2:35 p.m. - 09/23/03
all I have to do is call.
dear ones,
I have this funny ache, and it's burning in my chest, and it spreads just like a fire inside my body.^
needless to say, the rawness continues. and the loneliness that comes with it. hence the greeting above this entry; I need to feel I'm talking to someone right now, although I doubt I have the energy to actually do so. my goal for today was to make *one* of the many phone calls I've been wanting to make, and I did that, so I can crash again now. the doctor says to think of this as a convalescence period, but my connotation of "convalescent" is little better than that for "invalid" and I'm having a hard time keeping "that voice" (do! do! do! you lazy beast!) at bay. I checked Chas' e-mail to see when she's getting married: it isn't until the summer, which means I have almost a year to become accustomed to the idea. that's good, at least. I hope I can gather the guts to actually speak to her about it at some point, to say aloud that I'm afraid of losing her - however irr transrational that is - and that I want to connect with her more often than I'm managing now, not less. imagine saying that. imagine saying how much I needed when I first met her, and how I don't need so desperately now, but all the same I worry because of my past, and all the same I love her with a fierceness born from my need and her spectacular love during that time... I don't know if I'll ever manage those words. wishing...
the object of my call was Red. Rogers. I slip between nicknames now because I've called it RED so often in this journal. it doesn't matter that I almost always call it Rogers in speech, or that the acronym has changed. though that reminds me...I wonder if Chas will change her name, her surname? my heart breaks every time I think of that. I remember my eighth grade choir director, who I had similar feelings toward, and who did marry at the end of that year. I continued to use a nickname so that I wouldn't have to switch to her married name, which was positively painful to me. she indulged it, the darling. I know that's part of the story I need to start telling in my session Friday. I'm far enough along to know how little the pain of this has to do with Chas. the closest connection between the two is that I love her, and that magnifies whatever dull ache I'd be feeling otherwise. it's good that there's almost a year. there's just so much to say...
as if I don't have enough to talk about, right? oh, to just be happy for her...which I really, truly am. to just be that and nothing else. I wouldn't be me, I guess. can't separate from choice parts of my history, can't pick out here and there and toss them. it reminds me of something the doctor said about Rogers once, though. about how he wished, in some ways, that I never would find a place as intensely fulfilling as that was - because he hopes that I'll never *need* a place as intense as that. he said then that they breathed life into me, and his hope was that I'd never need the very breath of life again. I have that hope, too. but it's need like that which forged my original relationship with Chas. and it's fear from that need that has me aching and quaking now.
but I called Rogers. I'm expanding to the point I might as well have not mentioned that. I called Rogers, and I talked to Leah...which felt a bit odd at first - because it wasn't like angels above busting into the hallelujah chorus as love flows into me from every angle (as calls to Rogers sometimes are.) Leah's very laid-back, in some ways similar to Steph, and so there's a sort of gentle rocking back and forth when I talk to her. but I told her nearly all The Big Things (minus Chas) that've happened recently, not leaving out the worst - like losing my grandma, and why I'm not seeing my dad - or the best - like the play going up and the fact that I'm still behaviorally cruising. though it's far from effortless.
and by the end, it was really comfortable. she was talking about how they talk about me, where I'm going to be, what I'm going to do. (I'm winning Oscars and appearing at Sundance, et cetera.) there's no feeling of, "what you're doing right now is not enough" - I mean she even told me to take my time and just enjoy the Mortal City - they just have these huge dreams for me. I like that, even when my dreams are different. I like that they think I'm capable of making such movement in the world. so I promised to give them a shoutout if I ever accepted an award or anything like that (I promised Mandy that once, too - should I start making a list, you think?) and she said that was definitely required. she said to make sure and call - if I was going to be at Sundance or something - and I told her I'd probably call even without that sort of news because "that's just how I am." we were laughing, and I was feeling strong.
that's just how I am. and would I ever have known? and would I ever have wanted to? I'm amazed I don't just burst open from the love. the salve of the wound of missing them. so circular. there'd be no wound without the love, but the love is there to quiet and make bearable the wound. oh. oh. oh.
I still have them. they're still holding onto me. & I'm still theirs.
chord
^Shawn Colvin
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