11:20 p.m. - 12/26/03
somehow or other, it came just the same.
despite the dysfunction my (inherited, nuclear) family contains some of my favorite people in the world. so why do I feel invaded, run-over, wrecked, and altogether mistreated? maybe it's just been too many days. the thanksgiving "festivities" - despite their faults, had the good sense to last only two days. I haven't had a day minus the holi- since the 21st, and goodness knows the 21st was less than relaxing. I don't know. can I really explain any of it by complaining? I've been making rough bargains the past few days, to make it through, and I think I may have negotiated away my right to whine. now, of course, I want it back; I want it back on the grounds that if I don't let out some of this craziness, it'll focus inward and tear apart my mind. a month without the doctor. Christmas. two years since my friend and sister Tracy died. not having called Rogers. feeling rather hurt by Sara (and not realizing until five days later.) not having my own space, even if I do have a room. having "Christmas" at my dad's and then again at my mom's, having something so unfamiliar it could have been fun, except for the traces of nostalgia reminding me that unfamiliar version of the holiday is permanent... or will be. the irritation of being the youngest, the agony of craving their attention, the simple need to spend time with them - seeing them so rarely, jumping so quickly into feeling abused and not having any way to gauge it. my reality. we've spent a good year and a half on my reality, and I still ... tonight, I'm still struggling with it.
Sara ended our conversation rather abruptly - she really did have to go, although she could have said earlier that she didn't have long to talk or needed to talk later - on Sunday. I didn't realize it at the time, but the way it ended - so quickly, with her completely appropriate plea that I not tell her the story of the letter, left me feeling so alone. I didn't know that; she even asked me if it was ok, if I would be ok, and I told her, yes, of course, I was fine...I felt a little jarred by the suddenness, so I said, "to summarize, things are crazy, but I'm ok. I'm looking forward to the New Year and depending on it to be better." Then she said something about how 2003 wasn't over yet, and she'd call me back, and I remember feeling upset about that at the time. I felt upset about that because, to be entirely predictable, it was my reality. It was my comment, my mantra, my toast actually. Soon we'll be free of 2003; may life not suck more in 2004. If she understood the inordinate amount of pain that has been thrown onto my shoulders over the past year, even in comparison to other years and other horrors - inordinate, certainly she could respect a hopeful joke pretending life can change as easily as a calendar. and I know she understands, somewhat. and I know that she's one friend of mine (a sister, actually), and there are 10 others who would listen to me, who would be in a place where they could do so safely. I know that what she did protects not only herself but our friendship, and I need to do the same thing, and I'm grateful to her, and I did not need to feel alone again. I haven't had a therapy session since a day the week or so after Thanksgiving. I'd been having, and needing - that's become painfully obvious - two a week. As December continued and the doctor was too sick to return (as we were being told, he's fine, no, he's in the hospital, but he's coming home, no he's having surgery, no he's still sick, yes, he's coming home, but no he has in-home nursing care, and he's on crutches, and he needs bedrest, and even his receptionist, even someone who isn't me, who doesn't have this thought every single time a person takes a step away, started to wonder if he'd make it) I spent a good 2/3 of each day in bed. Everyone said they were proud of me. Proud of me for holding on. I was even proud of myself, considering the circumstances. It didn't matter that I was sleeping days away whenever the pain got too bad; it didn't matter because I had such reason, and I needed to sleep to keep from doing other things, to have a slight reprieve. And then I threw all of that away, threw it out on the grounds of, "It's a holiday; I must be happy." and I knew from the beginning that was bullshit; I recognized the trap and was determined not to fall into it. but somehow in avoiding it, I managed to slip into something similar. I knew that the holiday was going to be hard, and I knew that I couldn't stop having problems or being sick just because it was a designated happy-day on the calendar... I just really wanted to enjoy myself- as much as possible. I wanted to try for a good attitude, so that the divorce thing wouldn't ruin the holiday entirely. I wanted to be in good spirits so I could spend time with my siblings, who scatter themselves so well, I don't get to see them. and then it came, and I wanted to be in my room, I wanted to sleep, I wanted to scream, I wanted to talk... and I didn't let myself do any of it because I didn't feel right going off by myself when there were people I have so little time with actually available.
I actually found myself saying, in my head, at one point - that there will be other Christmases. There will be other holidays. There will be other opportunities to "socialize" with my siblings. Because it felt like such a flop. It felt so bad. Every hour I spent with my family, I felt a little leess sure of what was sane and what was crazy, and every hour that I spent away from them, I felt more certain that they were annoyed with me for my presence or my disappearances or both. I wanted to understand that this wasn't so important as I was making it out to be, that it's ok to be having a shitty time over a holiday, and it'll roll around again before I know it, like it always does. But I've learned to disbelieve anything that appears to be running smoothly, and as soon as I think, "I'll have other chances" - I think of all the reasons I might not. "Live each day as if you're dying" is one of my least favorite advice cliches, and I think living each day as if everyone you love is dying produces roughly equal misery. I don't know what's the matter with me; I honestly don't. I need to be in therapy; ok. But it's such a slap in the face to fall apart so entirely without it. It burns so deeply to think, "oh, I haven't really fallen apart; I've stayed away from doing anything." hot damn! I am so sick of succeeding at not doing anything. I want to succeed visibly, not invisibly, positively, not negatively. I want to succeed in a way that I can experience, in a way that gives me something marvelous, that doesn't just present something horrible. Maintain, maintain, maintain. Or as Jenna said it, bob and tread. I hold my space until the Superdoctor can return and resume teaching me how to live my life. It's just so hard to maintain any self-respect this way. Why do I have to do it the hard way? I'd be so willing to work hard at something productive, something that contributes to good, something that doesn't end at my fingers and my toes and my mind. I'd be so willing to tend to others the way I must relentlessly tend to myself, so willing to put the effort I put into my life into a different one. As much trouble as it's gotten me into that, "if it's the hardest and the most painful, it's what you're supposed to do" axiom does have some basis in reality. It would be so easy for me to take care of someone else. It would be so easy for me to be peaceful in a world where my work fit my concept of active participation and productivity, where my successes fit my values, where I didn't have to learn my worth by giving myself what I would so much rather give to others, by doing what I would so much prefer to support others in their work, where it wasn't necessary to live so differently from how I was (initially) raised to live, to convince myself that those rules don't have to exist. I'm not able to tell myself that a life, or months of a life, spent inside an apartment is worthwhile, the way I'd be able to tell someone else, so I must sit in the apartment. At least, that's how it seems. And maybe there are other reasons, and maybe a time will come when my world will expand beyond what I have now - that is, I think, part of the goal we suspended early this month - but all the same, it seems so ridiculous. It seems so ridiculous to be living this life instead of the one that makes sense to me. If the past few years hadn't happened, I wouldn't know who I am, granted, but I would be a person with a life that matched. With a concept of life that matched. I'm tired of feeling ridiculous, of being "different", of taking the odd path. I'm tired of going to bed with my Rogers memorial above me, closing my eyes and telling myself I'm home because home is inside me, never getting to go there even for a holiday, biting my tongue when my mom holds me while I cry, and I want to cry out, "I want to go home!" but can't...because she'd guess the meaning and be hurt, and even if I explained the meaning or she guessed correctly, she'd still be hurt. I'm tired of my sister's humor having developed a caustic side at least as cutting as my brothers' - when the last thing I want is pain in play as well. I'm tired of feeling out of place. I'm tired of feeling like who I am is a person they don't want me to be. Or don't know how to let me be. Or don't even understand. Every wonderful gift I opened, I felt less understood. And it's stupid because I felt less accepted on the grounds that they asked for a list of my personal material wishes, received one, and then were creative and personal and bought gifts mainly not on the list. That's good, after all; that's what I did - that shows we have a relationship. But why buy me a CD that I didn't ask for instead of one I specifically said I wanted? Why buy me jewelry when all I ever wear are symbols and I asked for kneesocks? It's not that I don't like the gifts or that I especially wanted something; I really don't care... I just- I remember last Christmas when my oldest brother who I had basically no relationship with gave me "Massive Blur" and something else that really surprised me, which I can't remember now. Supportive of what I like. Supportive of what I'm like. I won't go through litany of (honestly, really wonderful) gifts; it just got to me. I'm in desperate need of self-confirmation, of feeling grounded in myself, of knowing where I am. I need to close my eyes and really feel I'm home.
There's good as well, of course. I'll get to that.
chord
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