she said one of those things that, as you hear it, you wonder how you never understood it before. she said it so quickly it seemed ludicrous not to have known. that it wasn't just him being the right age and having the right look, wasn't just the simple excitement of flirtation thrown into an otherwise difficult day-to-day. she said, "the man I thought was infallible! the man who could do no wrong! the man who I wanted to be my father..." and I wondered how I never understood it before. of course. of course you did. I didn't have a single question about that, only sympathy. no. the question I have now is...
did I want that from him, too? ...do I? oh, we didn't get along for a good two months, and our encounter last weekend was thick with banter, contained in a quick back-and-forth. speaking to entertain, more comfortable when there are people there to hear us live up to our reputation. but still - wanting that time alone. I never understood the girls who crushed on you, you know; I never quite got there. and though I thought you were flirty, I found it annoying. now, I think, so what? so what if you used your looks and your position to help people trust you? they needed to trust you, and you actually helped them, and now - in no small part because of what you did - some people who would be dead are not. who cares how you did it, if it saved lives? but I didn't feel it. I don't remember feeling it... and certainly, if I were to think about wanting attention and wanting...connection...there are at least ten people who come to mind before you. just at Rogers. and I think you know why; I think I know why. I think you know the why I think that is. but I've been thinking about you - all of this drama to be in touch with you, writing you even though you didn't write back, the weird-ass exchange we had at the MPC. and how I shook when I got home, when I wrote you. how after years of hearing (I thought) every possible response to my handwriting without seeing a change, suddenly throwing it out the window and fighting to write large, quick letters because you found the one comment I could not stand. would not. decided not to... and now all these thoughts I have - about how I could just write you again, already, because I don't have to wait for a letter back, about how I pretend with every letter that I've quit hoping for a response, but I never do; about how you know the same people I know, and you hurt when they get killed, and I would like to have someone who I know is safe from this disease to go through those losses which. (although it's certainly fine with me if there is never another one.) about the jabbing and pleading in every note - if you want to write, if you weren't being an ass, if you suddenly felt the desire to respond to these questions... and the things I think of sending you. you'd probably think the poem from yesterday is semi-kick-ass, and I know (I just know, I have to believe) that if you read the play about what it's like to be in a relationship where two very sick people feel very healthy love...I know that if you read that, you would feel. I don't believe your productions, and I'm tired of them. I want you, really you, and I don't feel I can tell you that. I just barely convinced you I'm not a stalker. ("just barely?" said the doctor. "yeah," said I. "that's not what you described to me before," said the doctor. "well, then I left that part out. because it did happen. we actually said those words," said I.) I can't come to you now and say, "ok. now, you're really going to have to trust me here because this might be creepy, and it goes against what I said before about just wanting to be able to write you. see, I do actually need more than that. it's just too fucked up to never hear a word back." I can't tell you...how much I miss you...how sick I am over seeing you and then leaving, when I just missed being cut out of your life completely. how the hell can I be honest now? see, Dave, I really miss you. you're constantly fucking with me, we don't understand each other, but I know we have more in common than our fronts let on, and I just have this feeling that I need you... I can't tell you that. not now, maybe not ever. and why? why do I feel that when you're nothing like Brea or Stacy or Sara? when I once again spent my time with you half-joyful and half-ready to smack you in the face?
...and then today, my brother tells me that my mom went ahead and fucking said to him that my dad isn't a good role model and started pointing out good male role models in my brother's life. surrogate dads. and when I type it, my response is more like, "duh. of course my dad's not someone I'm going to model my life after; he's still my dad, and that was a really awful thing for her to say." but when I heard it, I was like, "is that possible?" I've been so focused all these years on why my relationships were so often with older women (by which I mean older than me), trying to disprove a statement my mom made when I was in junior high: that my very close relationship with the first-year choir director was a fill-in for my sister, Sarah. and trying to disprove a statement in my own head about these relationships having to do with filling up my mom's absence - trying to understand the intimacy of them, to dissect it into something clear, so that I could know if I just wanted a mommy or a girlfriend or a friend or a big sister... when maybe I wanted all of that. but...guys? older guys? Dads? I don't ever remember finding an older guy, with the exception of ... and I didn't know he was ... but then I did know he was somewhat older. no. this is different. that was filling up every little space in myself, every hollow, abandoned point. that wasn't one relationship, that was like addiction. but it looked and felt so much like love; I don't know where I'd be if it hadn't been.
but seriously him? I mean... if I'm trying to have someone in my life, a guy someone, who will take care of me a little - outside of a therapeutic situation - don't I at least have the sense to pick someone ... who isn't Dave? I mean, seriously! between the personal weirdnesses and the distance and all the complications of being a former-patient, it's the completely wrong choice. except it isn't a choice. it's a feeling. and I don't understand what my instincts know that I don't. because Dave won't fucking tell me. I put it on the line; I wrote in the letter that I think things went on while we talked - potential connections diffused by defenses, emotional cover-ups et cetera - that just really suck. we're both going through this. couldn't we go through it together? it would be nice to have someone who cared about Tracy and Dixie as much as I did, do, and won't be hospitalized, won't relapse, won't do anything more than smoke his fucking cigarettes and make his fucking jokes... and somehow those people that I have - Stacy and Brea and Sara - don't feel the same. my relationship with Stacy - which is the only one of those three I just experienced short-distance again (I'm referring to the staff-twin-Sara) completely rocks. it was far more comfortable and real than my experience with Dave. she's one of the best parts of my life, but there's this feeling like I need him, too. which doesn't make any fucking sense. I know my dad's gone farther and farther away, that he's harder and harder to reach, that he's chosen to discontinue therapy and not get better, and that I might never have a strong relationship with him now...even though we love each other and we both want it. I know that my parents are getting divorce, and although they've both been absentee at different times, I'm now seeing my dad less than I ever have - including the three months I was at Rogers... I get that. and I don't believe in replacing people, but I do understand - realizing that my needs can't be met by someone and finding another relationship. but why this relationship? why this one, when it's going to be so hard? why not...someone else? should I even try? I'm scared to even tell him that I miss him, that I'm thinking things like this because when he thinks he's right he's impossible, and if he decides it's not a good thing for me to be in touch with him, I'll be done. gone. I won't have a word. and what are my other options? to pretend it's a casual correspondence, that I like stationery and am practicing my freer-handwriting? to pretend I don't have this pull - even to the point of breaking the contact myself? to share the confusion with someone else, most reliably the superdoc, which would be supremely awkward because I would not be able to stop thinking, "and all those times that I'm breaking down and I want really bad for you to hug me... is that the same thing? do I do it with you, too?"
it's not my fault, (Will.) it's not abnormal. at all. he keeps telling me that, and to some extent I know it. I was crying really hard today about how I said I would keep going forward, and how Stacy said so long as I did that I could hold onto them and it would be fine... how I told her I could go forward, and I really thought I could - and he said, "you can, and you will" and I said, "I can't and I won't." I told him about how even this time, coming back here, I didn't want anything to do with this life. I don't want to go meet people here. I want to be connected, but I don't want to make friends. I don't want to set up a life and a bunch of attachments here. I just want to go back. I already have it. I already have what I want, if I could just...be there. And I don't feel like I'd be missing anything. I know there's no one in the world better than they are; I know that. and sure there are probably people who are as good, people I would love to know, but it just... feels so fake. am I supposed to make up a dream, a career, a set of goals, a five-year-plan, and try and establish myself as an adult in the city? because I don't want to do that. I just want to go home. this whole place feels like my mom's turf. probably because everything I do, almost, I do through her. I just...don't see why I have to come up with something else to want. the doctor asked if it was really so impossible to consider the idea of moving forward and obtaining the skills so that I could, potentially, move to Wisconsin? I could work at Rogers; (I couldn't work at Rogers...I'm somewhere between a resident and staff...I couldn't work there) I could work anywhere. but I could go back and have those relationships, if that's what I want. what's stopping me? and if I decide at some point during the process that I don't want to go there, that I love them, but it's not what I want, I can act on that as well.
he knows I'm just as scared of learning I don't want to live there as I am of how much I do want it. I think about who I got to be last Saturday, namely myself, and how all these people knew me, and I felt comfortable, and I met people I didn't know and felt comfortable talking to them...some extremely so, some so much my nerves screamed, "hey, this is a Rogers person!" ...but that was... an exceptional day. on a normal day, Dave isn't with those people. Stacy's moving on any moment now; I know that. and I can just see myself in Wisconsin running from one person to the other, trying to gather up enough connections to feel the way I only feel there... and not having it. and the idea of "you could work anywhere" doesn't help. it's ridiculous. I gone on and on about how this is enough, this is all I need, but then when I think about working at a fucking McDonald's, I don't feel I'll be content because I have them. I'm supposed to do something that isn't that, isn't just paying the bills so I can love in my off-hours. I'm supposed to do something like live at Rogers, lean on the staff, help the residents, and never feel this way again.
and if I say that, they're pretty likely to say, "that sounds like your relationships with us are keeping you from going forward." and disappear. snap. I can't take that. but Stacy always lets me have my word. talk about a difference between her and Dave-arino. she'd let me explain it, if I told her. how in order to go forward, I have to still have them, and the reason I can't go forward right now is because I don't. because who I am is rooted in them, in loving them, in having been loved by them, in all that - and without it I'm disoriented. deflated. I don't know how to move. how do I explain to her how different it is to walk into programming with her, see the row of staff members sitting in the back, and have her bypass them, put a chair next to me, sit by me, in a way she never would have done when I was a resident? how do I explain how different that is to writing an e-mail, and knowing that within six months I'll hear back. and it's not just the fact that she has this "e-mail disorder" that keeps her from responding... it's just not enough. and I'm scared to say that because I'm scared it's all I'm going to be allowed, and if I "please, sir, I want some more" it I'm not going to have anything. the doctor says this couldn't possibly be enough, for anyone, and it's healthy to want more. to need more. he says I'm scared, that I have these wishes but don't have the confidence in myself, don't believe I can make them happen. he says, "you've managed to put an eating disorder at bay - from a virtual deathbed - and keep it there. you managed to graduate high school - with honors - from home." (in 3 1/2 years, 1/2 of which I wasn't taking a half a full course load.) I know. I've done some things. "but you still don't believe..." I still don't believe I can do this. I don't know what I want that isn't them. I can't move on enough to figure out what I want unless I feel attached to them. I can't find a way to be as attached to them as I was before, so I end up wanting to move backward, or forward into a similar situation. I can't be attached to them if it interferes with my moving forward...
I just want to be able to say, "I need you. Don't be scared; it's not sick. I just need you. You're ok with me holding onto you, so long as I'm moving forward, and I'm ok with moving forward, so long as I'm holding onto you... but this... this is ridiculous. I have more contact with my dad. I see my sister more often, and I hear from my high school classmates more regularly. I want to move forward; I want to want a life again, a whole life. I want to find the one that...works. for real. the way this life doesn't. I want to find the dream that fills all the needs of the 'be at Rogers between resident and staff' fantasy and is actually possible. I want to live a life. I want to meet new, other people so I can tell them about you. I don't want to be alone for the rest of my life. I don't. I don't want to stagnate. the thing is... it's not your presence that keeps me from moving forward. it's your lack of presence. if I know you're with me, I can do this; I really think I can do this if I know you're with me. but if I have to get by on scraps... well, I promised myself (and you) I'd never starve that way again. and if I have to keep checking to make sure you're here, checking my behavior so as not to endanger your presence... I can't move forward either. I'm a good person, you know. I'm not weird. I'm not a freak. I'm not even hopeless. If you talk to me on the phone, if you write me real letters, if you make sure I know you know I need you not to leave - and don't plan on doing so ... I think I can do it. but it's so hard. it's so hard for me because you're my best thing, and I don't want to lose you. I don't want to lose you by moving backward or forward or not at all. I want it to be ok that I need you. and it can only work if you attach to me, too. it can only work if you choose me. want me. hell, go ahead and need me for something! let me have a purpose in your life. please. because I know I can keep from being sick - what's really hard for me is to really be alive. so please just...come home. you come home. you are my home. don't get so far away again. 2 1/2 years was way too long, and 1 day was far too short, and a couple of words a year are not enough. I need more of you."
I need more. raise my connection meal plan. I will be so seriously compliant you'll be amazed. please. after everything, you...you...please don't leave me starved again.
~me