The way that, as you exhale, you know you're about to take another breath. That's how sure I am, and that's how close I am, to crying. And they aren't really "bad" tears, when you think about; as the doctor reiterated today, sadness is a far cry from depression. And even though I'm not in love with feeling sad, I would "ask for that, given the choices. And I'd ask for more choices." It's healthy, to miss them, to feel sad, to feel lonely, to be unhappy in this present moment where there's so little interaction. My sadness proves a positive aspect of selfhood, proves progress in my recovery...all sorts of other things. And it makes me want to cry because I miss them like hell. (It's an expression. Obviously, they being the creatures who populate heaven, I miss them a great deal more than hell.) Because the pictures came back today (without the Kodak cd they were supposed to have, which means going back to the store, and figuring out what needs to be done...) and so many of them are so good... Stale, slick, square - nothing like being there, but something nonetheless. I admit I don't like the ones I'm in. I had a very eating-disordered response to the image of myself. (Apparently I still have "the kind of beauty that moves.") I don't see myself this way when I look at my reflection. But in pictures...? Augh. It's so hard. There's one where I do like the expression on my face, but otherwise... Anyway, I hid a small part of my arm with my thumb to show myself what would have been there if I'd had fabric covering me as thoroughly as the person I was standing with, and what do you know, I no longer saw Reason For Shame. I don't know why it flared up, though. Bad skin, frizzy hair, eyes that blinked at the wrong moment... And my arms. The first physical part of myself I ever had trouble accepting. But put a thumb over them - remind me that we are not stick people, that the upper and lower sections of our arms are not supposed to be the same size, and I feel fine. Soon I'll have blue hair. And everyone else looks fantastic. Sara's red hair and green shirt look almost as good on camera as they did in person. Although, I can see how underweight she is as well. I can remember the feel of her frame, so close to my fingers when I held her. Too close. She looks, in the photo, like I harangue myself for not looking. ...So, I stop. I'd stop anyway, but that's a loud alarm; it sets me quick to action. No, the people who developed these photos did not airbrush them, and my underweight friend, visibly sick with an eating disorder looks "normal" as defined by the media. No, I'm not going to beat myself up on that account. Or anything else. Did I mention I hate the media? I hate you, media. And not because I felt bad about myself for ten seconds, after days of good self-esteem. Because my friend's body, which you'd almost approve for an ad (everyone needs a *little* touch-up, right?), may give out and leave us separated in the world's most drastic way. The cover of that fucking Gia movie says "too beautiful to live." That's bullshit. Anorexia and bulimia and compulsive overeating are ugly, and the premature death is ugly, too. The loneliness is ugly. The separation is ugly. The loss and the injustice and all the people who won't hear me yelling are UGLY! Worse than ugly. But what would a magazine hear as worse than ugly?
I did not expect to go there. I did not expect to go here at all...
I think it's just that I miss them so much. I mean, I really, really miss them, and I miss being in a community of people who understand this illness. The vigil sparked my desire for activism again; it meant so much to be among these people who were fighting, for their own lives, for others. For understanding. Against ignorance. It meant so much. But even more than that, it just meant so much to be home again, to have that, and to come here and miss it... All of my aches intensify. All of the unfair separations and longings flare up, ripple, buzz. Maybe that's why I want to shout at strangers about how my roommates died and no one can fix that. Because I want to shout about everyone I'm away from and how it can't be fixed. Isn't meant maliciously by any means. And also - my roommates are fucking dead. They died. My girls. We were supposed to beat those statistics. We made promises. We made progress. We worked hard. Who decided girls like these deserved to fight against something brutally difficult? Who decided they could *lose* that fight, not only have to live with it, but then *die* of it? Who okayed that!? No one. I know. I don't believe in an Executive Higher Power with a veto stamp and a seal of approval. Sometimes, I wish I did. Because I want to be able to yell at someone who can hear me, and it seems like no one does. Washington doesn't care. Hollywood doesn't care. The only people who care are entrenched in the pain. And I miss my family. And I want to go home. Where this is understood - as a reality and a tragedy. Where you don't have to explain. Where people are just as hurt and afraid and angry as you are... Where people wear ribbons and attend vigils and speak up about their lives and the lives of those they knew, those lost. I want to go home and cry and have Stacy or Pam or Brea hold me; I want Dave to talk to me, bullshit aside. (There's always a first time.) See I did enter the family business. It's a decision of how you're going to deal with the family tragedy. We choose different paths, we move when we feel burnout approaching, we defend ourselves against it - but we can't ignore, overlook, or delude ourselves. Sometimes I wish I'd never learned. I want to be with people who understand that, who've felt that too.
They aren't so hard to find, though. They aren't confined to Wisconsin. I know that people reading this will understand; I know that I'm not alone. I talk about "people here" ... well, my doctor understands, and so does my mom, in the next room. I'm sure if I said this to her, she would feel it, too. Maybe the people I need aren't the ones who understand so much as the ones I can comfortably hold and be held by... Maybe who I really want right now are those people who will soothe me through a meltdown - which may overlap with, but is not the same as - those who've had the same meltdown. Really, though, I just want to go home. Do you know how little would be written in this diary, other than that sentence, if I allowed myself to type it every time it pops into my head? It jumps up in bold letters, again and again, like it's news. It's not news. It's valid, it's real, it's important, but it's not news. We know. I'm tired, I'm sick, this is hard and I want help with it; I want to go home. We get that. So what now?
The doctor's talking about moving forward (which we say as opposed to "moving on") while holding onto Rogers, and how I actually ensure the safety of those relationships (past and present versions) by forming relationships now. Not being so isolated, I'm more likely to keep away from depression, as well as shame; I'm more likely to see myself and my life (my attachments, etc) as healthy. To not fall back into the, "I'm crazy to love them this way" trap. Which I can't believe I'm actually out of - but I think I am. I honestly, for the first time in my memory, feel like it really is ok. It makes so much sense. If you had been there...this past weekend... If you had seen and spoken with them, you'd have felt ... how it's impossible to feel anything else. Anything less. Anyone would know them and love them this much. ...I like that idea, about it sustaining my Rogers relationships; it makes logical sense, and I know it's accurate. As I told the doctor, isolation and the shame and doubt that come with it are not just *potential* threats to my perspective on the Rogers-love; they're *proven* threats. This is not a preemptive measure. I'm barely out of that particular wood; I still have a firm memory of my time there.
He talks about disloyalty, too. I told him today that I don't quite understand, emotionally, what he means by disloyalty. There are other things he says - for instance, that forming new relationships could feel like replacing people at Rogers - that could play into a feeling of disloyalty, and in those examples, I do have an emotional response. There are words he uses - "replace" is one of them; "moving on," "letting go," etc - at which my insides revolt. But I don't quite understand disloyalty. Because part of my responsibility, if I want to live up to the gift I received there, is to keep going, to live a life more rich with relation than the one I'm living now. And the way I understood Stacy's statement, I'm staying attached as I move forward. I'm allowed to do that. I need to do that. So, there isn't an issue of "replacing" them to interfere with new relationships. After all, I have relationships now that I didn't have two years ago, and I don't feel guilty about that. These relationships are added; they aren't in place of anything else... But I am afraid to go forward. I remember when I first got to D!@#$%^ after discharge, how hard I fought against anyone who represented a new program, a new approach, a life I was expected to live here. Without them. I fought those people so much. And I feel something like that fight now. I guess going forward feels like such a final statement. It's a decision, a statement that I'm really not going back. So long as I waver here, there's always this belief that it could happen, but if I pursue a different life, I'm really giving up that hope. And it feels like giving up more than hope; it feels like giving up that option. Like it's really a choice I have now, but if I go off to college and career and family (...oh, love, family...they are my family) I'll never have it again. And I know that's not true. That's not true. It's like recovery; remember the million times they said, "Why not just try it? It's not like you won't be able to go back to your eating disorder if you don't like it." I don't think it's about that, though. I think it's about understanding that my life is not a timeline, that my decision to move into my future does not mean being further away from them. They are not August through November 2001. I'm not getting further away from them. They're relationships, and they're right now as much as they were then and will be later. But it feels that way. It feels like getting it together and starting to eat my meal plan again, after I left. Starting to work in therapy, to put effort into the day-program. It feels like surrender. "You're right. I need people. You win." But it's an awful obedience. It's a slavery. "I can't fight you because I'm too weak from what I need, and you decide whether or not I get that. So, I will surrender to you. In spite of. Disregarding that. Even though."
At one point, I surrendered to the helplessness and agreed to stay at Rogers. That turned out really, really well. And I'm not helpless now; I'm really not. I'm sure there's a way to look at this that makes it clear I'm not walking away. I'm not settling out of desperation. Settling for a second-rate future, giving in and giving them up. I'm not shoring up the choice of going back. To them, not to my illness. I know there has to be a perspective that's certain of that, but I can't find it. Monday, I guess. Monday.
In the meantime, people are dying. People are dead. People are sick. People are lost. People are scared. And probably, if we want to dig past all that global fear... I am in pain. I almost died, but didn't die, but lost my friends. I am sick, and was sick, and love people who are sick. I am very, very scared, and my heart is broken with the struggle, even though it still works impeccably. I know how to set my jaw and love; that's one thing I've learned. I know what I believe. Dr. R said today that my sincerity made it easier for him to understand more clearly what I mean, what I think, what I know. Why "going forward" is ok and "moving on" isn't. Why having someone tell me they feel blessed to know of these people through my words, through my growth is heartwarming and having someone say they know anyone through my words, through me, etc is painful and wrong. We talked about that one in detail, the example being Harriet's statement of, "I get to know Tracy through you." That was not an ok statement for me. It's not an ok idea. Partly because it trivializes what I believe to be the truth - that Tracy is alive. Not through me, not in my heart, not because of my words... independently, actually, alive. And secondly because Tracy died and part of what that means is that no one ever gets to "know her" that way again. Ever. It's not fair to minimize that tragedy; I told him the statment felt like "a poor excuse for a band-aid." On a serious wound. And he understood. Just like that, he understood. It felt good to me, to feel him take it in, accept it, understand. Not in that, "So what I hear you saying is..." way, but actually, as in, "You're so right. Like when-" et cetera. I told him also that no one was allowed to say goodbye to me, when I left Rogers - both when I discharged and when I left Saturday night. There were many "take care"s and "see you later"s, but all goodbyes were retracted. With knowing laughs. Of course, we didn't mean that. Of course we can't say that. And you'll be back for your rap speak. And it was good seeing you.
That crying thing. It's like it was Saturday. It starts and stops and starts and stops. I keep expecting it to pour out, but it only trickles. And so I'm just sad, sad, sad. Right now. I want to go to sleep and dream good dreams of them. And then I want to wake up and have a better reality-version.
Tomorrow is the zoo with my dad. I haven't checked the weather forecast. Tomorrow is, anyway, something with my dad. I don't know how I feel about this. I'd kind of like to curl up and not be social for awhile. I went out again today (not just to therapy.) I've proven I'm no social slouch. Mom has a workshop. Maybe I can invite Dad to sit on the comfy couch and watch Monsters, Inc. (Somehow I don't see him going for a second viewing of Finding Nemo.) It'd be awkward to have him here, but Mom will be at a workshop, and it might be nice to stay in. I guess I'll see where I'm at. Tomorrow. And see the doctor Monday, tell him I don't want to shore up the option of going back, if that's even a real option. These are some long days, on my end anyway. Time isn't meant to go this slowly here. Now, if I were at Rogers, I could handle it; it's only normal there. So, I guess what I'm saying is - I want to go home.
Some day in the Smithsonian, Dorothy's ruby slippers will be replaced with a certain pair of Sketchers I know well. That girl ain't got nothing on me.
Well, maybe Toto.
~me