9:25 p.m. - 05/18/03
hold me like you'll never let me go. >>
If I seem to be ignoring you, I'm not. What looks like me not returning e-mail is really me taking involuntary naps, which leaves me in a not altogether comfortable position regarding the remaining work required for graduation. Involuntary napping, and I can't say for certain why. I did start taking the new pills (which win points for being pretty blue), and I have gained nearly an hour in my not-enough-sleep schedule, but am still waking up exhausted. Except now, I keep falling asleep, waking up, falling asleep. Basically, I blink, and my body goes, "she closed her eyes! sleep time!" which is hardly conducive to studying. Anyway. There are reasons. It could be my body adjusting to the medication or, better yet, adjusting to a regular sleep pattern after three months of insomnia and comas. It could be the fault of depression (definitely the case on Friday), or a downfall of not having my normal anxious energy to fuel me through sleep-deprivation. It could be the meds working or not working or not working well together or about a thousand other things. What I know is that when the doctor finally returned my mother's call from the other day (this afternoon, while I was napping) he though the involuntary napping was a good sign. And that did relax me somewhat (indeed, I took another nap after hearing it) - though it would have been more helpful if he'd said, "I think this is a good sign, so tell her to send her soc, diversity, and gothic work over this way, and I'll finish them up while she rests." Of course, then he'd be a miracle, instead of just a godsend, and I'm not sure I can handle that.
Miracles... Yes, in my current fatigued state of being, miracles are a bit much. My mom started crying today when it hit hurt that I was really graduating. It means a lot to her, I guess, that I survived school, that I survived in general, and that she's finally done parenting kids in public school. Mostly, I think it was the reality that I'm alive hitting her. She watched the most recent episode of Gilmore Girls, which I had taped for her (ha! I hooked the no-tv-queen on another show) and saw the previews for Rory's graduation, and the final scene where Lorelai finds out that Rory's valedictorian. We've been joking that I'm going to be the fist homebound valedictorian, and even though there's no solid truth in it, that last scene hit my heart when I first saw it, too. (Though it did not, like every other drama in the world these past few weeks, make me cry.) In the scene, Lorelai says that she's going to let Rory continue to freak out until it's all finished and the girl has really graduated, but then they are "going to celebrate because this is a really big deal." I didn't cry, when I saw it, but I did find myself starting to tell people about it, as if someone had said it to me. I've been thinking about the sentiment since it struck Mom so hard, and now I realize what I want more than anything is someone who will let me lean into them and understand how I feel. How I feel, of course, is complicated. I'm ecstatic to be graduating, to have something official between me and Neverland. But I feel the weight of "she lived; she made it" in the air, too, and it makes me a little weak inside. I feel the two-year anniversary approaching (can you believe it? can you believe in just three months we'll round that bend a second time?) and it's honestly disorienting. What will I do for these milestones? What will happen to the one necklace that has kept me centered for eight months? Who can I crawl into and have them understand how significant it is to know I made it and how much further we have to go.
I suck at arithmetic, but I think when you add it all up, I've gone 635 days without doing something bulimic. I'd like to say without doing anything eating-disordered, but I'm working on that all-or-nothing rigidity. 635 days. I haven't added it up in a long, long time, and that's quite the number. Actually, the last real atomgirl letter was letter 635, which makes it doubly weird. But that's the sort of thing I mean. Who can look at these past 635 days and nights and say, "My God, Mary, you've done something really amazing" - and still hold onto how much needs to be done? Because that's the person I want holding onto me. And it seems odd, that I want them now- already- when it's only May, but the massive experience of graduation seems to mandate it be so. I guess the only reason my graduation is such a feat (other than the fact that I went to N*land for a year-and-a-half, and have been homebound, and took a year off, and...ok, the *main reason* that my graduation is such a feat) is because I was sick. And so I can't really separate the, "Congrats, graduate!" from the, "Congrats, recovering woman!" It makes it mean more. High school...I could blow off with a little nostalgia and some well-timed middle fingers...a possible arson charge, et cetera. 635 days of recovery? "Hey, kid, you did it"? That stuns me.
I had all these other things I wanted to say, but I'm losing them to the depth of this feeling. So, let's just go with this and this (oh, my dear goodness) and this. There's more I want to say, but that will do...once I add, "guess what! - my brother got a doggy, which means I have a niece. Granted, she's of the canine variety, but I'm already so ready to spoil her silly, it's pathetic. Eeee! I'm going to meet her soon."
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