the exception of that first night, i haven't had to pop an ativan either. maybe i'm trying to let myself feel everything. i don't really know. but it's different.
i'm okay with the fact that i thought this summer would top last summer. and i'm okay with the fact that life doesn't work that way. what it means is that i don't think home is the magical answer. what it means is that falling and feeling so much before summer even arrived set me up for feeling this way now that it's been taken away from me.
what would i be if things were actually easy for me? what would i do if things were all good? how would i act if i had something too good to be true?
i'll consider myself lucky in some way, that it isn't so.
because when i drive back, days from now, it won't be with a yearning to return here the way it was the last two times.
it's like the spell wore off. in every possible way. i'm really wondering how i'm going to make it here for two weeks.
things will just be normal. level. no highs. and maybe without the highs, the lows won't feel so low. i'm back to that feeling of nothing. where i'm partly convinced that i don't really feel anything at all.
and part of that is because i came here thinking aubree would be staying.
but that first day we were here, she already said she didn't know how she could live here. that after a month, she'll probably be clawing the walls to get the fuck out of here. i don't want to ask, or talk about it really, because i don't want to pressure her inadvertently.
but i think she'll be back in phila in the fall. i think that, somehow, life became normal there for her. the pace, the activity, the independence, the lifestyle. the distance from parents who judge her, all day every day.
so i don't have the feeling i had that first day, when mom almost immediately said something about how i'm going to deal when she's not there. and i burst into tears while aubree told mom, 'there are a couple things we won't be talking about while she's here, mom.'
it hasn't come up again. and i'm refusing to think about it. and i think i'm only able to because i feel like i don't really have to. and the way that usually works, in my brain, is that i'll acclimate to being back alone, and be okay. and so if she does or doesn't come back up, it won't be as world altering as it felt like it was going to be when we left to drive here. or when i unpacked everything of hers from the car.
i just feel... nothing. and i'm going to embrace that for as long as it lasts.
there's actually stuff to write about. and i've been putting off.
i did get an email from that boy. and that was the start of the trip, so it comes first in coverage.
after i'd officially given up on hearing from him again. i was having the craziest day on friday. all the last minute prep before leaving town. i had made a list of about twenty things i had to do before working a store until close. another ten hour day.
i was in line, at the bank, and almost fell over when i saw his name in my inbox.
gigantic email. explaining that he's been going through some heavy stuff, and that he doesn't think it's fair to see anyone while he sorts things out.
it threw me off completely. it was a relief, in a way. i didn't do anything wrong. but still a bummer. and i was in front of a teller, fighting a meltdown, with tears filling my eyes. i made it to the front door of the bank, put my sunglasses on, and cried on the way to the car. once i got into the car, i lost it. ugly crying, reading the end of the email.
and all of the thoughts i'd been dealing with to that point switched gears into new and uncharted territory. and i thought it was funny that i had really given up on hearing from him. and was nervous to have a sixteen hour drive ahead of me, with new food for thought. but i was grateful to hear from him, at great length, explaining himself to me.
i was doing really well to that point. crossing everything off of my work checklist. i was on schedule. and the email threw me off completely, lost in thought and crying back to the city from delaware, after about a ten minute break of crying in the parking lot of the bank/beer store/cigarette store.
and lost in thought through blurry vision, i missed my exit for suck store, not even realizing it until i got to the city.
it meant more work, more driving, more racing around later in the day. aubree rode with me after her last day at her internship, to suck store, and back to work again, while i showed the newest guy how to close the store.
driving home after that, she said that we should leave that night. that i would be awake, that she would be awake, and that instead of trying to get something like a three hour nap before leaving at one, we could just pack and leave.
the thought made my stomach turn. sixteen hours of driving? getting in after being awake for 30 hours straight? could i even make it?
i told her that i wasn't saying no, but wasn't saying yes either. that we'd pack the car and see where we were. she hadn't packed a single thing, but she was completely packed within an hour. it blew my mind. her whole life in phila, packed in an hour? it took me longer to pack, and i just had clothes for two weeks.
she was done by 8. the car was loaded by 9. and we decided to go. we got showers, said goodbye to mike, and got into the car. i drove three legs, from 945 until about 4 am.
things got a little hairy at around 3. i was definitely getting tired, aubree was trying to nap to drive the next leg. my back was killing me from being in the same position for so long, so i was hunched up over the steering wheel, thinking too hard, and feeling too much, and being sleepsick. so when she woke up, and saw me driving like that, it freaked her out a little bit. she slammed a red bull and took over.
and i wrote for a bit, and had my cry. i'd been doing so well – i was actually proud of myself for holding it together for almost eight hours of driving and thinking.
once i didn't have to focus and drive anymore, i guess i just released it.
it's really over. and i let myself finish that sentence, in my brain, with a 'for now'. but the bottom line is that it's really over. and i'm glad that i already knew it, because it took a lot of the sting out of it.
i wrote him back across five state lines, in few minute increments. thought i lost the entire email at one point and got upset about that. but once i was home, and online again, i found that it had saved my draft.
once we got to the florida state line, we were both absolutely whipped. twelve hours of driving and a sunrise under our belts. awake over 24 hours at that point. it was wicked. but what's funny is that, before about 2 am, we were making fantastic time, but it felt like a lot of driving. and after 11 am, it seemed like it had gone by so quickly that we couldn't believe we were almost there.
we'd lied to mom and dad. we'd said we left at 145 in the morning, after sleeping, as planned. thinking we'd pull off a great surprise. we pulled into the driveway an hour ahead of schedule, and five hours before they were expecting us. we were bouncing and squealing excited to be home. screaming the last few songs at the top of our lungs on the way into our section of the city.
but the surprise was on us. mom was happy to see us, of course. and we got her to call dad into the house from mowing the yard, to surprise him. and he was happy to see us, too.
but we'd interrupted their cleaning and house prep for our arrival. and we hadn't anticipated it. so it was this strangely stressful surprise for them, i guess. they wouldn't let us help them. and from arriving, we were hyped up and from the driving we were cracked out, so we arrived exhausted and nauseous, but awake. and they kept telling us to sleep, but we couldn't.
we'd been home for an hour, and sat down at the kitchen table. looking at each other and communicating without words, making noises and cracking inside jokes. talking hood and laughing. it made me feel strangely self-conscious. because now aubree and i are so close and attached, i think that it probably freaks them the fuck out. they have to know what is going to happen next.
i actually felt guilty. i felt bad for giggling with her, and for having developed something like a secret language between us.
and things at home are very different. i knew that seeing the grandparents would be hard. and it has been. we went to see grandma a few hours after we got here, sleepless and unwell.
she's in the same nursing home other grandpa was in, where i spent so much time my visit last summer. i don't like that place. it's a jesus nursing home. there are creepy religious paintings everywhere. and a lot of sick old people. and sick people who are too young to be in a nursing home. it depresses the shit out of me. it's one step above a hospital.
when we walked in, my grandmother, who was not a religious person a few years ago, starting crying and praising jesus and the lord that we made it over and over and crying happy tears, and it made me really uncomfortable. she had surgery on her broken ankle, which is why she's there – for rehab and physical therapy. and she found out today (day three of vacation) that she can stay for two more months if she has to. so it looks like my time with her this trip will all be spent in that awful place. it sucks.
she's been doped up on oxycontin for years, but now it's mixed with percoset and something for her nerves, so she's not awake too much. and slurs when she is. it's not cool at all. and now she has no pressure to get better and get the fuck out of that place. and today, my grandfather's brother died after battling alzheimers for something like seven years.
so i think i get to go to a funeral on friday.
we finally slept that night. i've had weird dreams both nights i've been home, which is nothing new to me. but aubree's fan isn't working, and i spent the night sweating and tossing in a different bed. i guess i'm used to the (dis)comforts of my home.
but still, i slept twelve hours, which was much needed, and i woke up feeling mostly normal. visited grandma again. we had a pizza party for her, to bring some sense of happiness and normalcy to her in that home. and left from there to visit my dad's parents.
i was dreading it. rightfully so. grandpa of course had no idea who i was, but somehow remembered aubree. which surprised even her. and he slept most of the time that we were there. but when the two of them had our leftover pizza at their kitchen table, after watching dad help him into the kitchen, it got difficult.
he was somewhere else, mentally. and he said something about not wanting to be around anymore, because he is living a miserable existence. even though he can't tell you why he's so miserable. he knows that his mind is gone when he has tiny moments of clarity. and he's honest about not knowing who you are when you ask him.
i had to leave the kitchen, because i felt a cry building.
my grandfather, who favored me growing up, and made popcorn for us every night we stayed with my grandparents, is completely helpless, and is dying a shitty death. he thinks on a daily basis that he is in a ditch, either held in a cage, or just disabled and helpless. and that he just lays in a ditch waiting to be helped for hours a day. but he never even left his la-z-boy chair.
i can't imagine. i don't want to.
so i left the room, and held it together. but before that happened, grandma pulled a typical stunt.
i call her mean grandma for good reason.
we were sitting at the table, after a few loaded questions about my haircut when we arrived. and she said,
'now you'll never get a date with that haircut.'
what is so funny about it is that it's her same haircut. she's had it forever. i look a lot like her, which fucks with me on a daily basis.
so the fact that she said that to me? typical. and not cool.
my parents thought he'd think i was her when i walked in, remembering his wife before she was old, and thinking he was back in the 50s and 60s, which is where his mind is parked most days.
aubree and dad went to other grandparents' house to mow the lawn for them. mom and i rode home in my car. and i almost made it, driving back to the house, before i started crying. it caught her off guard. i didn't say anything, it was only quiet tears.
but we pulled into the neighborhood, and she asked me if i was crying. and asked why. and i told her that this happens almost every day, and that i'm crying because i'm sad. and didn't say more than that before we got back to the house.
this trip is just DIFFERENT. there is tension and strain and stress at home. mostly financial, between mom and dad. when dad is stressed, he takes it out on everyone else. he is once again the dad that i grew up with, and it's a royal fucking bummer. he was so cool for so many years, it was awesome seeing a dad that i never knew who was fun to be around. but now he's pissed and miserable, and is making it his job to make everyone else pissed and miserable.
i don't know how i will feel in two weeks when i'm back to work. i'm not supposed to be thinking about that right now, but i am.
this is a long trip for someone with nothing to talk about.
maybe tomorrow i'll actually get some sun. it blows my mind a little that i have yet to really be poolside relaxing. i'm losing days to nothingness already. but i've been pretty distracted.
and because i feel like everyone is watching me, i have cut my drinking back a bit. and with the exception of that first night, i haven't had to pop an ativan either. maybe i'm trying to let myself feel everything. i don't really know. but it's different.
i'm okay with the fact that i thought this summer would top last summer. and i'm okay with the fact that life doesn't work that way. what it means is that i don't think home is the magical answer. what it means is that falling and feeling so much before summer even arrived set me up for feeling this way now that it's been taken away from me.
what would i be if things were actually easy for me? what would i do if things were all good? how would i act if i had something too good to be true?
i'll consider myself lucky in some way, that it isn't so.
because when i drive back, days from now, it won't be with a yearning to return here the way it was the last two times.
it's like the spell wore off. in every possible way. i'm really wondering how i'm going to make it here for two weeks.
things will just be normal. level. no highs. and maybe without the highs, the lows won't feel so low. i'm back to that feeling of nothing. where i'm partly convinced that i don't really feel anything at all.
and part of that is because i came here thinking aubree would be staying.
but that first day we were here, she already said she didn't know how she could live here. that after a month, she'll probably be clawing the walls to get the fuck out of here. i don't want to ask, or talk about it really, because i don't want to pressure her inadvertently.
but i think she'll be back in phila in the fall. i think that, somehow, life became normal there for her. the pace, the activity, the independence, the lifestyle. the distance from parents who judge her, all day every day.
so i don't have the feeling i had that first day, when mom almost immediately said something about how i'm going to deal when she's not there. and i burst into tears while aubree told mom, 'there are a couple things we won't be talking about while she's here, mom.'
it hasn't come up again. and i'm refusing to think about it. and i think i'm only able to because i feel like i don't really have to. and the way that usually works, in my brain, is that i'll acclimate to being back alone, and be okay. and so if she does or doesn't come back up, it won't be as world altering as it felt like it was going to be when we left to drive here. or when i unpacked everything of hers from the car.
i just feel... nothing. and i'm going to embrace that for as long as it lasts.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)