8:05 p.m. - 07/28/03
home, where the music's playing...
I wish I knew where to start. I wish I knew what to say.
You know where you're going, at least. That's something.
Yeah. Out of here. But tonight, I don't know; tonight I'm not even sure I know where I want to go.
You do. You want to understand. You want everything that you've kept inside yourself these past few weeks to come washing out. You want that freedom.
I don't know why I've kept so quiet. When I tried to talk, my heart would start to beat so fast, and when I tried to type, I'd feel so sick. I just couldn't talk on top of everything. It was enough just trying to get by. So I don't know. Does that mean I'm doing better now? Have things calmed down if I feel capable of saying there's something to say? Saying I want to feel again. I'm scared, you know. I don't want anyone to think I'm doing better, when I'm not. I'm not doing better; I'm still so afraid.
You've made progress in fear before. But it's not about that, is it? It's about whether or not people will stay, which you learned once depended on how fragile you were. You've been taught better than that now, though, right? You can count the people who will not move an inch even if you start showing superhuman strength. People who will still support you, even if you're ok.
But I'm not.
How so?
I'm overwhelmed. I miss Rogers, and I'm going to call, I think, but I'm so scared. I'm so scared that something will happen and they'll fall away from me, or I'll freak out and stop reaching out to them. I'm so scared that I've done something wrong by loving them. How can it be wrong? How can it? I know that, but I look at my family, and I look at what's happened, and I feel so guilty for not giving all my love to them. I feel so guilty for not choosing them.
It isn't your family that's falling apart. Your family hasn't chosen to disband; your parents have chosen to divorce. That has nothing to do with you. It affects you, but it has nothing to do with how you act. Or who you've loved.
What am I supposed to say, you know? They were everything. I never had anything like that before, and it doesn't matter if they can't understand it, it doesn't matter if they think I'm crazier now than I was when I was admitted, it's the truth: I found a home. The stray, the foundling, the blind girl walking in circles, reaching into emptiness trying to pull out enough magic to get by...never quite healing, never quite dying. Never quite being alive. I didn't know I had a self. All I knew was what the disease told me. All I knew was poison and isolation and endless pain. I knew shame; I believed everything my shame told me. I didn't know that it was lying. I never would have known, if they hadn't been there. If they hadn't forced me to challenge those thoughts, to challenge that existence, if they hadn't made life look so worth it that I caught the fire and wanted, myself, to be like them. I was so used to watching people who slept away days or worked compulsively to avoid feelings; I was so used to relationships that didn't nurture anyone, and examples that set in stone all I could have of life which wasn't much. When I saw the way they could smile, the way their skin would light up from the inside out, the way they'd come so far, and still remembered well enough to sympathize with where I was, I wanted it. I worked and they guided and I made it because of them.
And why should you have to minimize any of that? Why should you have to question for a second that you deserve to shout that story from the rooftops, that you deserve to have had that experience and to have it again? You should never have to do that. ...What? What's wrong?
I'm not going to have it again. I mean, I know...something like Rogers. I understand that. "I don't want to go back to Rogers because Rogers is a hospital, and I don't want to be in a hospital or around all that sickness. I want the part of it that the staff has trouble seeing, the part of it that's home, and only that part." So I have to wait out here, and I have to build a Rogers in the "real world" and I have to never go back. ...But I want to. It's so awful, but I want to.
Don't you think it's bad enough to be feeling this without condemning yourself for doing so?
Yeah. I guess it's better just to feel it. I know that, rationally, I don't really mean this. And I know that...having to go back would mean having to get so sick, having to need them, and it's like Dr. R said a long, long time ago, I hope I never need anyone the way I needed them before. I hope I never need the breath of life given to me again. I hope I can hold onto it always and never ever have to feel so lost that I would need that level of guidance. Ever.
But...?
There isn't a but. I really mean that. I just also really mean that I miss them. That I hate to think that there are other people, people who don't even want to be there, who get to see them everyday, who get to live there. And I know they need it more than I do, but -
You don't want to need to be fragile to be loved. To have people stay. That isn't supposed to be how things work anymore.
Right. But reality included...it's a hospital. I went and fell in love with a hospital, and truth to tell, I wouldn't change that if I could, but it's never going to happen. I'm never going to be able to walk through those doors and live a life with those people. I'm never going to have a room that's mine and wake up every day to see them, and I'm never going to hear from some of the people who made my life what it is. All the beautiful things that it is.
And in the midst of...all this shit that isn't home...
All this divorce and trying to move and living in D!@#$%^ and not having parents who fit neatly into one word. All this "Mom's apartment" and "Dad's apartment" and "your dad" and "my bride" that I don't want to be anywhere near. I can't tell you how much I wish that I could just move, on my own. I know it may not be far off now; I'm making really huge strides in some ways. But I just wish I didn't have to be the kid still at home. Because that puts me in the position of saying where it is, of choosing, when I don't really believe in any of them. I don't believe in my dad's apartment or this house here or the one I will potentially live in with my mom. They aren't home. None of them. And I don't want my parents- my dad, I guess- thinking I've made a choice when really...I feel the same way I did when I first came back. I've been thinking tonight about all the awful things I screamed at my mom when I first got back from Wisconsin. All the things that I told her - that when I was 18 we'd be finished, that she wasn't my family...
You're blaming yourself again.
I'm just sorry. Because she is my family. I love her, too.
She knows that. She's forgiven you. She's even forgiven Rogers for being what she never knew to be. She's grateful to them for bringing you to life.
I hurt my dad, too. I told him that I didn't want to come back and live with them. I wanted to go anywhere else. I said they were the only people who would take me and asked why no one good, no one sane wanted me.
You had reasons. And you were frightened. It was a terrifying transition. Everyone who knows your story wonders how you've made it in D!@#$%^. Everyone acknowledges how hard that's been - the isolation and the familial shit. No one blames you for thinking you couldn't face it. For not wanting to. For knowing you deserve better. It's good that you know that.
And my siblings...saying...you have to go. They're not that bad. Telling me we all put in our time.
Refusing to listen to your reality. You feel you let them down.
I feel responsible.
You're not. You didn't do anything. You didn't not do anything. This isn't your fault at all. Not even a little. Not even one bit.
But I love them.
Yes?
I love them, and I wish I could have made that clear.
They don't doubt that you love them.
I don't love them like Rogers. I mean, I love them, but I don't call them home.
What Sara said to you is true. You deserve to feel better than simply "not terrible." You found a place that healed you, that let you be yourself, that helped you understand who you are, and didn't undermine that person. You found a place that was safe and healthy and you recognized it. There's nothing wrong with you. Scared parents and sick kids have run from Rogers, not seeing what you saw. But you knew. And you stayed and you valued it. That's no crime. That's good. Knowing what to value. Knowing where you can find what you need. It's not your fault that your parents couldn't give you what you needed, and it's not your fault that you needed things they couldn't give. You got them met elsewhere; you hold onto the people who helped, so close to your heart they'll always be there. So close to your heart you never have to forget your safety. And most of the time that means wonderful, brilliant, life-giving love. And sometimes, nerves and circumstances hit against it, and the closeness of that truth to your heart brings pain.
I discharged, and I didn't come home. I left it.
I know.
And maybe I will build one outside, and maybe I will have contact with a few people, but what if I start to doubt how good it was...what if I start to believe Dave's version of what happened to me the same way I could believe his version of what happened to Tracy...what if I forget?
Have you tried not to love them? Have you tried to minimize their meaning? Have you tried to put it behind you? Have you tried to let it go? Has it ever, ever worked?
But if it goes on long enough...if I never hear from them...
Why are you afraid?
I still have needs my parents can't meet. And I can meet most of them and Dr. R can help me learn how to meet the rest...but...it's so much nicer to fight hard things from home. It's so much better to have a family behind you. I love my parents and my siblings, and I'm bound to them by strands of DNA powerful enough to overcome so much...but I love Rogers, too, and I want them behind me.
They asked you to keep calling. They want to back you.
What if they stop wanting to?
What did they tell you about "what if" thoughts?
They're ocd. I know...
There's never been a need you recognized and couldn't find the means to meet. There's never been a time you weren't loved, and since you've started knowing yourself, there's never been a time you couldn't reap the benefits of that love, and give good love in return. This is the testimony, Mary. You said yourself the miracles aren't documented in words. They're just the sunrise, just the trees, just the water, just the woman. The miracle is you, Brave, daughter of those who loved without knowing how and those who loved without always admitting it. Daughter of yourself. Woman long before the deadline, capable of beating any odds just because she learned, one time to want to. You are capable of loving eternally because you learned how to love one time.
I don't want it to only be the inspiration for the life I'm going to live. What you're saying is beautiful, I don't mean to minimize it, but I want to have it presently as well.
You have reason to believe that people from Rogers will stay in your life. You can't control it, but you have reason to believe.
I have awhile yet, don't I? Until I understand what it meant to leave, to come here, to have them not understand just that once, to be so unheard by everyone here.
You have awhile, yes. You have a lot to feel.
I miss them. Oshiana and Rae and Rosie. Abby. I miss them so much.
There's your proof it hasn't changed. The threads that are golden don't break easily, and these are golden threads. They are your sisters. I'm sorry that you don't have them in your daily life, but it doesn't take their presence to cement the fact. That happened back home, in the beginning, when you learned to live.
You mean love.
I'm not sure there's a difference, honestly.
chord
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