Get your own
 diary at DiaryLand.com! contact me older entries newest entry

9:32 p.m. - 12/19/03
don't let the light go out.
my brain's gone absent, unexcused, and I don't know how I plan to write anything at all coherent in this entry. how do I plan to write an entry at all? or screw planning, how do I do it, exactly? I suppose by pressing fingers to keys; a paragraph's growing out of whatever the hell this is. not really thoughts. not really awareness. not really nothing.

so, I haven't seen the doctor in weeks. the doctor went into the hospital, and was supposed to come out again, and maybe has, but no one seems to know for sure. my mom noted a few days ago that I'd begun, well, making it unnecessarily clear that I need to be in therapy, and she left a message with his very-reliable receptionist that if the doctor was up for calling before he made it back to work (last check, he was planning to return the week between Christmas and New Year's), I would appreciate the chance to talk to him. Especially considering two days from now is...two years from then. Two years since Tracy died. And especially with everything the way it is, with not knowing where Sara is (I called the most recent number I have; she's been discharged; I called her cell and haven't heard back; I mean to call her parents and ask how to get a hold of her - she said I could do that - but I haven't yet because I'm struggling...) and all the pain of Jenna not doing well. There's one facet of this grief that I don't think has changed in two years. No matter how much time goes by between the days when it knocks me off my feet, the reality of what happened to Tracy still can push me flat onto my back. Gone as in dead as in... It's not supposed to be possible. And all the questions in my brain, all the - "I only recently realized that anger is not the opposite of love; in fact, anger can be a part of love, and if that's the case, who's to say pain isn't part of love as well ... not just something that comes along with love but an actual facet of attachment, and if I don't question the point of joy, why should I question the point of pain, the reason for pain; why does there have to be a reason? other than the fact that sometimes pain is a signal that something needs to change, so if this pain is not a signal, what other purpose does pain serve and if this pain is signaling something, what the hell is it?"-s - are not supposed to be there either. Are they? I can't understand how this is the life that's expected of me. That is, if there is an expectation. If there is indeed reason behind life, which I think I still believe. I think I need to believe that, even if lately it seems to be en vogue to question everything I've ever understood (without the doctor to reign me in, oy vey.)

I feel like the assumptions about life that make up my perspective have too many opposites, too many sets of extremes, too many dualities in them. I feel like health and illness are a hell of a lot closer than I thought they were, as are the best feeling (per my definition) and the worst. As are peace and pain. If I'm going to hold onto my miracle, and damnit I'm not about to do anything else, then I really need to find a way to understand the dark pieces attached to it. The grief for Tracy. No, let me say that without the faith (because I'm feeling it without the faith right now). Tracy's death. The loss of Rogers. The brutality of what's happening to girls I love. What has happened to me, on the one end of the spectrum. I think I'm facing the facts of all that fairly well; I just haven't managed to comprehend any of it. My belief system is being remodeled, and it's taking a long time, and this spirituality part of it really struggles. I don't know if it's the least-developed or if it's just more difficult to lean on unfinished faith because it's faith, and the fact that you still have many, many questions to ask and many, many decisions to make about your beliefs can keep you from having faith. i.e. It's possible that my spirituality is relatively underdeveloped, and it's possible that it's just the most difficult to lean on when underdeveloped because faith requires strong belief, certainly not *without* questioning, but let's say - without constant doubt of every itty-bitty idea.

Blessings attached to the dark these past few days: the lovely Beth Ann who just about made me cry, an e-mail from Linds that I kept open on my computer for over a day, a call from Silje (!) where she said incredibly sympathic things like "it can be lonely to get well" along with talk of Rogers and talk of loving me, a visit to Joel's that went so well I felt like I didn't even have an anxiety disorder (can we say "oh. my. godd?"), and the actual memory afterward of Dr. R's theory that the evil Aunt Sue voice kicks up after successes, which seems to have kept me from suffering too much at her wrath (at least as of yet)...um...good sleeping, up until the past two nights, when the insomnia and weirdly-themed nightmares returned, my mom has been absolutely incredible in her support - despite random aggressive outbrusts from me which seem connected to the heightening stress level with the doc's absence and the impending holiday that makes the divorce painful all over again - but wow, she's been supportive, my sister got her apartment in Brooklyn and will soon be in town, I wrapped my family's Christmas gifts and mailed nowhere near as many cards as I want to...and my uncle whose opinion means a lot to me sent me an e-mail with the subject line, "You are truly amazing" - which said that a piece I wrote for him and for my aunt five years ago made him cry again this year, and that I have "an awesome talent with words." I felt high on achievement when he told me, while in town and at my favorite bookstore, that I had good taste (I was looking at Margaret Atwoods, Journals of Susanna Moodie, a poem collection), so this is beyond wonderful. Not that he hasn't told me he loves me and thinks I write really well bunches of times; it just seems to gain more meaning as the days go by. I think that's nice. How you can say a word until it's nonsense, but you can tell a truth a thousand times and have it still gaining meaning.

I have a tiny Linus statuette - it's actually Linus, his blanket, Snoopy, Woodstock, and a few other birds, all looking very relaxed - that has the caption, "Some days there are just too many blessings to count." I keep waiting for it to be true, and obviously it already is. That's what I need to understand that I don't, how all that pain can coexist with, can overlap, all that good. In the meantime, I keep hoping that the tragedies really will taper off considerably in the New Year. I know there's not really any reason, any strong reason, why a change of year should matter, but I just...want to believe...

See, I do have faith in something. I do want to believe.

chord

previous - next

about me - read my profile! read other Diar
yLand diaries! recommend my diary to a friend! Get
 your own fun + free diary at DiaryLand.com!