10:45 p.m. - 08/19/03
*how can I stand here with you // and not be moved by you?*
I realized that my calling yesterday a good day at the beginning of the last entry may not have made sense by the end, so I came back in part to explain. I was in myself yesterday. I was in love (as in centered there), and everything seemed to fit. Everything seemed manageable and right and all around me was such kindness. Notes in my guestbook, mail awaiting me at yahoo, the doctor... It felt like a day where you fight hard, softly, and then night comes, and you scale the stairs to your room and turn on some soft music and dance, peacefully, with yourself. Freeing. On that sort of day, the most frightful gerbils [I need to add that term to the guestbook, don't I? argh] can't shake what I have. I love those days.
I love myself - especially when I do the right thing and get rewarded for it. Remember that two day extension I gave myself for my Rogers call, after not getting through to anyone Saturday? Remember how it seemed like a safe enough idea so long as I really went through with it, and didn't take more than two days? Tonight I felt scared again, scared to call...but I crept downstairs, kidnapped the cordless, and sat up in my sink-nook breathing. I dialed the number, begged the extension, and listened to the rings. Only three rings. Three rings and Sara answered. (I will come up with a way to differentiate between Sara and Sara at some point; just understand for now that only staff-Sara would be at Rogers, answering the staff phone. See, context clues. Whee.) Exactly who I wanted to talk to, on the other end of the phone. In the background was much noise, I heard her say hello a few times, and said, "Hello?" myself. "I can hear you now," she said, all the time not quite sounding like the Sara I know. I took the gamble and said, "This is Mary Lastname" and the exclamation of joy and sincerity of greeting that followed were undoubtedly Sara. (I owe my sisterish/ fellow-resident Sara quite the debt for refreshing staff memories of me. It makes everything so much easier to have them know me at my name. Or a version of my name. What has historically been viewed as my name.)
It was almost as lovely as sitting and talking with her. The enthusiasm she has for me, the simplicity of encouragement, and sympathy, the compassion, the gorgeous balance between humor and depth... Aih! It was so good. Better, considering the last Sara-conversation was decidedly not so good. She asked what I'm up to, and I told her first about the festival in New York in September; she told me she's going to be in the area right afterward, and she was genuinely disappointed that she would just miss the show. She's moving out into that area; she's just back from visiting New York, and she's moving nearby, apparently to go to school. I gave her (just a tiny bit of) a hard time, as promised to the other-one-Sara, saying, "Wait a minute. Didn't you hate school? Weren't you always telling me how much you couldn't stand it and how badly you wanted to get out?" but wonder of wonders her experience has led her to miss it. I laughed and told her I'm still revelling in the lack of school, personally, but I suppose I understand, on some level, the desire to return...after all, I do plan to go to college. Then we talked, vaguely, about my college plans. She told me not to worry about "that" (the ACT), in such a way that made me feel like said achievement test is about as important as which flavor of jam I spread on my toast in the morning. We talked more about the plays. I explained what's actually going on to her - about the company I have with my sister, the actors we've adopted into it, the work that has gone up and will go up. "You're so young!" she exclaimed. "This is so great, and you're so young to be doing this."
"I know," I said. "I still don't really believe it. I mean, I can write something, and then it's onstage in New York. It's so random."
"Yeah!...Wait, no! No, it's because you're really good and you work really hard and-"
"I knew I liked talking to you for a reason."
We laughed. She asked the dangerous question about food, ed, et cetera. I told her I'm doing well, with the exception of a few struggles here and there. I told her I am struggling, but that for the most part I can keep it from effecting my food, and that's a real blessing. I told her that, on Thursday, this crazy impossible thing is happening. I'm going to have not purged (or binged) in 2 years. Two. Years. "Wow," she said. "Wow. That's really, really great. That's amazing." I smiled. It felt so good to tell her. It felt so good that she was the first person from RED to know. It felt so good that this is not last year, that this year I actually called the office and said, "hey! guess what! I turn two this week!"
I told her also about how hard it is to leave Rogers, and how I'm having a struggle right now as we near my admission-anniversary. She asked if I was still in touch with Sara, and I told her yes, and she wanted to hear all about how Sara is doing. I wasn't sure what to tell her, so I gave her my best guess. I said that Sara sounded strong, the way she had in her later weeks at Rogers. I said it's a terribly difficult thing to leave Rogers, and I know how much it hurts, but Sara seems to be on top of the pain. She said it was great that (sister-ish) Sara and I are still in touch, and I said it really is. I mentioned how some people from Rogers really can't keep in touch; they don't want to hang onto it, and some of us really need to. "I'm the type of person who wants to hang onto everyone," I said, "especially in a situation like this, when people were so close...and so few people do. It's great to have that tiny handful of people who do keep in touch." She asked who else I heard from; I told her Dixie, and she gave a delightful, delighted shriek. "How is she?" Fighting like the dickens, refusing to let bad circumstances send her back into the particular bad circumstance of an eating disorder. "Is she married?" She was. They divorced. It was a good thing for her; the situation got bad, and she left. She was taking care of herself.
Thinking about communication made me want to beg her all the more to stay in touch with me. She'd said in the beginning to make sure I kept updating the unit, as she'd be staying in touch with them. And I wanted to be like, "Damnit! Cut out the middle man! I want you, direct-flight, no stop-overs." When she came back to theater later in the conversation, I felt an opening...not to nudge her, but to be honest. She asked how we let people know about the shows; she assumed (correctly) that we had to post about them somewhere. She asked how she could stay informed, so that she can come see one after she moves. (After pushing my heart down from my throat and back into my chest with a deep, long, grateful breath) I told her that all the information was on the website, but, "if it's not uncomfortable to you...I mean...I'd love to have your e-mail. I'd keep you updated about everything."
"Hey. Ok. Yeah. That's probably going to change as I move because it's a school address, but why don't you give me the address for the site, and I'll get in touch with you." The address for the site. And she'll get in touch with me. Whee!!!!!!! Let's look at this. I have Stacy, Brea, and Sara (of the staff) agreeing to stay in touch with me, on top of some really great Rogers-resident-people. I'm starting to build up a more-than-decent desert-island. And in not long, I'll escape my exile to find the city. Where I will fight phobias with all the skill and corniness I learned from the ghostwriter team (or, erm, in therapy) and meet people and be more alive. And I won't have to lose everyone I love from Rogers because people I love are slowly coming into my life. It sucks that Stacy takes six months to answer an e-mail, but she does answer it. And it sucks that Brea's so busy doing wonderful, incredible things that she hardly has time to write, but they promised. And I believe their promises. I believe their sincerity...and the same is true for Sara. I can't help seeing the "hitch" in this plan...she loses track of the address or forgets to check it; I have no way of contacting her. But see, that's a glitch in the technical aspect of communication. As long as she sincerely wants to stay in touch with me (wants to see me! and a show! ...and make me do a rap speak even though she won't be there and I cannot talk in front of people because apparently, I'd be good...) it will work out.
More and more, I see people I know from Rogers leaving it. And more and more (in this moment at least) that feels ok to me. In some ways, as Dave said, it is a very sad place. I have a more and more difficult time imagining working there, especially for an extended period of time. But then, maybe I only wanted to because of the people who are there, and with those people transitioning into other places (some of them) it's not as alluring. I feel grateful, though. I feel like the world outside of Rogers is starting to get its fair share. Like at my discharge we picked teams, and all the good players (excepting my family-becoming and Dr. R) went to their team, while I tried to play all positions for my own. Things are starting to balance now. I have hope, if only temporarily.
And what's more, I talked to Sara tonight. And she sounded just the way she sounded the first night I knew her, when she told me she was so struck by who we (residents) were, she had to remind herself we had eating disorders. (I'd been upset with another RC for what I considered to be confusing me with my illness, and she came up to me afterward to say that.) She sounded so much the same, except, no longer so cautious in her step - she's still feeling her way along, but she seems to trust it now. I told her the first night she had more of a knack for the job than some of the staff members who'd been working it for years. She sounded so much the same, and I sounded so much better, and I just felt like our voices were light pouring in...
But then again, we're bonded. New resident and new RC, both learning Rogers and its rules at the same time, helping each other remember as we went along. We learned the fire drill route together. That's the type of deep experience that cannot be touched upon by the future. That sort of reality is sacred.
chord
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