10:20 p.m. - 05/03/03
foresaken.
So, it's pinpointed now, at least. I know what I'm doing that isn't working; I know what I'm doing that's bringing me pain. I can't seem to manage doing something else, something that won't. And maybe I'm downplaying what was in actuality a fairly good day because I've been reading too many sad journal entries or maybe this truly is real. Even when I don't want it to be.
The homesickness hasn't stopped- or more accurately, has yet to quiet down again. I dreamed about Stephanie again, though I can't see it clearly now. It was a pre-migraine coma sort of dream. I'm thinking I need to call again, call and try and reach her. I need to call Stacy also, as I haven't heard back since her first e-mail in what...January? I was about to harrass her for another way to communicate when I remembered she'd given me one. Weird to phone a RED extension other than second floor. Worth it, though, if it works, which eventually, it will.
Something's off. I don't know. Something's skewed. I spent the day outside, letting the sun make my skin feel more real, reading Beloved, which I somehow didn't expect to be this wonderful despite the front cover laced with "Nobel" and "Pulitzer Prize" winning labels. I found my poster from RED curled up in a huge box with less important things. My copy of ...Rose Garden is missing. Nothing's ok if my world isn't safe, if the world that I love and feel good in isn't secure. But wait, that's always, isn't it? Damn, at the very least I could have stored myself some optimism to get through the dark. I suppose 10:30 is not the best time to paige a doctor, when I could just sleep, when I don't even know what's wrong.
I must feel isolated, if spam is enough to upset me - not an altogether outlandish feeling considering I've gone from a city of millions to a "town" where I see no more than two. I'm confused again because I want to go home, but I'm scared to touch those bases which connect me to its memory. I'm scared to call and write the people that I love who love it, too- because they aren't always safe and they don't always have good news. And I don't know what to do with the fact that some people are never, ever coming back. Calling back. Writing back. Some people really did mean their silences. I don't know how to deal with that. And this is making me crazy. It's writing the same entry over and over and over again. To the point where I don't even want to ask myself what's wrong because I know the answer. To the point I start to wish I didn't love them, so I wouldn't have to keep talking about the loss.
My mom asked me in New York if I'm still planning to move to Wisconsin. I thought everyone knew I have no idea what I'm doing, but I didn't give her a straight answer all the same. I told her that, about Wisconsin, to explain how real it was...the way my sister Sarah told people she was going to Yale so they would understand her academic drive, and planned to be on Broadway, so they'd take her performing seriously. I told my parents I was moving to Wisconsin so they'd know it was home, and then I stopped telling them because I couldn't bear to have it undermined, even though I knew the truth of it hurt them. The loss of it hurts me. What if I'm not going there? What if it isn't home, ever again? What if it's all I'll ever be able to find, and I'm already losing it?
Second floor RED, this is Mary...do you remember me? I know you're not RED anymore, and you're not the same second floor you were. I'm not the same either, as hard as I've tried to be. I've tried to freeze myself between phone calls, let you and you alone influence me. I've tried not to be shaped by my parents or my siblings or anyone else who didn't understand and value you. My Rogers, my everything, my reason for recovering, my gift in exchange for all this hell and all this sickness, my difference from my family of blood, my separation, my right to an escape, my understanding of a different way, my name. Rogers. I don't know how to meet this need. Tell me it isn't bad. Tell me it's ok. Tell me how to sew up the wounds; let me know. It's just a need. I'm hungry now; I eat. What I do with this starvation, this desperate craving for you? Why can't you understand? Why can't you understand what I'm never able to say? Why can't you- precious and always supportive you- convince me it's safe to share? Safe to say, guess what, the girl you thought would not stay a week can't leave after years? What am I going to do after years? It's never going to go back to months. It's going to keep getting higer, longer, more distance in between, and I don't want it there, that distance. That marking of time. I don't want it to be two years since I slept in my bed ini the corner of the room, felt the door open, the little light, the check, the call to rise. I don't want it. I want you. Always. Just. Alone. Why the hell can't I want the right thing?
I never dated. I never kissed. I never held hands or bought ice creams or played boy-girl games. I never in my entire life stepped anywhere near love because I didn't want to have to deal with it - because I was scared I'd lose it, and then you come along, out of nowhere, out of fucking nowhere, and you take my heart away. And it's not fair. It's not ok. No one understands loving a hospital; no one accepts that. No one says, ok then, Mary, why don't you go home? And anything less than that cannot equal peace, so what is there for me? Do I just sit here, hoping my loyalties lessen, redirect? When every thought that tears my heart is of you? And every thought of you is what revives?
chord
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