Work, Work, Mom

I've called the hotline a few times now.  I know what they're going to say, almost by heart.

We take deep breaths. I apologize for calling. I apologize for crying. Vaguely, somewhere in the back of my mind, I wonder what their stories are; I wonder what led them to this point, sitting on the other end of the phone.

This time she has the same name as my sister. I want to tell her, but I can't get the words out. Her voice is calm, quiet, soothing. She feels so reassuring and there is a small part of me that hasn't been able to be comforted in a long time that feels calmed.

"Have you seen a professional?" she asks. "Do you have a safety plan in place?"

We talk about what's going on. She validates me, tells me that my emotions are okay. That I'm really struggling with this and it is so understandable.

It's what I've been wanting a friend to tell me. It's what I've wanted with hugs and kisses and apologies and whispers that it will be alright, but I've promised not to tell our friends.

We make a plan to get through the night. Stop looking at social media. Stop expecting phone calls you're promised but not going to get. Give up control over other people and just focus on yourself.

Self care, she calls it. Take a shower if I can, journal, read a new, intriguing book, watch a movie I know won't trigger me, something I can get engrossed in. Doctor Who sounds great. Keep yourself occupied and maybe take 2 Benadryl so you can get some sleep.

Every moment now is a countdown. How can I get to the next thing? How can I get to work in the morning? Then after that I'm alone for 18 hours, then work again the next morning and then finally relief. Finally, I get to see my Mom and my day will be easier.

I can't think about the three days after that, filled with hours of loneliness and no way right now to make it better. I can't focus on that without crumpling, so right now I just count down. Work, work, Mom. Work, work, Mom. I can do that. I can make it to Mom.

T tries to tell me that I'm overreacting. That this is not catastrophic and I am making a mountain out of a molehill. Maybe I am, I don't know. I just know that I'm not handling this well. I feel so isolated, I feel so uncertain about my future, I feel so hurt, I feel so betrayed. It should be getting better but it's just getting worse. I know T needed space but all that space is doing for me is putting me back in that dark place. I'm right back to the middle of June. I'm right back to not eating, to sleeping all the time - I can hardly breathe, I don't want to be in our house by myself.

It's so hard but I'm trying. I'm making plans. Work, work, Mom. I'm thinking about my cats, but they don't want anything to do with me. I feel like they're mad that T is gone and that I'm such a mess.

Work, work, Mom.  I can do this.

Grief/Silence

When I need it most, my brain goes quiet. In the ugly radio silence and white noise, the ruined meat shudders and whimpers over all the collective thoughts I should have, should have had while I had the chance. As if I were suddenly rebooted into some safe mode without networking or the capacity to connect to my drives, I curl up, cut off from all possible methods of recovery.

Of course, I’m still talking and functioning. I still laugh and think about other things, still call my boifriend and have full conversations. But once I hit this trigger I shut down. I become useless. I refuse to call my best friend back and talk about the memorial arrangements.

And then this sick, awful part of me wonders why this hit me so much harder than my grandfather’s. Why is it my family's deaths are so normal for me but my friends' tear me up inside? Is it all the broken promises? Is it all the unfinished business? Is it that I know my family knows I love them unconditionally but maybe my friends felt less than cherished, less than cared for?

Because I don’t think he knew how much he meant to me. I don’t think he knew everything he did for me or how he shaped my life or brightened my day or saved my family. I don’t think he knew that he made such a huge impact on us, or how much we all loved him. How his laugh could make all the horrible things of the week run for the shadows, or how his crinkling eyes always reminded me of the kindness and wisdom I imagined in Dumbledore’s.

When I was a freshman in high school I was teased and told I didn’t belong in a certain group because I wasn’t smart enough. He was having trouble with a case and asked us for help finding a defense. I don’t think he really expected any help, but I piped up with a pretty solid way to get the warrant thrown out. It was a totally “Legally Blonde” moment, and it boosted my confidence by a million miles. He always had faith in me, even when I didn’t have faith in myself.

I’m going to miss that.

26 Pinky Promise

30 Day Letter Challenge

Day 26 — The last person you made a pinky promise to

I made a girl pinky promise to do her English homework the other night, but I wasn't promising anything.

I promised someone that we'd die together. I think I was eight or nine at the time, and I couldn't imagine living alone. A car accident, we decided, so that we couldn't grow old and die in a hospital room that smelled like bleach and hurt our ears with high pitched machines humming.

I pinky swore to my childhood best friend that we'd be best friends forever. I promised Ladybug we'd never lie to each other. I pinky promised my grandfather that if he stopped smoking I'd clean up the shop, every day. She moved away, I've never outright told Ladybug I'm gay (I'm terrified), and my grandfather quit smoking for the rest of his life but I only kept my promise for a few months.

I think I do better when I don't involve pinkies.

Day 11 Grief

30 Day Letter Challenge

Day 11 — A Deceased person you wish you could talk to

I'm not going to write a letter. This is about remembering, connecting, and seeing the world as something bigger than yourself or myself. When you’re born into a large family, like I was, death is not uncommon. I’ve attended more funerals than I can count. But two hit me particularly hard – my brother-in-law when I was 14, and my grandfather when I was 18. Both were accidents. 

I wasn’t allowed to go to T’s funeral. We didn’t have enough money for me to fly back east, since both of my parents were going to support my sister. I understand the fiscal reasons, but as a fourteen year old girl my feelings were bruised. They left for 12 days and I stayed with my grandparents on a very cold air mattress wondering what his body looked like. He used to let me braid his rat-tail. He wasn’t exactly the greatest person in the world, but for some reason he had a sweet spot for me.

When my grandpa died it was sudden, unexpected and harsh. We had been very close, had a very good relationship, and he was practically a dad to Ladybug. So, when Ladybug and I were dragged into the court case surrounding his death it was a little too much for both of us to handle. Luckily, neither of us spiraled into drugs, but it took me more than a year before I visited his grave. It was shortly after this that I came out and as for Ladybug, he joined the Marines. To each their own therapy, I suppose. 

Grief is a funny thing; sometimes you think you’re done and then it sneaks up on you out of nowhere and slams you in the gut. Or sometimes you can be in the middle of it, and suddenly be blessed with an ordinary day where you don’t think about any of it and don’t realize it until later. Grieving is a journey, and when you can finally mention that person again without crying, you start to understand that life moves forward. 

Since my grandfather died, my brothers and sisters have given birth to four children with one more on the way. I can’t stop my whole life to grieve for one person, or I would fail to interact with and love all these new people. And I wouldn’t miss out on them for anything.

HIV Result Update

Okay, so we'll get back to the part where I had just died in a minute. A minute being, you know, my next post. I won't leave you hanging for too long. Obviously I didn't stay dead forever, otherwise I wouldn't be posting my story on the interwebs.

Point being: I interrupted the scheduled programming to bring you news I had previously mentioned in my Avoidance post. If you missed that, no big deal. Long post short: I was freaking out because I saw a movie about suburban, white kids contracting HIV.

As I was raised in a suburban(can you call it that?), middle class (granted there's a lot of debt involved), white (of mainly Eurasian descent) focus group, it seemed strongly to apply to me, and I went to go get tested. After fretting for weeks the results finally came in the mail with a little "negative" typed on the right hand side. (I think clinics need to be more joyous when they send you things like that. Can't they send it on stationary with little balloons or something? At least bold it.)

Anyway, I'm clean and I'm glad, but it got me thinking. I've always done a lot of fundraising for my local LGBT and HIV center- which helps with everything from HIV testing and medication to food, mental health counseling, group therapy, activities and mixers. But lately fundraising doesn't seem like enough. It's kind of a long drive, so I don't participate in many of their mixers, but I've been thinking about doing some volunteer work, both in the center and raising awareness in the outlying communities.

Even though I'm not HIV positive I don't want this to just fade away and go back to feeling like I was invincible. I have no real fear of death or pain until it's staring me in the face. I know it's my youth, my naivety of "that could never happen to me," that lingers on, despite having left my teenage years behind me.

No matter how long I try to cling to this fear that I could die, that I can feel pain- it always slips away and I become as reckless and adventuresome as before. In the meantime, I'll try to volunteer. Try to give comfort, assistance, and care to those in need and try to remind myself that there is always a price for the rush I seek.

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.