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10:15 p.m. - 09/15/02
\"|:i wanta hear your voice make everything alright|:\"
I've felt really safe today. Despite some pretty high anxiety and school stress. I overlooked some homework to talk with Sara early this afternoon, and spent a small part of the evening writing letters. My correspondence, however delayed, is pretty significant. I don't remember, at any point in my life, being able to consistently keep up letter-writing with people. By three letters or less, I was always done. I guess the best I did was with my uncle in middle school, but we were sending a story back and forth, which was a little different. It says something to me about how deeply I care for these people, and how much more calm I am within my world (despite the lack of calmness *in* said world), that I'm able to keep writing them. I still have a few more to catch up on, but I bought the cutest halloween stickers todays (bears in silly costumes- bats, dragons, wizards; I adore them) and so it shouldn't be hard to drag myself to the stationery. I am ever such a sticker-addict.

I've been having crazy vivid dreams the past few nights. I slept really well Thursday and Friday, and fairly well (though with some late insomnia) last night as well. Yesterday I had a fairly boring dream, but with lots of people in it; I remember talking to my hs band director at one point, about the new position he took for this school year. The night before was much more dramatic: I had a scary-as-hell (or not) dream with Stewart in it. But it was nice in a way because even though I said something about him, to his face, that made me think he might jump me, or scream at me, or maybe go the way he went when I was little, nothing happened. I just screamed at him until my face ached, screamed with more voice than I truly have. And thinking of that scene now is relieving. It's something that will, for better or worse, never happen in real life. I will never have the opportunity to rip into him without consequence, without remorse. I'm not sure I want it, but in the safety of subconsciouness, it was sublime.

Damn the boys who do not understand.

The night before was a really sad but actually sort of sweet dream where I had a teacherish aide position at a grade school. I don't know what year I was working with, maybe third or fifth grade; there were still sticker charts on the bulletin boards, and lots of color in the room. The sad-but-somehow-ok part: I had "Tracy's little sister" in my class. Spitting image of her, miniature version of my Tracy. She even had her sister's name; the Sandman took my advice to beat me over the head with any message, lest I miss it. Anyway, I spent most of the dream hugging her and letting her scream about what had happened, and at a couple points, holding her after someone unknowingly mentioned her sis. I had to sort of protect her from these people who didn't know, but she was this extremely strong little kid, and I was just a teacher who felt for her. So it wasn't like I had to be a superhero. You just can't not hug a girl with eyes like these.

I actually...kind of miss it now...the dream. It was nice to have this little Tracy I could keep safe. Or if not keep safe, allow to feel safe in feeling other things. I woke up thinking about what it would have been like for Tracy if another one of us, some Person X who had supposedly been at Rogers (I'd rather not think, "say it was so-and-so") had been the one we lost and she had still been here. And I realized, she'd probably be upset and lost and angry, too. I mean, she probably wouldn't be ok and preaching morals to us, and telling us to not feel it. Probably as in definitely. She'd be struggling, too. And if she would...maybe it's ok that we are. I don't know. It helped at the time, and it might help again.

I have new soundbytes of her in my head. I thought things would blur more and more with time- Rogers, Tracy, all my girls- but I think the seasonal triggers are really pulling part of me back there. I have parts of voices and faces and memories that I haven't remembered in months. And it's painful and beautiful and I wouldn't give it up for everything; I hope it lasts. This morning I woke up to someone saying, "Mary..." just like they would have said to me when they needed to take vitals, and the only way I knew it was off was that I didn't answer, didn't say, groggily, "Yeah?" to hear them say so. But I may as well have been there, in my bed, with her across the room. And then when I tried to hear them say, "Tracy?" and her sleepy response, I found that, too. And I'm just so grateful. For the little pieces of it that haven't gone. For one chance or another to hang on, in any way at all. It's what I need.

It helped to talk with Sara today. I keep in touch with Sara because she's one of the best friends I've ever had, and I keep in touch with Sara because she's a Rogers-girl. She understands me on levels beyond our overlapped experience, but it's still beyond nice to have someone who knows the face to match each name, and better- knows the pain which is shadowing the love. We started talking about what her discharge and first weeks home were like, and it sort of made me realize that this might be the one thing my Utopia does poorly. Because Sara had a really hard time with leaving, too- she felt the timing was really wrong, and even though she wanted to leave in a way I didn't, she hadn't really adjusted to the fact that she was, or her new "health" when she left, which made already hard-things hard. When I talked to her about how I feel like I need permission from them to love them, she completely understood. I just want them to tell me I'm allowed to care this much. I just want them to tell me they care, too, and that it's ok. She put it perfectly; she said, "We need the opposite of closure"- we need reassurance that it *isn't* over yet. Exactly.

We talked about the sisterhood. About what it's like to have girls scattered about the country that you care about like blood. To have these people and to not only miss them terribly, not only feel out of touch with them, but to have no idea how they're doing, if they're ok, if there's anything they need from you. To have no idea if they know they can call on you for the rest of time, no matter how much of it has passed. I want so badly for them to know that.

Sara said somewhere in her, she believes that she will see all the girls again, and I really admire that. I envy it, too, I wish I could believe I'd be able to touch them again. I can't imagine that I *won't* be, but that's the driving fear. I reiterated something I said during one of our first phone-talks: that I don't *want* anything from them. I don't want to bother them or to drain their energy and time. I just- can't get over how much I need them. And the littlest thing, a one-line e-mail, a letter with only their name would be enough. Would be wonderful. Anything to tell me they're still hanging in there, still holding onto me and what I meant. Anything to say they still exist and RED and RED-people still mean something to them. That's all I need, no matter what I want. I would love more, of course, but less than that is painful. Less than that is stress and worry, loneliness and need.

I did finally find out why Dixie hasn't written in the past few months, and as horrible as this is, I'm a little glad I only found out now. It's just that, when Sara called (a second time, right afterward) to tell me about Dixie, and- however horrible she'd *been* she was *ok*...it was just a relief to me. I was more struck by the fact that Really Bad Things can happen, and everyone can be alright afterward than by the appearance of Yet Another Really Bad Thing, and it wouldn't have been that way (so instantly) if I'd known during the past few months why she wasn't responding to my letters. It doesn't take away the fear about what happened and ultimately, could happen to any of us, any of the people I love or even me, but it takes away the immediate terror. It even spills over a little into other fear and stress and pain. If something so huge as what she went through can leave her back to herself on the other side, then maybe that's ok. And Sara said she sounded very much like our Dixie.

I guess I should go ahead and write what happened, even though it sounds like the type of thing that would devastate me easily enough as just a tv-movie plot. But yeah. It's real.

The last time I talked to Dixie, she was just about to go into the hospital to have some tests run. She was having some physical problems, and hadn't been feeling right for awhile, and some of it sounded pretty scary, pretty worrisome. I sent her a get-well-soon card, and then later, another one, hoping, hoping, hoping, she would write back. I knew things probably weren't right; she's never not replied to my letters, but unsure of how "not right" was defined. It turns out she had some sort of stroke, a belated outcome of her eating disorder, that left her in a coma. She was in the hospital for three months, just got out recently. After Sara told me, I just kept saying, "But she's ok, right? She's ok?" I mean, *coma?* *Stroke?* She's eighteen; she's a child, she's my roommate, and I just couldn't deal with the pain so I focused on how glad I am that she's ok. Enough loss; let us just be ok for a little while. For a week, a day, an hour, let things be no less smooth than they are already. Please.

Sara was pretty shaken up, though she'd been so already. She had an experience that I had a few months before I went into Rogers, left both of us shaking and crying. She went to one of those memorial sites where you can "light candles" for people who've been killed by eating disorders. She said she'd lit one for Tracy in December, and she was looking through it last night, just thinking about all the girls who've died, and how wrong it all is. Getting scared. It completely takes the breath out of you; it leaves you full of fear. I remember it; my lungs start cramping at the thought. I remember all those nights I couldn't sleep because I was afraid my heart would fail. People think we don't take in all the messages about what "we're doing to ourselves", about the damage our bodies are taking, but we do. We just can't stop so easily as people think. We need help and hospitals and neverending confidence. We need pushes and hugs and sincerity. I listened to Sara talk about the girls whose stories she'd read, how there were people who'd been sick six months and were gone, and it left me scared, too. It takes all the strength from me; it drains. This is a tragedy that still eats at me, the kind that goes on over years, that doesn't happen in one day. The silent, slid-under-the-rug, misunderstood disease. I just want all of us to be ok; I don't want anyone to be going through this. I don't want to have lost my one-week-sister to something so horrible, I don't want to have to fight so hard for myself, I don't want every call to bring up fear that something else has gone wrong to the point of there-is-nothing-anyone-can-do. It's too much.

But Dixie is ok. And the rest of us...we're here. Even if we aren't able to speak with each other or even write. Sara's scared she's going to be back in the hospital, at the same time she's relieved that she's being so closely monitored. She knows that if she does end up in the hospital, it's just because they have to keep her safe, and that's what I told her. I said, "there's one thing about this 'they were doing find and suddenly it caught up with them' phenomenon. a lot of them aren't monitored so closely as when they're sick. they aren't being weighed and having their blood taken and their electrolytes checked. and you are. that's why you're doing this. that's why you're going to the doctors, why we're talking to each other, why you're doing everything you can. because it's just not going to happen to you. it's not." I know she was still scared. I'm still scared, too. It's terrifying to have a large portion of your friends have deadly illnesses. But she is fighting, whether she knows it or not, she's putting up one hell of a fight against a disease she needs to be reminded, is the devil. It knows every way to convince her to be more sick, and every way to keep her from realizing her health. And that's disgusting, it's wrong. I can't use "evil" so easily since the current president took office, but if there is some undercurrent of evil in the world, it is exemplified by this. The inability of good-hearted people to be safe. I'm not done grieving over that.

And so I know that I'm supposed to be up in arms over America, but I'm just not. Last year on September 11th, I was discovering safety, not losing it. I know what it's like to lose someone, and I know what it's like to have your innermost pain made huge by a news story. I know that September 11th was absolutely horrible, (as was Bush's response to it) but I refuse to stay upset with myself for not being properly upset. I can't fight for everything, and it's ok for me to be ok. Even in the face of absolute terror. It's ok for me to be alright even when everything feels wrong. It doesn't mean I'm less than human, that I'm becoming callous. It means I'm developing defenses, real defenses. The kind I can take down long enough to love, and lose, and grieve.

Sara is sending me contact info for redling she has. I asked her for it, and she said of course. I don't know that I'll be able to seek out anyone, especially so soon, but just having the addresses, just knowing where I could start looking for them, and ultimately, just having a piece of paper that says, "They are still out there; they have not disappeared." That means something. That means quite a bit actually.

I know I needed to say all this, but I need to lie down now. It's been rough to write. Take care, ok? Please take care of you.

chord

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