the holiday is over now; I'm allowed to cry. actually, I only had a few hours yesterday when I felt depressed and annoyed by the holiday mentality surrounding me. I spent the rest of the day at the pool with many, many Russian women, my mom, and for a little while even my brother. and it was wonderful. I stayed up past my energy because I had to finish (a book I renewed three weeks ago and haven't picked up since) Slammerkin, and now that I have, I want to read it six more times, while simultaneously reading Beloved and I want to talk incessantly about the two of them... and then this morning I reread the first tale in Kissing the Witch (also by Emma Donoghue, who wrote Slammerkin) and almost started crying. because, you know, it's relevent. I guess it's relevent.
I'm going to do something radical here and not pick up the sidetracked conversation with which the doctor and I started our discussion. I just want to get to the part that I haven't been telling anyone. I just want to get to the part that scares the hell out of me, the one that looks so beautiful in the dark, in the quiet, but turns into a monster when I bring it out into the world. I don't even want to deal with metaphors. Go, go, go. Just let it out of me. Freedom, right?
Liberty.
I mentioned a few zillion topics I wanted to at least touch on during the Friday session in the entry just before it: that I called Jenna, that I needed so desperately my entire childhood/ adolescence for someone to come in and take care of me - and now even though I'm older and I have to/ want to take care of myself I still have this overwhelming need for that, that [a Rogers RC]^ let me know this week that she actually relapsed several months ago, went inpatient, is in therapy, and is doing well - but...you know, 'well' with an eating disorder - well in the sense that she's fighting; and that Chas is getting married any minute now (ok, in a couple of weeks) among other things. and we did have a long tangential conversation before I told him that I did indeed have things I needed to bring up, and told him in no particular order, what I basically listed here. I said simply, "Chas is getting married," and he said, "and you're opposed," to which I couldn't exactly agree. He said something about how I'd be the person objecting at the wedding, and I laughed, but then when he said it again, it felt painful. I tried to make him understand that it's not like that. It's not that I don't like her fiance or that I think she's made a really poor decision; I trust her decision-making more than I can explain... It's not that I'm opposed to it, it's not that I want to stop it, I want her to be happy.
"That sounded sincere," he said, without the slightest bit of sincerity.
"It is," I said. "I do. I want her to be happy. It's just hard. It's just hard for me." He said he could only imagine how hard, and that unsettled me further. This is something I have in my notebook scribblings from the past few days, almost as a shot in the dark. "I don't quite know why I feel so rotten lately. What's wrong? Well, for one thing... Chas's wedding is coming up..." It's a possibility; it's a stupid I-expect-myself-to-be-upset-about-that-even-though-it-is-(of-course)-ridiculous-to-feel-so circumstance. It's something I think about to keep from thinking about what's happening to Jenna and [a Rogers RC] and Mary-Kate Olsen (because as genuine as I was when I said I was going to leave her in her life and take care of my own, I find there are factors I didn't quite go into then... and haven't gone into yet... but this entry will have a thousand unfinished topics if I don't plug through at least one). Chas's wedding. "I'm happy for her. She's wanted this for so long."
"How do you know?"
"Because. She just has. She told me. She's always been... Well, like, she'd see a baby and she'd say, 'I *want* one!' with so much feeling, and then she'd laugh and say, 'But...no matter what other people say, I still feel like I need to find the guy first.'"
the doctor says something awful about how she only wants to be a mom, and I backtrack faster than I can possibly backtrack, but I don't have any facts to explain to him how much she wants a guy. the few stories I do know feel personal; despite the fact that I tell him everything, I don't want him to know about her past boyfriends. I tell him it was a poor example on my part, that she really does want the relationship, that she's really not someone who made this decision without any clue what they were getting into... I tell him that her parents' marriage just ended a couple of years ago - rather brutally... it's not like she doesn't know what she's signing up for; she's not naive - she's brave as hell.
Brave... godd, he fucked with my head so much. he talked like it was possible. he let it matter so much more than I ever let it matater... and I don't know - I don't even know how to determine - if it really is that big or if he just didn't understand, if I somehow didn't communicate what I actually meant... if I 'made it up.' one of my favorite games: suddenly this is public and painful and difficult; therefore it doesn't exist. therefore, I was pretending. after all, I've never said, "*This* is my orientation", I've never acted like I know. and he was talking like it was a certainty, like we knew that much. and I wanted to say to him, "We don't even know!" but whenever my lips started down that road, I heard him say, "We know how you feel about *her*"... and whenever I went to say, "But she's *straight*" ... I could hear him saying, "How do you know?" and I felt myself go weak. Because I do. Because she only dates guys. Because she's getting married. I love her, I love the relationship we have, I've never expected any other relationship, so will you please shut up?
I talked about that desire to have someone swoop down and save me. he asked if it wasn't becoming the desire for something more mutual, to be taken care of and take care. to be with someone, instead of to be someone's. I told him I think it's starting to go that way. but there are all these leftover feelings... and there's the fact that, finding out [a Roger's RC] is sick again... it suddenly struck me across the cheek that she's not going to be the one. I didn't even know I was still hoping for that. honestly. I asked her to adopt me, and she didn't, and she has her daughter and her nephew and herself to look after. She's not invincible, the way I (so stupidly) believed she was. She needs her strength; she can't give it to me. She can't come and take me home with her; she can't look after me, too.
Me, too. Me, too. Me, too! Please...
I talked about how it's not going to happen, and it's so hard for me to keep breathing in that heartbreak. There's not going to be the surrogate parent or older sibling who saves me from the trenches of grade school or middle school or high school. Because all those years passed, and I only received as much as I received... and it wasn't enough, it wasn't what I deserve, but it's over now. I don't want someone to take over my life. I wouldn't mind someone to hold me; I wouldn't mind being safe and not alone at the same time... But it's not going to happen.
He challenged that, and I gave. "Maybe it will happen," I said. "Maybe...someone. But it's just..." Ten minute pause during which I said, "I can think of about ten thousand reasons not to finish that sentence...
"It's just that ... it's not going to be them. It's never going to be them."
"Who?"
"Chas. or [a Rogers RC]..." and I cried.
"Why not?" he said. I looked at him like he was a crazy person trying to take me down with him. A thousand reasons ran through my head for [a Rogers RC], but he was challenging so much, I was afraid to ask them. I went with what I thought was surefire: "Chas is getting married," I said.
"She's not married yet." I think that actually terrified me; it left me at a total loss. "And most marriages don't last," he said. "I've counseled a lot of people, and-" Too far. "Well, ok, that's too far. It's not like we want that."
"I don't want that. I don't. I want her to be happy. This is what she *wants.*"
"She wants to have a baby," he said.
"No. *No.* That was just... a bad example. She loves this guy, and she knows what she's doing, and she wants this. I can't... She really does make good decisions. Really. I know I tend to talk about her like she's perfect, but that's really true."
"But how much does she know?" he said. That's not what he said. I can't remember what the hell he said. Something about having information to actually know that, to actually make an informed decision.
"I don't - know!" I said. "I'm not *in* their relationship... I don't know what they-"
"No," he said. "I know. ...But does she know you love her?"
My head went crazy with celebratory relief, cheering thank god for phrasing. I only has to answer what he asked, not what he meant. Does she know I love her? "Yes," I said, feeling safe, truthful, and certain of something for the first time in the whole conversation.
I had about a second of certainty... and then he said, "Does she know how intensely? Does she know that you love her... enough to imagine being her partner?"
I broke. He wasn't trying to break me, but I broke. I'm confused as hell, ok; I don't understand it, and I'm *scared*... And that word, that word is so decided. It's everything that scares me. It's certain, it's gay, it's adult... It's everything I'm not ready for or never want to be ready for, and he just asked. Asked if she *knew* as if I'd told him that. I never said that! I wanted to scream. I never said that... Don't you know you aren't supposed to draw any conclusions? Don't you know this is some silly random weird Mary THING that will go away. I want attention or I want to avoid what I'm really feeling or I'm keeping away on account of being so terrified of guys. Why did he have to do that? Why did he have to say that... that way... like *he* knew, like I'd told him?
I can't have told him because I don't know. I want a fucking Sorting Hat. I want someone to tell me, to look through all the muck in my feelings and just tell me. Five years down the line, it won't be about labels, probably... I'll be able to say, "I'm mostly this..." I'll be able to "choose people over gender" as Winter Machine says. But right now I need something nailed to the wall that I can hold onto. I need a clear, definite answer. Because it hurts too much to be this scared. Because I don't want to lose people on account of something that's actually not even real. I don't want family people and friend people walking out on me for something that I'll snap out of eventually. Except there's no snap to make. Can't be straight, don't want to be straight, don't want guys. Can't be gay, don't want to be gay, don't want to be this scared all the time...
How does it look so wonderful one moment and so poisonous the next? How come one minute it's just a girl, like me, who looks fun and interesting and for no reason I can understand, cuter than anyone else in the room? How come it's funny to be a schoolgirl blushing and wanting things like little talks and holding hands... and then it transforms and it's something wrong, something I can't do... something that will make me *bad again* - even though I wasn't bad before... was never bad. It's real enough when you believe it. I don't want to believe that again; I told him... I don't ever want to hate myself again. How can I have gone through this a thousand times, told friend after friend, "no seriously, you're not going to burn in hell; seriously - *you're* not the one doing something wrong" only to fall apart when it's (maybe) me? Gotta keep that maybe in there; gotta say questioning even when the word is a brick to throw out the window, even when it sounds like a lie, and I hate it. How can I be hanging on a hook as trite as, "it's different when it's you"?
it's all so retrospective. we're looking at people I cared for in grade school and middle school and I'm placing that never-before-used label of "crush" here and there throughout... but I don't really know. how do I know? how do I know that I wasn't just really anxious and interpreted the anxiety as excitement which I associated with the person? (...but why these specific people, Mary; it wasn't everyone.) I know. I know.
to the doctor's credit, he kept saying if I needed him to do something other than challenge me, he would. I just kept thinking I could convince him. I kept needing to because I needed to stay convinced myself. that it's not like that. I managed not to feel this for a good seventeen years; I can get rid of it again... It's the intensity he talks about... the intensity of what I feel for Chas that makes it different from what I feel for a friend. and I think about Rogers, and that's my calling card, isn't it - I love too intensely... I care too much. I don't disconnect. I thought about the years that have passed since Rogers, and how I haven't been able to do a damn thing to change how much I miss them or the fact that nowhere else is home, haven't been able to do a damn thing to lessen that *intensity*... I felt caught.
"I can't fix this," I said, horribly defeated, choking.
"You're not supposed to," he said, even more quietly.
Chas was my teacher. She dates guys. She's getting married. She's years out of college. She's straight. ...and then this morning I remembered how weirdly pissed off I got when my seventh grade lit teacher announced her engagement to another teacher in the school I didn't know. (the only thing I knew was that every girl who had him thought he was so cute and so funny...) how weirdly not-ok with that I was. and in eighth grade, a million times moreso... when the woman with whom I spent every lunch period, the woman I told things I didn't trust Godd with, got married... how I lost it. I tried to look at his picture in her office and see their happiness. I met him, he was nice, I tried to understand it, but I couldn't. The only thing he could say to me that mattered was that she spoke of me. And when just a few weeks before the end of the year, her name changed into his, I refused to change with it. I remember she didn't seem to mind. She was finding the "Mrs." part weird, and she didn't seem to mind that I called her by a pre-marriage nickname. I talked to her alone a lot, so it was rare I had to watch a gaggle of girls oggle her ring and ask about the wedding. maybe I should mention I spent all of seventh grade choir being perfect, trying to win the favor of our then-director. maybe I should mention that when she replaced our then-director, I ended up not only acknowledged (finally) for how hard I was working in class... but I ended up winning her as a friend. she was engaged when she started working there. there was no surprise... and I had yet to reform a student-teacher relationship into a friendship; I didn't know if it was possible. and then comes the doctor, reminding me I don't believe in rules. reminding me that people for the most part fall in love with people, that they sometimes find exceptions to their supposed orientation. reminding me that there are couples in this world with a just-less-than-ten-years age difference. taking away all of my reasons it can't be except, I can't be in a relationship. I can't hurt her. I can't love them.
and just a few weeks ago I was thinking how sweet it would be, someday, if this all turned out to point toward queer, to tell Chas that I'd had a crush on her... that my love for her was part of what helped me finally figure it out. just a few weeks ago, I was thinking how cool that would be, how glad I am to have that - it's a little gift for me - and now the doctor's talking like I could run the airport at the last minute and yell, just as she's boarding, "don't get on that plane!" I could 'confess' everything. but I wouldn't do that. even if it were possible for us to be that kind of us. even if it were possible that she reciprocates. even if I was sure what I feel *is* that, is there to be reciprocated...
I wouldn't do that.
"I don't expect you to do it," he told me finally. "I couldn't have, at your age. I just want to make sure that if you don't do it, it's for the right reasons."
"What are the right reasons?" I asked, distantly, mechanic.
"Oh... because you aren't ready would be a right reason. Because it's not something you can do yet."
Wrong reasons would be... because it doesn't matter. Because there's no way she'd return the feeling. Because I don't want to lose her. Because I don't want to be a freak.
...and what about the fact that I never expected a relationship with her, doctor? what about the fact that she's not the only person? do I approach [a Rogers RC], too, and say, "oh, by the way, you should know - in case it ever works into your life - that I'm basically in love with you"? what about the fact that maybe I just wanted an-ever-so-slightly older woman to care for me the way no one was, the way I didn't know how to... or maybe I wanted to be them, to be like them...?
maybe you're just cynical about marriage; you're just convinced that it can't be. (and the truth is, I don't like that; I don't like thinking that's true... because you counselled my parents, and you know, sometimes I've wondered if you believed it would work.)
he's ethical. he wan't walk a step further than he believes might do some good. I know that.
everything else I know has sort of gone up in smoke. no one seems to know the right things. no one I've told about the girl-thing knows about the [Rogers RC]-thing, or the person I'd talk to about the [Rogers RC]-loving can't know about the [Rogers RC]-struggling... I'm not used to having secrets. they complicate things far too much.
I'm almost ready to flip a coin... I want at least that one question answered.
~me
^this feels completely idiotic to me because obviously she's so much more than that. but I have a policy of not telling other people's secrets when the people can be easily identified.