so, it's been awhile. and just the other day I was noticing how the number of entries per day has dwindled from the atomgirl days, and even from those at chordchild. it happened the way it always happens. at first, a couple of nights go by, when I honestly just don't feel like writing, and then things build up, the building makes them more difficult to handle, and more difficult to tackle in type. not that a decade has passed or anything. but things happen everyday. I made a to do list two days ago, and I have yet to do anything on it, except those things that I did directly after writing it. I planned to do considerable work on it (mainly it consists of contact, correspondence, etc) Saturday, while my mom worked; however, after a week of saying, "I really want to read," I finally fell into a book on Saturday, and I didn't really step out again until (Chronicle One) of the quest was finished. why, why was I taught to believe that fantasy and sci-fi were lesser forms of literature? thank the true gods (as they would say in this just-finished book, Dragons of Autumn Twilight) that I stumbled across people who knew better, books that insisted on the existence of excellence with the genre, and enough of a novelty-seeking push within myself to take a sci-fi class to obtain one of my last high school English credits. (then again, perhaps the schema I acted out of was more harm-avoidant than novelty-seeking; I did page through the lit electives only because I could not stand the idea of having my beloved English tortured on the rack of AP.) last night I plowed through over half of Ender's Game, which I'd have finished and reread already if it were so impossible to multitask the way I wish I could. why must it be so difficult to draw and read simultaneously? or to read and clean one's room? (I did make impressive progress on the latter front a few days ago, which is a tremendous achievement. I can return my pole vault to the closet, temporarily, so long as the carpet remains visible...) I can't believe I've started Ender's Game two or three times before, as I was so completely sucked in upon beginning it this time. But then, I'm more familiarized with the genre; I'm at home more easily... what's more, I was in school, in Neverland, the other times I tried to read it. it still bears the telltale scars of being buried below textbooks in my backpack, when I had the heart to think I could find time for pleasure reading in that vile school.
the Dragonlance chronicle was a birthday gift from Dale; I was really pleased that I liked it because it gave me something to contact him about. then again, I'd like to cultivate the ability to contact him simply as a sibling without the safety net of common interests. also, my enthusiasm around the book could have nasty side effects. in fact, he's already responded by telling me which series I need to "graduate into" after reading the chronicles, legends, et cetera. something he says would be rated NC-17 in the film world. why is it that these brothers of mine refuse to accept that I won't handle brutality - of act or of word? why do they have to see it as a phase, a soft spot where I'll eventually develop a callous? I want to tell them how much horror I've actually seen and heard and witnessed. I want to explain the cilia that runs down every inch of my skin, the antennae that root into my nervous system, the high voltage shock I experience, the memories that haunt me temporarily, and the ones that settle into the associated parts of my body ... even though it was someone else's story, even though I wasn't there, even though it was just a quick bit of news, a flash of a photo, a fiction - even though they could shrug it off... I can't. my magic and the weakness of that ability. so stop trying to fucking initiate me into something I don't need. I get to say no, and you get to honor that. fin.
that's not all that's been happening. obviously. I wrote the morning I almost called Jenna - Friday morning, it must have been. the day I ended up writing her a letter instead of calling, trying to summon more than three tears over the whole thing, worrying that I was being "reckless" in considering a call. I compared it to picking up glass on the hope of being cut, and I realize now that's almost exactly what I intended it to be. I flip out when I can't feel, and for days if not weeks before Friday, all I could feel was the undercurrent of "bad", the sense that things weren't ok, the sense of some pain buried too deeply to uncover. that numb awareness of pain corresponds with helplessness; it terrifies me. I'm desperate even for agony, for anything I can cry my eyes out over and afterward, rest. I go looking for something to use to rip myself open again. I dialogue, generally, grab hold of the sore spot and pull at it until I know as much as I can find to know. but nothing was working, and I was getting too itchy, too desperate, to casually sit down and discuss with myself the problem. I'd dismissed drastic measure after drastic measure, all the ones I've used before, all the ones I haven't used in so long, looking for something else. the phone call was something else; it might have worked. I wonder now why I didn't use it and come up with a few reasons. one, I knew it was reckless and didn't understand that I was seeking something reckless; I held back to protect myself from what I didn't fully understand. two, I couldn't decide if I really wanted, right that moment, to feel the pain of that call. three, I recognized that I wanted to do something reckless, and I didn't want to contact her with that as my motive. four, I didn't want to break open and cry about anyone or anything except me.
so, instead, I ended up watching a movie. the first 80% or so of 28 Days. (I could be clever and determine how many days that is - roughtly 24... oh, damnit, I didn't mean to actually go through with it - aigh.) 28 Days is the second DVD in my two-dvd collection. (aw, yeah.) I bought it ages ago but only watched it for the first time Friday, playing it for the same reasons I'd avoided it prior: it stirs things up. it's one of my favorite movies (how could it not be, considering?) - but it never fails to stir everything up, bring it past the surface. when I began watching it, images were hitting me hard; close resemblances were replacing the pictures on the screen with pictures from Rogers. similar fake stones. similar mantras, similar... I felt the grief of having left (again) rise up (again), and I realized that I needed it to be about me. not Sara, not Jenna, not Brittany, not Dixie, not Tracy. about me. and yes, they all come into that, they all come close to me, but I needed it to be about me. my tears. my home. my loss. my pain. (rapidly surfacing. swirling up. easing back and forth, like a tide and almost as predictable.) I was not ok long before Gwen met Andrea. I'd thought I was watching the movie to bring up the pain of understanding around Andrea's death, but the pain came much more quickly, and I understood that it was Rogers. I watched Gwen struggle and remembered my own illness - the brutal, cruel illness - that had been allowed to terrorize me for so long. before we were able to do anything. before I knew there was anything to be done. and finally I watched Andrea isolate as she prepared to leave, understanding far more than the film, feeling it again - November 2001 and April 2004 ... I paused the movie and left for my session just a few scenes before the one I thought I'd been watching it for, the one where they play "Dreaming" and my hands go cold. I didn't need to see that. I was ready. I had stirred up everything inside me, and I was ready now, to go to the doctor, to sit on that couch, to spill.
the session was rocky. I didn't feel comfortable being there, and there seemed ridiculous. I ended up telling him that, eventually - that I had his carpet and his office memorized, that all the sessions blurred together, that it was all basically pointless. "Like I'm really going to...walk out of here one day...and just...have a - life!" I said, and quickly, in a particularly human, less professional voice, he replied, "YEAH!" That's basically the point. That's basically what we're thinking. I said, "It doesn't hurt you to believe that." He talked about it hurting me. I told him about the undercurrent of badness, of wanting to go back to Rogers - he thought I meant for another visit - I said, "I'm not talking about going to come back" and then he understood. I told him I can't go back to Rogers, the way I want to (in my head, it's three years back, everyone's still there, Tracy and Dixie are still here, no one's had to go away). I told him what I care about is in the past. I told him, whispering - and hating it, hating that I was saying this when I so much want to live - that I wished there was a way to just turn a dial...so that no one believed in me anymore. So that could just stop. The confidence and the hope. To just turn a dial so that no one would care about me, no one would be connected, no one would be hurt... So that they could give up on me, and I could give up, finally - because even though I want to live, I'm tired, too... I'm so tired sometimes.
He talked about how awful it is, to be at those points where the only thing that keeps you going is the fact that people love you and you can't hurt them. (Which is not to say that other people intended to hurt us... just... having been through it, you know, having been through it- I can't... but even having been through it, sometimes I still wish there were a way.) He talked about the promise to move on from Rogers enough to hold onto Rogers hurting me, stalling me, putting a pressure on me... pressure to move, now, to get better, to be better, to live outside and show them quick. I said they didn't say that. He said he didn't mean they'd told me that. I said I heard that. I hear that. And he said I judge myself for not being able to move more quickly, for not being able to be all better.
but it doesn't look like an illness. even from the inside, it's so hard to understand. why can't I just talk to them? why can't I just go to it? why won't I just grow up? and can't to won't. all of self-judgment summarized in the switch from can't to won't. so much of it is language, so I try not to say things, even not meaning them, even as jokes. and then yesterday I spend nearly four hours out with mom and brother, having a horrible, horrible time for no reason I can understand. because I feel used. because plans changed. because the conversation isn't funny. because the entire world doesn't understand what has to change and why. because John has to detail how Dale's lost more weight and Mom has to explain that that's a good thing for Dale... because this happens while we're eating. because I eat anyway, staring at my food, and trying not to pout because I don't want them to apologize to me for this. because I don't want to be breached by this, don't want to be hurt. don't want to be thinking what I am thinking; again, it's back. the banished thoughts boomerang in spite of orders. and I eat until I'm full, and my body is happy; my tastebuds are happy, my stomach is warm. because we walk outside and Mom proposes ice cream. when I've eaten until I'm full, when I can't possibly want it. because I thought we were going to do something and all we're doing is eating and talking about diets. because when I go with them, not getting ice cream means depriving myself all over again and getting it means being overly-full, means eating more than I want. because I don't want to look like another 19-yr-old woman who won't let herself have ice cream (because I'm working so hard not to be that woman) and I don't have the appetite for it now. because Mom tries to win back my happiness with a quick trip to the library (which is open for four hours on Sunday; they got my memo: it is a holy space) and then a shitty bookstore (which everyone seems to think is so good - because it's independent, and nothing independent has survived) ... neither of which have anything I'm interested in reading right now. because Mom says she's tempted by a book, John picks it up and says Happy Mother's Day, I take it from him, say, "50/50?" and open my wallet. because he doesn't really have any money with him, and I tell him to pay me back less than half. because when we get 'home' Mom realizes this isn't the book she wants at all. because she didn't have money to pay for ice cream, because I almost decided to go with the bad choice where I had ice cream, until I saw her digging for coins, counting change from a purse that had no dollar bills. because that eats through me faster than many sights. so I threw her my wallet and walked back and forth. and they ordered ice cream. and Mom tallyed the money she owed me, from similar things over the past few days. because it was Mother's Day, and I felt required to keep helping, even though I'd been helping all week, and for weeks before. because it's money, and I hate money. because she didn't have money for ice cream, and I hate the feeling of the little kid inside me, breaking while a parent scrambles to pay in quarters and nickels and dimes... because I'd planned a good gift, from my heart to hers, but recent circumstances had compromised my ability to say it with integrity. because it's still true, but it's too challenged right now to let her know it's true. because her mommy is dead. because things are too hard, and I haven't let myself understand that that is the problem; the problem is not that I'm too weak. but things are too hard. over and over and over again.
and in thirteen minutes I have to leave for a session, when really all I want to do is sleep. this happens every Monday, and increasingly on Fridays. last night I had a dream where Chas was taking care of me, and where the fact that I wandered the school when I was supposed to be doing other things, allowed me to lead a group of students to an unknown exit when explosives started going off in the auditorium. because she swept my ear with her breath when she spoke. I felt safe. with her, even in my nightmares.
but this sort of love we do not write about, and so, if I go on, it will be mistaken for another sort. ...and it's ten minutes, and I need to seek out socks.
~me