10:45 p.m. - 08/15/03
if we could hop a flight to anywhere..+
So yesterday was all "I've never really been sick at all", which means that today would call for...anyone, anyone? That's right! "Oh, yes you were. And are. And probably always will be, you stupid sick person you." Exactly. *sigh*
I really don't know how to explain it. I don't know how to justify it, honestly. I'm at that point (again...and can I just say, that the three-thousandth time you go through something, it starts to seem like you're walking in - meaningless - circles?) where everything that I'm upset about seems to be old news, and so I don't feel I have a right to still feel so entirely wrecked by it. Example: (My Internal Dialogue): What's wrong? Well, my parents are crazy. Right, and they've been crazy for approximately fifty years. Anything else? I want to go home. Doesn't everyone. Do you know how few people have even experienced home to begin with? Besides, it's been well over a year. Move on. But Tracy died. Again. How long do you plan on being upset about that? Forever. Sounds like a good plan. While you're at it why don't you just go back to your eating disorder, throw away your life at eighteen, and forget any of the plans that may have popped into your head in the fleeting moments of progress you so obviously have not sustained.
You see why I'm starting to feel a little nuts? It's barely three days since I wrote that entry at nourish about losing sight of the reasons to recover and having to stay strong in the decision anyway. And today, here I was (am...sort of...a bit less so) lying around, thinking I had no idea what to do with myself. Because obviously I have no option but to relapse. It started out as thinking that I needed to go home, and then that I wanted my chance to go home again, and then that nothing was really worth anything if I couldn't go back there, so sure, I'll throw my life away for a few more months with them. At which point, I realized that the real problem all day had been how much I hate myself for even considering this. What happened to "the only other option isn't one"? Life happened. Stuff happened. Shit happened; thank you very much. And now that I know that Dr. R doesn't consider me a slacking loser freak (his reference to self-care had to do with the phobia-fighting, not how I've been taking care of myself in the typically mentioned ways), I'm fully willing to sprawl out Southern-drama-queen style and say that it's just too much. To make matters more interesting, I decide to hate myself for being human, for considering relapse, for considering a drastic, dangerous means to something I miss like one would air. I decide to beat myself up for not being more gung-ho to continue on a track that has put me through (and yes, through; I haven't been entirely stuck) quite a bit of fucked-up mucky-muck and leave behind the one means to real, consistent support I've ever had. I can't be interdependent, myself, enjoying other people's presence, if I'm sick, and I know that. I can't have what I want of Rogers back by returning to a point where I need them. But two years ago, when I didn't know any other way, that's the one that brought me to them. That's the only road that ever found me anyone, and it's the recovery and the way of life they taught me that allowed me to access it...I emphasize that because this illness destroys; it does no good...but because life isn't always all that it should be, it took illness to find home. And I don't know what else to try. I feel tried, myself.
This morning I woke up and Mom was downstairs, going over a contract with the realtor (who was cool enough to suggest that my "Start a Revolution; Stop Hating Your Body" t-shirt should be handed out to every American at birth...) who apparently doesn't know that Mom and Dad are divorcing. Just as this woman is about to leave, she starts talking about how the realtor for the buyers asked her (our realtor) if this was "a divorce situation" - and our realtor said, No, she didn't think so, and the other realtor said there was no male presence in the house. All of my dad's possessions are gone. And the realtor said that wasn't true, the upright bass and other instruments were his, and now she saw why the realtor had been confused by this - because the bass and instruments are gone as well. I just sat in the adjacent room, trying not to fall over. Then, my mom called my dad to tell him they were faxing him the contract to sign, and the first words out of her mouth when he answered were, "Hi, sweetie." It sounded so natural, so right, so completely genuine, and I wanted to break myself open with a meat cleaver. That, or suggest she give in and try some more... Her next words were, "Sorry, force of habit" in a very tired, beaten way that made me feel tired and beaten and wanting-to-beat-her as well. Because it's not really happening. It can't really happen. They have to stop it from happening. How can they not stop it from happening. How dare they not? How dare they not fight? How can they do this to me? ... and so on.
I went back to bed, woke up a little while later, thought I'd try the day again.
Mom asked if I was interested in going to see a few apartments with her this afternoon, so I went about the daily routine: chopping off my hair (ok, so that's not daily) again, showering, sprucing up my fashion statement with a purple button...and we headed to the city. An hour later, we're in this totally unfamiliar part of the city, that could easily be somewhere I've never seen, in an altogether different place, and we park in this lot and walk into a buzzing, busy office where we sit in a waiting room for five seconds before this woman who we're working with leads us into her office.
It was really all about this woman, and it's really to her credit that she did this...but...huge, intense, major Rogers-admission flashbacks. All the consultations and forms before I actually saw the floor, before I actually met anyone I would know while I was there. I bit down hard and tried not to break sitting there. Because this is where Rogers is supposed to go. The stupid house sells, the parents move (together, damnit) and I go to Rogers. I go home. And this time I go not to come back. This time I go and it's some college city with lots of friends, and no one kicks me out when I get well. I never live with my parents (plural or singular) again. This is the spot in the pattern where Rogers is supposed to go. Where I'm supposed to go... Where I'm finally supposed to get that break, instead of being broken...
We found an apartment and signed a lease, and my dad didn't have to sign it because he won't be living there. We sold this god-awful house in this god-awful "town" and can officially move. There are trees all along the street we'll live on that will turn fiery colors in the fall and not quite look like the trees around the loops we walked at Rogers. And the apartment's cute for living with a roommate, with a fellow student, with another budding being. I'm sorry I told her this, but nothing's cute for living with your mom. I didn't actually say that. I said I wanted my own apartment. She asked if I wasn't the slightest bit excited to be living with her. How do I answer that, seriously? I've lived with her my entire life with the exception of three months that I would give anything to relive. It's time for me to move on, but I can't because I'm sick and not ready to take care of myself independently. And seeing as I've always lived with her, the idea of living "with my mom" does not sound at all like the actual words. It sounds much more like the absence of "with my dad." It sounds much more like the word "parents" divided down the middle and turned into her. A middle-aged artist bent on saving the world in a thousand different ways without any real clarity about a single one of them.
To be honest, it would make more sense if she were my age. But that could be the bitterness talking. I've never been too keen on her habit of reinventing herself and starting over every few years, and I'm certainly not keen on it now that it involves ending a 28-yr (or do you stop counting at the announcement? or when they stopped living together? or when they quit feeling like a couple? or when they went silent? or when they started fighting?) marriage. Speaking of which, I figured out who decided divorce was a sin. It was the kids. And suddenly, it all makes sense to me.
Well, that one concept makes sense anyway. ...Except for the minor detail of my not believing in sin.
I keep thinking I'll be more optimistic; I usually put a positive spin on the events of my life when I go to write them. (If you don't believe me, you can read through my e-mail...) It's not happening lately. Neither is communicating, as much as I want to. I'm afraid to talk to anyone. I feel like I might fall over if people talk to me - because the force of everything I'm dealing with (outdated or not) is enough to have me staggering...and then when I think about talking, myself, I can't imagine what to say. "Do you believe in tesseracts? I'm in three time warps at once." The only person I feel capable of spilling all this onto via my voice is the doctor, who I did call tonight after we got "home" from the apartment-seeking. I left him a voice-mail, which means I probably won't hear from him, but I'm ok with that now. I thought a few hours ago, that I'd probably do something stupid regressive if I didn't talk to him, but now I feel like I can handle things for two more days... It's a weird time - this "I don't need to talk to you more than once a week because I don't go through high levels of agony if I don't, but there's this constant low level of agony that wears me down to the point sometimes I think I need to talk to you - even though, really, I'll be ok if I don't." It doesn't help that he put on his answering machine that he's only to be paiged in life or death emergencies. I need to bring that up, and see how strictly he means it. Because he always affirmed me for calling when I did; he's been seriously gracious about it. But none of what I'd call him with now would be considered a medical emergency...unless you count the possibility of starting something that, unhindered, will quickly become one. Which I didn't do. In some sort of stupor, I ate my dinner. I didn't want to eat it before I did, and I didn't want to have eaten it after, but somehow it got down, and bless ritual, it stayed there. "Force of habit." In a less entirely disarming context.
Do you know - my mom has all these theories about what we finally set in place that made the house sell...what the universe felt so compelled to wait all this time for us to do, and I know she's wrong, but I still haven't told her the only theory I'll entertain. Monday, the doctor and I officially agreed that we were no longer waiting on the move to start fighting phobias. We were taking matters into our own hands, and if it was going to be a bit more difficult, so be it. While we were talking, while he was saying to me, "so, planning for the worst case scenario - let's say the house takes a year to sell" and so forth - my mom was on the phone with the realtor, scheduling the viewing for the people who bought it. And generally, I don't believe we did any one thing, or even many things, that made this happen now...but if she's going to insist that's the case, even in jest, I pick Monday's session. At least that way, I can see *something* of what the doc meant when he called the session forward-moving.
Forward moving and important. I feel shitty so it may not be pumping through this entry with the sort of enthusiasm expected...so...in case you missed it in the scheme of misery: I'm. Leaving. D!@#$%^. I'm going to have some of the same shitty things move with me, unfortunately, and some new shitty things show up, but I am out of this bug-infested, socially-isolated exile of an existence. Give it two weeks, and I will no longer live down the street from where convicted felons reside to avoid jail. (I kid you not.)
Give it two weeks, and maybe I'll remember how I'm alive and that's a good thing.
chord
�
�
