You wouldn't write either. I really don't think you would. You wouldn't be able to type in a stupid white box like it mattered. All the random petty day-to-day things, all the showers and entries and phones to answer, you wouldn't be able to face them either. Pretending you didn't remember that they've all been blown away. Pretending you didn't make all those calls, on that phone, didn't tell all those girls, voices you thought you might never hear again, and now you have, now you might hear from them often... but it can't be good because nothing can be good right now. Not entirely; nothing can be safe. You would have held onto something soft as you dialed a number, knowing irrationally, it would lead you to another dead girl, and the relief when it didn't, only turning into tears because her mother had died, and she was struggling. And how is anyone ever supposed to survive? How is anyone ever supposed to be ok? ...And the obituary came in the mail. You never saw her look so healthy as she did in that picture, but the picture doesn't matter, she's dead no matter how healthy she looks. And Dave doesn't trust you, doesn't think you're using your resources here, and it just makes you remember that other time he didn't understand, really didn't understand, that time he made you leave ("go") home. Doesn't understand that of course you'd be talking to your doctors here, if you had doctors here - you didn't go looking for him for that. But your doctor here is sick. He called again this morning to cancel the second appointment you've had (scheduled) since you found out... The second of your only two roommates is dead. He's worried and he'll see you tomorrow at eleven. And maybe that rambling message you left about how he needs to call Dave and make Dave understand made him think just what Dave thinks, just what they all think: that you're crazy. That you're not healthy at all, not the way you love. Not the way you grab at people. And how hypocritical it all is, to congratulate you one second on how well you're doing, and the next to refuse you because you're crazy, and damnit, you'll never be normal. You'll never be the type of girl who can just move on, whether she's kept caring or not. You'll never be the type of girl who can let go.
And that's what health is really about. Didn't you know? It's about having callouses thick enough to never feel the pain. It's about stick-tak attachments that come apart more easily than they were put together. It's about never, ever being Mary Brave. No! Never that girl. The one you thought they loved, but they can't love you; you need to have moved on...
I don't know how to move anymore. And he'll understand, the doctor here, the Superdoc who keeps being sick, the one I've worried - he'll understand his most recent question better than he could have before... he'll understand where I got that idea that I'm a freak for feeling this, where that came in. He'll understand "that part" ... which is really just that they didn't encourage it, that they discouraged it, that they didn't understand my need to attach and my need to stay, that I was weird - even there. That Dave made me go "home." Like I was sick, like I wasn't rational. Like I wasn't honestly needing this. Like he did most recently. All I wanted was what I used to have - most recently - to write him letters and never hear a word in return, just to write him letters and know he received them. But it's too much for him to understand. It must mean something else. I'm not leaning on who I have here. You're wrong! I'm leaning harder than I can handle leaning. And he's sick, but that all happened after you made your misinformed decision. DAVE. Do you mean you still don't understand, you still don't trust me?
Do you mean I might as well be as sick as everyone else, that you still can't trust me to tell you what I need and not just what I think I need?
And it would confirm that for you, if you knew... now I can't talk to anyone. I can't talk to anyone now. Because I don't want them to think I need that. Because I don't want them to think like you think, that I'm using them in ways they shouldn't be used. I'm not leaning on anyone now, just waiting for the doctor, and I'll throw it all over him, but as for other people, no. I'm crying by myself these days. And I know that isn't healthy, but "healthy" is pretty fucking fastened by the eye of the beholder, isn't it? Because I would have thought it was healthy to love people who gave a girl what you and they gave me. I would have thought it was healthy to be who I really am, but then - I would have thought being healthy would have meant having other healthy people turn around and nod and agree to love you. Not shut you out. Not shut you out again. Not send you away. Back to my doctor (who I hadn't left) - just like it was back to my parents. And do you really still think that was right, Dave? And if you really believe that you did the right thing by me, then you must believe I'm doing well by it, and how could you not trust someone doing well? No. Not well, not healthy, not sick, not struggling. Not someone. How could you not trust me...after everything?
And you know I'm starting to remember things I don't want to remember. Those voices bring back all the realities of it, all the textures and the timetables of living where we did. And I know it saved my life, and I know I loved it, but I know you're right, too, that it was a very sad, sick place. And I miss it, and I'm terrified because these voices with the memories they carry will question that. Everything is shaking the floor out from under me, and I would have liked someone to hold onto, in the midst of all of that. But I've made sure there's no one here.
Don't damn me for my drama; you would have done the same. You would have. When you went to your family and said, I want to know I can touch paper you will touch, and your family said, "Talk to your doctors there." You would have stopped talking, too. Thought it a blessing that he was sick. Thought about your own sickness, oh, no, it's not any of those disorders they've diagnosed. It's me. It's the way I love. That's what's wrong, apparently. And how dare you, after all of this? How dare you give me nearly three years to claim myself, more and more, and then tell me she's no good? I don't believe you. But it doesn't matter what I believe if you won't love her.
No, you wouldn't have written either. Because it looks to much like saying something. Like hi, or here, or help. Because when the phone rings, you shake, you're a wreck of battered nerves. When Mom comes toward you with it, your stomach falls a foot within you. If you lived alone, with no one to notice, you would have taken it off the hook. Just to stop being scared. About who would call and what they'd have to say. Maybe you'd misstep, and they'd be gone for good. Maybe you'd step and they'd just misunderstand. But gone is gone and reasons don't matter.
And you'd be a wreck, too ... no matter how impermanently. You'd be a wreck, too, biting your tongue when talking with the one person here to hold you... because you still want to say the one thing you can't, over and over again: I want to go home. And as much as she can't bear to hear it, you can't bear it more.
I don't want to need you. No one would. Not when you've walked away. And maybe he'll be able to bring you back. Or maybe he'll just look at your tracks and nod- say how he can see making that move himself. He'll see me tomorrow at eleven because he's worried. Why? Because my roommate died and I made almost every call to make sure it was known? Because some of those girls I love that I called are doing really poorly? Because the first girl I called, my sister that I called, got to go and talk to people-at-home who said things like I am "the sweetest girl ever" - and I got to talk to bear-shaped-fluff and kleenex? Because of Dave...? Because of the speed at which people are returning into my life, because I'm terrified to set a boundary in case it makes them disappear completely? Or because it's me. Me, me, me, me, me.
You know, I don't believe in it anymore, "healthy" and "unhealthy." I don't think it's worth shit. It had to come back to me eventually. It's far more personal than you've let it be. Then I've let it be. Pretended. But you didn't dismiss an eating disorder. You stayed with that and healed it. Truth? It was me you sent away.
Why...? Because I didn't need to be healed - I was ok - or because this being is a sickness too atypical for you to understand? Tell me which was harder to cure. Scasid? Or Mary Brave? If you gave up on me, I need to know which one. If you're sending me away again, I need to know one thing. Is it to protect who I am, or to protect us - you, and me, separately - from her?
I just wanted to go home.
~me