8:45 a.m. - 03/02/02
room without a door.
I'm not sure where my consistent need to meddle in other people's lives comes from, but at times, it's pretty painful. I hate watching people and thinking "that guy is a real jerk" or "you are really going to get hurt, if you keep doing this" and not being able to change their course even a smidgeon. I may make myself heard a little, sure - I may write them, call them, sit them down and plead with them, but in the end there's really nothing I could do...and that's right, it *should* be that way because who's to say I know their life better than they do? But sometimes you just look at a situation, and the *familiarity* acts as a crystal ball.
I fell in love with the way Billy made me feel. I became addicted to the idea that someone could care for me. It wasn't always awful. It wasn't every day he sent me cruel e-mails saying I cared less than he did because I'd slept through a few days without writing him. There were some nights he seemed to save my life; there were some nights I never dreamed I'd end up this hurt.
I have a daydream now that I will never be in an exclusive relationship. I'd much rather have a home with lovely people, or even person, without having any of the is-this-romantic bullshit involved. Granted, this is easy for me because I'm still seven and two and all those other ages in the parts of my spirit and body that are supposed to be seventeen-ly sexual. But it doesn't seem like settling to say I don't want romance. It doesn't seem like the trauma has stolen from me the opportunity to be a lover. It just seems like, for now at least, this is who I am.
Though I did see a man holding a baby yesterday and crave with my whole being that I could be holding her. I have no desire to be a parent, but I think I am a bit of one. I mean - I don't want to be a parent-parent, but I think in my life I'm still collecting little sisters and such. I want so badly to just rock a baby and watch her sleep. This may well be an unprecedented admission from me, but it's true. I don't need to move past holding kids in a hospital or something, but I need badly to hold. It's healing for me, I think - or would be. I was not held and later stopped myself from being touched in hopes of denying I had a body, and to take a small child in my hands and *feel* her there, feel the mass and weight and beauty of her, is just a beautiful idea to me. The other thing about babies - they don't judge me based on my shyness the way young kids do. They don't mind that I can't scream and jump and run around without panicking. They just like that they are the center of my universe, and I am gentle with them.
I hope Chas is a mommy someday. I mean, I know she will be, but I hope it's in good time. Because this need is one she relates to, and I want to see her fulfill it the way *she* craves...
Babies. I did not intend to go there.
I'm hoping this rain will turn to ice soon (though we're technically south of that forecast) because I really don't want to attend two (count 'em, *two*) doctor's appointments today. I guess I can handle it; I did two weeks ago...but it's still kind of a bit much. I'm worried about the Tammy appt because I didn't keep my food record very well this time (the shame played a part, and then I just fell out of habit)...my eating was fine, but I didn't write it down, and I don't want her to be upset with me. She says we aren't striving for perfection, but I still worry. I guess it'll all be ok as long as my weight is stable again. Please, God...
Speaking of perfection, I really honestly *hate* people expecting me to have everything done all the time. School, for instance. I finally get off my own case and say, "you know, five algebra assignments self-taught and completed plus my first two quizzes in a year is damn good for the beginning week" and my mom is all over me about, "I thought you said you were out of work; you didn't do that [really stupid boring easy] English paper yet?"
Fuck. She's been so sweet to me this week, she really honestly has, and she doesn't understand that I will stay up with school- I always pull it together the best I can, and that she just needs to stay out of it. It didn't help that my (really wonderful) teacher yesterday seemed kind of upset about me not doing the paper as well. I did way more of the algebra than she told me I needed to, so what's the big deal? I think they need to delete the word "should" from their vocabularies. After all the red-lectures ("should is a shaming word!" "don't should on yourself" - yes we really were that corny) I just can't hear it without feeling everyone *chose* that word and *knows* it's meaning and really intends to shame me. Which of course, very nice teachers from much better high schools who help you get really good grades are not intending at all.
I'm having one really awful train of thought right now that I can't shake. It has to do with rewriting the original draft of a play I thoroughly changed...the process led me back to a version I wrote on Dec 20 last year, somewhat randomly. There was a character, a girl, who died of suicide at age 17. Dec 20th was the day that Tracy took the pills that ended up killing her, and she was very 17- meaning, she was really excited about being a senior and being in high school and all of those things...Even the name Karen is in a way related to her in my head. I should have known. SERIOUSLY- I should have. I know I've already gone through this, and there was nothing I could have done and blah-blah-blah, but this isn't just "what if I'd called her" or "what if we'd stayed in touch" - this is "I had a fucking prophecy staring me in the face and I didn't do anything!"
Fucking hindsight.
So I'm having these nightmares about it. Last night a girl came into the bio lab where I was organizing chemicals and paintbrushes and other weird things, and I started to apologize to her for being in there, and explain that I wasn't doing anything, just organizing the little plastic crates. As I realized she wasn't an angry supervisor but rather a girl my age (in real life, a classmate of mine from Neverland) I quieted my explanation, by which time she had already reached for one of the chemical bottles and taken a step back with it in her hand.
She drank it. I screamed and ran after her; she ran into the hall. I yelled for help and trailed her into a classroom, where I ended up restraining her with one arm, and sticking my finger down her throat to help her get it up...(I know this is really awful to read, but you've got to understand I *experienced* it, asleep or not.) She started to throw it up and later the whole situation changed; we were in our old ms chorus room, and I was explaining to her all the reasons she didn't want to be bulimic, but in the back of my mind, I felt like I was just giving her more information on it than was healthy, and I realized that all I ever do when I try to help is make things worse; meanwhile, my chorus teacher was screaming at me about how there were so many bulimics in a world, that our importance was divided to a fraction not worth considering. Somehow, our being so plentiful made us unimportant.
So basically, I killed Tracy and by sharing my thoughts with people I'm aiding Ed. I'm honestly scared that anorexia/bulimia are going to become accepted by our culture, not that they aren't too some extent already. (The result is acceptable, the behavior not as much.) I've been thinking a lot about old diagnostic books and how they have homosexuality and transsexuality and lots of other perfectly acceptable lifestyles written as diseases, and with Ed sounding *so logical* (anything that makes that much sense cannot be true) eating disorders could end up with the same lifestyle-formerly-known-as-a-disease status before enough people double-take and go, "wait a minute. the inevitable track of being gay isn't physical destruction and death (unless you live in rural Missouri.) This is *not* the same."
I think lots of things need to be done - we need to start a campaign similar to the smoking one that fights the glamourizing of eating disorders so prominent right now and we need to *infiltrate* that culture and start healing the girls (and guys) one by one so that it loses some momentum. I honestly believe that fighting them will just fuel their power, but there has to be another way. If only I could show them that I've been there and I know and their voice is not their voice now, it's Ed's disguised. They're being eaten.
Again the urge to meddle, and what good would I do?
chord
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