Routines

I think we're starting to fall back into old patterns. I can feel you drifting back into the daily life we had before you left. I can feel myself drifting back into caregiver, peacekeeper mode. I'm not entirely happy with either situation. I don't want our old routines. I don't want our old relationship.

I want passion, I want boundaries, I want commitment, I want respect, I want love. I don't want the kind of love we had before, the kind where I bring you a glass of water and you get me an ice cream on your way home from work and those are little "I love you"s.

I want big love. I want hot, rough, fast, or loving, smoldering, slow sex, all day, every day. I want heat when you hold my hand, I want you to look at me like I'm the person you want most in the world by your side every day.

Instead you look at your phone.

I want, I want, I want. I've always wanted but never taken enough. Never taken enough for myself or spoken up for myself. I just compromise, and by compromise I mean that I say, "whatever you want to do," and "whatever you're hungry for," and "wherever you'd rather go this weekend."

I compromise myself and what I want and that's not okay. I don't want that anymore. I feel like you burned me and out of the ashes is rising someone newer, more confident, more selfish, more demanding. Someone who is going to be an equal rather than a doormat and I don't know if you're going to like the new me or if I'm even going to like the new me.

But I'm tired of giving and giving. Maybe you'll look back at this, even if we're still together ten years from now, and go, "I lost my girlfriend who loved me and gave with all her heart when I did that stupid thing." Because you did. You lost her.

Now you have choices. Me, or someone new, or be alone, or run back to the girl who has proved that she doesn't love you the way you loved her and she never will.

I can't tell you what to choose, I don't even know what I will choose.

But I do know we can never go back to who we were.

Birthdays

I had so much fun part of today. The part where I was swimming with my friends and taking photos and playing games. The part that felt carefree and relaxed.

And still you turned away from me. I didn't wake up with you and you rolled away when I tried to snuggle. Instead, I was awake at 6am on my birthday, alone and drunk in the dark in the pool. I watched the sunrise and thought it would help me feel hopeful about the year to come. A new day, a fresh start, a new beginning. 

Instead, my new beginning felt lonely, disjointed, cold, shaky, and disappointing.

And now I'm ending the day the same way. We fought, I cried. I'm sitting here and you're sitting over there and you don't want to touch me or be near me and I get worse. Everything gets worse. 

The loneliness increases. The feeling that I'm going through this and there is no hope it's going to get better hits and I just sob and sob and sob. 

This is what my birthday is this year.

I hate it. 

I want to feel better. I want you to love me and hold me and never stop. 

I want a lot of things. I don't think I'm going to get them. 

Everything has Changed

I'm getting married.

Isn't that wonderful? It is, actually, since I started this blog in a place of sarcasm and jaded bitterness wherein I truely believed I was working on myself because happiness with another person just wasn't in the cards for me.

And then I met T. Perfect, wonderful. Kind, smart, handsome, ambitious, compassionate- great with kids and a social butterfly. And she could make me laugh so hard I would cry, could make me feel so full of love and so loved in return, could make me feel like I was the only person left in the world, and the only person she could see was me.

Fast forward two years. We live together with a cat (how cliche gay) and most days are relatively happy with each other, being in the same space, sharing a couch and watching Gold Rush. But some days are filled to the brim with little things, little nags, nit-picks, digs at this or that. We get over them, we move on, we apologize and say I love you and continue to grow in our relationship.

She gets down on one knee and I don't know what to say, what to do. I'm ecstatic, I'm thrilled. I've been waiting ages for this, but also it's so fast. I don't want to see her with anyone else, I want to take care of her and her to take care of me for the rest of our lives- but there in the tiniest corner in the farthest back of my mind, I'm also thinking of all the arguements, of all the times I want to call her an asshole but don't, all the times T gets frustrated with my Resting Bitch Face.

I say yes, because this is love like I've never felt before. Because she makes my heart swell and music crescendos and we sing and dance to T.Swift in the car, make doing laundry a date night with good food, can do all the choreography to Fantasmic, and cuddle with our cat-son and I want to make this my family. I want her for life. I want to see the good and bad, I want her to want me, I want to be there when she needs to cry, I want to make life better for her.

But all I can do is make it worse. We fight more often-she goes out with her friends and I work late.

Fast forward to tonight. We argued earlier over something small. My tone, I think, when I corrected her about what time a TV program was on. I get off work- "should I meet you guys at the bar?" I ask, where she is with her friends. "It's up to you." Comes the reply. It's not the one I want. "I'm kinda drunk."

"Kind of drunk like it would be nice to have me there or kind of drunk like you are having fun letting loose?" I try to be tactful. I shouldn't.

"Everyone is asking for you. Come if you want." There it is again. That apathetic response that makes me want to scream 'FUCK EVERYONE ELSE, I JUST WANT TO KNOW IF YOU WANT ME!'

But I don't. I sob my face off. I sit in the car for a half hour, twisting my engagement ring. I look up Red Flag Warnings for relationships. They're troubling. I look up engagement doubts and that freaks me out even more. I don't want to leave. I don't want this to quadruple our chances of getting divorced. I don't want anyone to tell me we don't get a happily ever after.

I just want to stop crying, to stop fighting, to feel secure in my relationship, which T has tried to help me with more than once. But I don't feel secure. I don't know why I feel insecure. I know she won't leave me, I know she loves me. But nights like this it's just not enough. And I don't know what to do about it and I don't have the right words to give to her to talk with her about it.

I feel powerless, helpless, less than, and unwanted. And of all of those, unwanted is the one that hurts most.

Slam Poetry

If I could perform slam poetry
I would stand up with the women
Whom I admire so greatly
Who SPEAK
with simplicity about complexity.
The spoken word is our
HISTORY
Passed down from mouths
To ears to hearts.
Stories of victories, losses,
Lovers, and legends,
All preserved throughout generations.
Literacy replaced
With rhyme and rhythm.

If I could speak with such
VORACITY
I would tell the world of my own
SHORTCOMINGS
Of my misdeeds, my misheards
My mis-nameds, my Miss Less.
I would tell of how I got to be
My age
Without becoming a
WARRIOR
Without learning how to defend myself
Or manipulate the field.
Of how sometimes I am
Cornered
And I don't ever fight back
Instead going silent,
Retreating into my
TURTLE SHELL.
If I could breathe slam poetry
I would not be the victim
I am the survivor
Without needing to take up the
Spears and daggers of this
VIOLENT world.

Music/Events

When I got my hair cut a few days ago I bought a new product to put in it and the kids I work with have noticed. "Your hair smells good!" "Your hair smells like apples!" "Your hair smells like cotton candy!"

"It doesn't smell like cotton candy!" I laugh.

"It could," he reminds me helpfully. I'll keep it in mind.

It's one of those days where the chill nips in through my wool coat, and instead of talking about the slut-shaming unattractively going on across the interwebs, the abhorrent feelings I have for our government's inadequacy to reach a decision and wasting time, energy, and resources while holding items hostage essential to the middle and lower classes, or the deep feelings of despair and anxiety for the rape culture we have created and perpetuate every day, even in lesbian subculture, through billboards and social media and have the world wake up to it through the eyes of India, and yet it still goes unseen - I'm just going to tell you what's been playing on repeat on my iPod for the past week.


Just look at that Drummer! (swooning a little)

Family/Heavy Update

I got the phone call. The one I was half-expecting to come at three am from a sobbing girl. Instead it was an afternoon text message: Can you please call me when you have free time? So innocent, so politely distant. This is how my family works. We all do this. We all downplay our feelings and refuse to take up anyone's time or emotions or ask for what we need.

I called my niece right away and she was in tears on the other end of the line. "I told my mom and she just - she thinks that if I go out with my friends for a night it's going to go away and I'm going to get better!" I let her cry while I analyzed, processed, and also because she needed to get it out. She's so worried that by asking for help she's going to break up her family, cause her parents to divorce, be branded as a screw up for the rest of her life. "-and then she said 'What, do I need to worry about you committing suicide, too?' and she just spat it at me!" my niece sobbed.

This is where being an aunt puts me in a difficult position. I am, in age, between my brother and his daughter. I am at a point in my life where I can understand both points of view, and it doesn't seem very long ago that I was dealing with my own high school/college issues. His wife, K, and I are so close, probably the closest of all my siblings, (plus or minus Ladybug) and her relationship with my niece is so reminiscent of my own with my mother.

I know that K feels like a bad parent, that she is trying to help/love/comfort her daughter, but has no idea how to handle this situation. I also know that my niece is trying to protect her mother, trying to lock away all her emotions, because she feels like by being honest she is ripping her foundation apart.

So I'm flying out to see them and I honestly couldn't be happier about it. I want to take my niece in my arms and check that she's okay with my own eyes. I want a late night conversation with my sister so she can talk to me about everything she feels overwhelmed by and can't process.

I want to walk into the doctor's office with them and assure them that it doesn't make us lesser people. I want us to walk out of there as a unit and I want my niece to go to sleep at night knowing that her family is rock solid and 100% behind keeping her well and happy, above and beyond everything else.

This is the definition of being family. I am more than happy to live up to the parameters.

Sugarbutch/Poly

I just want to take a minute and talk about Sugarbutch. Sinclair has been cultivating fantastic interviews about poly life and I am thoroughly enjoying all of them. Poly freaks me out. I've talked about this before. There's so much in me that would be interested in poly with the right people, but also I'm so afraid of not being enough (reoccurring theme much?)/losing love/getting walked out on/ I have severe insecurity issues because my girlfriends keep going straight.

Of all the interviews, this is the one I love most so far. Because this reassures me. This makes me feel like as a normal person with all my issues, I could overcome it to have a healthy, happy, lifelong relationship with more than one person. Not that I'm going to, because that's not something I really crave, so it would have to be both of us seeking out that situation. But still, the reassurance is nice, and the interviews are beautiful and full of good advice. Check them out.

Heavy

When Christmas gets heavy:

I skyped with my brother's kids late Christmas night. They're cute kids, 15 and 8, but they're a little overemotional. My nephew is funny and biting but can be sensitive, and so can his sister. My niece is a junior in high school, after she skipped a grade in middle school, and she's been dealt some heavy cards lately: her best friend died from cancer last year, and her other best friend went to jail for molesting younger boys after he himself was abused. Her life has sucked the past few years.

She wanted to talk to me about it this summer, but couldn't find the words, and being raised in a family where we don't push to communicate, I held her as she cried and told her she could come to me when she was ready. Last night's call was tense, grumpy, and awkward, and finally she kicked her little brother out of the room and broke down.

She's been anorexic for the last year. She has emotions she can't understand - feeling happy and normal one day, grumpy and depressed and introverted for no reason the next. She feels anxious, paranoid, stressed, and she doesn't want to tell her parents because she doesn't want to be a fuck up.

I'm pretty good at being calm and reasonable and compassionate when people come to me, but after the fact, when I'm writing about this, I can't help but start to cry. Should I have told her about my anorexia years ago? My depression as an early teenager? The year when I'd been lost and confused and tricked into thinking I'd fatally hurt one of my best friends? Should I be talking about these things to my other nieces and nephews who might be feeling the same way?

Luckily, her mom, K, is the sibling I talk to most, and she knows, briefly, about my struggles with anorexia. After ascertaining and making sure that my niece is not suicidal, I convinced her to talk to her mom. She's struggling, she's drowning, and she needs help and understanding. Maybe it's a conversation I will be part of, maybe I will end up flying out there to help, or maybe she'll find the courage to say something and then call me later. And I understand her hesitation, because she can be emotional and now her parents tend to brush her emotions off. But now I'm worried about her. Because this is what leads to drugs and sex and suicide.

I know there's a stigma against getting help, especially in our family - I mean, hell, I never got help or talked to my mom about any of my issues for that very reason. But I'd rather get her help than see her all over the papers. I'd rather she learn that help is okay than to lose her forever. She's my baby girl who is sarcastic and funny, who lights up at Disneyland, and wants to be a singer and has so much talent, who plays the guitar with me and can sing Katy Perry better than Katy Perry can. I refuse to see her light go out because she won't tell her parents or a doctor that something is wrong.

Regression/Anonymity

Remember when I used to be pretty anonymous on here? I was so open about anything, everything, so ready to give my opinions - right, wrong, callous, careless, half thought, half formed. I was bold, fearless. I posted the pictures of myself I was considering for a mostly nude calendar. (That was actually pretty hot.)

Now you know more about me. Now I feel like I've spilled out my guts about my family, my heartaches, my failures, my triumphs (maybe not so much my triumphs and I should write more on those) and I can feel myself pulling back. Regressing. Feeling afraid of the judgement. That can't happen here. This is my space and I want to take it back. Maybe my first step won't be with nudie pictures because I am a few years older and wiser, but I'm going to make the effort to be bolder, less edited.

I want to talk about crushing, but it's going to be too long to halvsie it with this one, so expect it coming up shortly!

Tragedies

It's always hard to write about a tragedy. It's easier to keep quiet and not step on anyone's emotional toes. When last Friday hit the news, I was in shock like everyone else. I reached out to my siblings and their children, who felt hurt and confused and scared. I imagined my niece and nephew who only live a few hours away from there, in kindergarten and pre-k, so little, so funny, so ultimately helpless against violence of that force.

But my niece and nephew back east are no strangers to guns. In fact, their father collects guns and is an avid hunter. They never go grocery shopping for meat, and the littlest knows moose meat is her favorite. My whole family are no strangers to guns. We are police officers, sheriffs, military members, war vets. We know the power of a gun and the safety rules of owning one. We know that there are two safes, one for the guns and one for the clips, and the keys aren't kept together.

What we don't own are semi-automatics. What we don't need are guns that belong in war and action movies. No one needs to be able to shoot off thirty rounds at at time. These are people guns. These are massacre guns. GB has rules about what kinds of guns civilians can own. Hunting rifles are fine, but any pistol/handgun is prohibited. Anything that can shoot six bullets without reloading is prohibited. Can I stress that more? SIX bullets.

Wake up, America. We're not waiting on a zombie apocalypse. We don't need guns based off AK-47s in the hands of citizens. We don't need to buy bulk ammo at the nearest supercenter. Why can I only buy two boxes of cold medicine but can buy 400 rounds at a time? What on earth are we doing?

My mom brought up a sad point. Those parents probably already bought Christmas presents for their children. Maybe people will think me callous, but I hope those toys are donated to Toys for Tots or another organization. Those kids aren't coming home to open them, and they were never really "their toys" in the first place. I'm sure all their favorites and most played with will hold a special place, but for these unopened presents it will just be a haunting reminder. Something decent/noble can bud from this tragedy. I hope it will.

Family Love/Hate

I love my family. I write about them a lot. I have fond memories of them and enjoy spending time with them. But sometimes I just want to smack them. Some of my family is desert redneck, and that's okay. They're good people, funny, know how to have a good time with a piece of plywood, some rope, and an ATV, and can make one hell of a mudslide (the drink). But, they also say some things I just can't handle - it comes with the territory.

My mom's cousin is one of those people who says a lot of things I disagree with. She's had it rough, fighting cancer and then later her daughter was born with Cystic Fibrosis. C was pretty cool - I have a lot of her art. She was fascinated with death and dying, big on the punk scene and Tim Burton movies. But she didn't make it past 16, and that was hard on her mom - on the whole family. After C died, my mom's cousin took a trip to Israel with her other daughter.

So here's the post I saw on Facebook today: The most amazing, spiritual & emotional 10 days of my life were spent in Israel. Hanging out in Downtown old Jerusalem. Being baptized in the Jordan. Actually touching the pavement where they forced Jesus to walk with his cross. The saddest pictures are of Ron and I on the beach in tel aviv, which is now empty because of the bombing. And lastly the empty tomb. Please pray for Israel and the Jewish people, "CHRISTIANS STAND BEHIND ISRAEL"

Blah, blah, blah, (Jesus didn't walk on pavement) blah, blah - "Christians stand behind Israel."  38 likes. I'm sorry, what? I'm not Christian, but I was raised Catholic so I should have a pretty fair idea of what this means and why people are getting behind it. But aren't Christians all for brokering peace? Didn't Jesus say he who is without sin, cast the first stone? Israel is bombing the hell out of Gaza and Hamas is trying like crazy to send out rockets, but their attempts are feeble in comparison. 

So what I'm hearing is that she's all for a religious and territorial war that she has no business being a part of or cheering for. If you want to pray for something, pray for peace, pray for resolution. Pray for both sides and the lives that have been lost in the names of gods which are all ultimately the same.

If you haven't read the Gazan Youth Manifesto for Change, read it now. It's halfway down the page, marked in bold with Manifesto.

Also, if you're interested, this is a NYT article focusing on the three generations of a family living in Gaza that were killed during an Israeli airstrike, as well as the emotional climate of the area right now.

Day 25 Paine

30 Day Letter Challenge

Day 25 — The person you know that is going through the worst of times

Washington Crossing the Delaware

I can't read that without hearing, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," which then brings me to Thomas Paine's famous quote, "These are the times that try men's souls."  Here comes the rant.

Look, there are millions, if not billions, of people who are going through the worst of times. People on the east coast are trying to recover from Sandy, as well as the people in Haiti. Gaza and Israel are attacking each other again. Winter is setting in and freezing the far north. People around the world are homeless, people are sick, people are without clean water, without ample food.

So, I'm not going to talk about my aunt's weird emotional breakdown or my grandma facing my grandfather's birthday and the anniversary of her daughter's death all in one month, or my best friend trying to recover from surgery and feeling isolated from the world. Instead I want us to think about the world and what we're doing to help or hurt. A whole bunch of idiots are signing petitions to try and secede their states from the US. Our country is divided and we need to bridge the gap. This is not the time to rub noses in the dirt, or to withdraw and lick wounds and find a way to avoid those who "won." There was no winning or losing. There were two paths as to how the US was going to travel into the future, and the residents of our nation picked the trail we will traverse, together. Step up and find a way to make it all work. Bipartisanship.

Also from Thomas Paine's The Crisis, "America did not, nor does not want force; but she wanted a proper application of that force. Wisdom is not the purchase of a day, and it is no wonder that we should err at the first setting off."  It's been over two hundred years since those words were penned, and while our country is still in its infancy compared to the ancient nations of the world, we should have learned more than this. This is pride and humiliation sabotaging the efforts to build a greater country. Our nation made a choice. You've had your tantrums, now stand up and be productive.

Baggage

I just want to start out by saying that this is not a cry for help. This is communicating.

Everyone has their own baggage, whether it's mental illness, criminal records, bad dating history, abuse, violence, drinking, drugs, addictions of any other sort, or whatever else. When you have an eating disorder, like all other baggage, it never goes away. It's not like one day you wake up and you can eat everything and anything and in the back of your head you're not thinking of all the calories adding up in big piles.

This is my baggage. It's not so much baggage for other people because it's really an internal awareness. Do I eat junk food? Yes. Do I eat and not feel guilty? Yes. But I've come a long way since I was really sick in high school, and for some people it's a very daily struggle. I still drink at least fourteen glasses of water a day - it's a habit I haven't been able to break.

I haven't been eating much lately. At first I think it was time management, I've been working two jobs and trying to get things done, and when I finally have time to eat it's been four hours since I was first hungry and I can barely choke down a granola bar without feeling sick.

I've been doing it for a while now, so the idea of eating a whole meal makes me nauseous. I don't think it's my eating disorder talking. It doesn't feel like forcing myself not to eat by drinking ice water and looking at pro-ana posters. I feel physically ill. That's not to say that those feelings couldn't stem from something psychological in nature, which is why I was getting worried again. There were four days over this past week that I only had an energy bar (bagel type thing with nuts and fruit) or a granola bar over the whole day, which is not normal eating behavior.

Stuff I moved

Today, though, was my first full day off since last Sunday, and it felt so good! I moved some stuff, cleaned some stuff, moved some more stuff, and climbed around in the rafters to repair some stuff.  All in all, I got a lot of things done, and worked up an appetite!

So, I made flautas for dinner! Yes, flautas! You know, those delicious things made from flour tortillas with meat or tofu (chicken, in my case) sauce, cheese, sour cream, guacamole, lettuce, and salsa? Which means today I had breakfast and a full dinner, which eases some of my worry. I try to be good, I try to be healthy, so I need to make sure to stop and take time to eat, no matter how many jobs I'm trying to do.

Stuff I found, but not at my house.

I found a very old Rainbow Brite doll tucked in a cabinet full of other dolls, also not at my house!

Day 3 Redux Parents

30 Day Letter Challenge

Day 3 — Your parents

I can't wait until we get past all these embarrassing letters that I don't want to post to the fun ones!

Sometimes I sit and wonder what the world would be like without you. I know, that's a horrible thing to say, but I think you do the same for me. The choices you made would have been different. I think I trapped you, and you trapped me as well.

Mom, head to toe, I'm absolutely your daughter. You made me tolerant, open-minded, and kind. Because of you, I was eager to see the world, and jaded when it refused to live up to fairytale expectations. You fed me on hopes, dreams, and miracles, and when none of them saved you, you snuffed out the light of my world and threw away my pixie dust.

But I can't stay mad at you. You're the funniest person I know. You connect things in such a weird way that I never know what's going to come out of your mouth. You want to hang out with Russell Brand and you watch The Ellen Show like the world is going to end. Our fights are the worst, the happy days we spend together the best. No matter how we wish things would've been different, don't doubt that I love you.

You gave me my beautiful, bitter, sarcastic wit, you stripped away all thoughts that I could exceed beyond expectations. But deep within layers of armor, my romantic heart still glows with a small flame you no longer have. I wish I could give you that small spark of hope. For now I remain-

a jack of all trades- master of none.

2010 Day 3 Letter

Hubris

When I was a kid, my cousin/ basically my brother (from this point on be under codename: Ladybug-don’t worry, it’s a loving nickname) and I were enrolled in swimming lessons. I began when I was four or five and he started a few years after when he reached that same age. I would take the earlier, advanced class and he would take the younger class right after mine, so we were around to watch each other.

The classes were held in our outdoor community pool, which was absolutely freezing so early in the morning. For whatever reason I can't feel the cold. By the time the car pulled into the parking lot I always had my jacket off, shoes in hand, ready to jump in the pool, and when my lesson was over I refused to come out.  

Ladybug, like most other kids, had a much more difficult time. He would shiver and shake and most days he would beg to climb out early, wrapped in a thick towel as his teeth chattered, while I would eagerly ask if I could take his spot and jump back in.

I excelled in swimming, could hold my breath for two pool lengths or dive off the diving board and forget to come up until a worried instructor feared I was drowning and pull me out. (That tended to make them mad) I thought diving was the most wonderful feeling in the world and I practiced all the time.

Since I grew up right next to the ocean, when I wasn’t in the pool I was at this crap strip of beach ten minutes from my house. The waves were never very big unless there was a storm coming in, and each crest was filled with kelp and/or seaweed that tangled its slimy way across every inch of skin. I didn’t enjoy the shore much, but once I got past the breakers I loved the freedom of being able to swim in the (very cold) water when the pool wasn't open for summer.

I swam all year round, and because I can't feel the cold, one stormy January day I stayed in for more than 3 1/2 hours without a wetsuit and almost came out with hypothermia. It took several piping hot showers on the beach before my skin turned pink and I could uncurl my hands. But I was fine, a teenager, invincible. I didn't let it bother me.

It was this excellence, this confidence, this arrogance, which would be my undoing.

I was 16 and "pool hopping" with two of my friends. They were both 17 and enjoying the freedom of legally being able to drive friends after dark. We were in the spa of a very fancy hotel for only a few minutes before I left them. I could never take the heat for long, and preferred the cold water of the pool a few yards away.

The deepest section was only five feet, but I was 5'1" at the time and had been in this pool many times before. Shallow diving was my specialty. I dove in off the side- once, twice, six times. The rush of bubbles along my cheeks was thrilling, the ice water refreshing against my skin. It was a cold night and the stars were especially bright overhead. My breath puffed into the air as I climbed up the ladder.

I dove again, casually, carelessly, no longer thinking or making an effort. I'd done it a thousand times before. I cut through the water, too quickly, too steep, and couldn't stop myself. The bubbles rushed by my ears and I tried to arch my back. I couldn't pull up. The angle was all wrong. A tremendous pain lanced through my head, my neck, my spine-a pain so intense I could never have imagined anything like it.

And then there was nothing.

Guilt/Killing

While I'm excited that everyone wants to hear about my trip, and I promise I will write about it, this has to come first.

I always joke around with my mother that I don't feel guilt. To some extent, I don't. She feels guilty about all the little things, guilt that she's not at work, guilt that she's not at home, guilt that her husband is dying and she wishes it would happen faster.

Maybe the last one is something I feel and project onto her. But I don't guilty about things like that, don't feel guilty that I don't care if my father lives or dies.

My father has a disease. He stopped taking the medication that doctors prescribed because it wasn't working, and he thought they were trying to kill him (paranoia is a side effect). Now he takes alternative medicine, and it's not helping. He is withering away.

I came home from a perfectly wonderful lunch at a lavish old castle with two fabulous old hens, an aunt, and my cousin (whom I have always considered as a brother codename:ladybug), to find a family visiting with my father. The mother is not ill, but her grown daughter has chronic pain, and her husband has the same illness as my father.

I listen quietly, fiddling with cans and cupboards in the background as he paints the future for this couple. A future where neither of them are in pain, where both can walk, run, jump and play like normal people.

And I feel guilt. I feel guilt as he convinces these people of the impossible. Feel guilt as he sits there in his chair, ashen, withering, and shriveled, and leads this couple to their deaths. In my head, I want to arrest him for murder. For surely, if her husband stops taking his medication he will deteriorate and die.

As I they say their goodbyes, I walk the nice family to their car and pull the husband aside, "The medication works. My father has gone downhill so quickly since he stopped. Try the silver as well, try it, but don't stop the injections so long as you want to live." I can see his eyes darken as he takes in what I say, measures the weight and gravity in his head. He nods and looks at his wife, sitting in the car waiting, when he looks back at me I recognize his wan smile as one I've seen in the mirror too many times, and I know he won't stop the injections. Yet even as I get the mail and walk back into the house, the guilt knots in my stomach, and behind my eyes, I see the lovely husband and wife rot and decay.