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1:04 p.m. - 08/30/03
i happen to life.
So. Apparently trying to catch up with all the mail, journals, and other craziness I'm inclined to catch up on now that I have a working computer and modem here in my new room in Actual Civilization is about as possible as trying to catch up to my sister, for instance, in age. No matter how fast I go, she just keeps growing along at pretty much the same pace, and I do say, my effort (while commendable) does not seem to be getting me far. Nevertheless, I'll continue. If only to use dramatic phrases like "nevertheless" as I document the angst.

I have been journaling (pathetically - average rate: a phrase every three or four days), so now the question comes of how I manage to cover all the days I've missed with only a poor memory and a handful of scribblings to guide me. To summarize: Things went downhill later on the anniversary, leading into some very bad days, a session that seemed harmless enough but left me thinking in horrendous eating disorder code, two unreturned calls placed to the doc, an eventual phone conversation with him, and a surprising decision. (Well, I must leave something for suspense, now, mustn't I?)

Here, this is from the 22nd. (Friday, following the threefold anniversary.)

I don't live in D!@#$%^.

I live in an apartment, surrounded by other people (mainly college students, grad and undergrad) who live in apartments, in the arts district of the Mortal City. I have not yet convinced myself of this. I stare out the windows and watch the people pass by; I could count them, you know, and not lose interest. No one passes by in D!@#$%^. If you're very bored, you can stare at the grass, and maybe you'll be rewarded with a rabbit or a pair of rabbits, or best of all, a deer that survived hunting season. But you won't ever see any people pass by. Certainly no people who look just like that guy you used to know or that girl in your dream last night. Certainly no people who look so much like who you want to know that you're intimidated by them. That you start thinking, what am I thinking? Who am I, that these people would even consider wanting to know me? Of course they wouldn't want to know *me*...I'm just a stupid kid who's not in college, who's living with her mother, who is as usual behind. Then the rational voice, weary but still firm, steps up and says, "If you want to look at it that way. Or you could say, you're that girl who had the gall to take some time off the beaten path because she needed to recover *even more fully* from an illness she's already done loads of work to regain her life from. You could remember, if you felt like it, that you're a kid who's had her plays showing in New York since she was sixteen, that you had a life-changing experience in Wisconsin, that many people tell you you're worth listening to. You could even remember that you're worth talking to *without* those last few points, that you would be worth talking to even if the plays were just something you dreamed one night and thought were real, or your life-changing experience had taken place in California, near the ocean. Of course, if I say that, you'll probably start yelling at me about how you like your life-changing experience just the way it is, and you don't want anyone messing with it, even temporarily, even to prove a point, but all the same, let me just point out that any of these people who don't want to know you, are dumb or very busy. And they don't even 'look' that much like the people you need to know. Mostly, they look like the girls your sister roomed with over the summers she spent performing in college, and that's why you're really afraid of them. Well, that, and it does suck that your roommate is your mom. But then, this isn't exactly the situation she dreamed of either, you know? And you should cut her some slack on account of she addressed your turning-two-card to Mary Brave."

And I think, you know, the rational voice is long-winded, but then it sort of needs to be. Because all the gunk and cobwebs in my brain can go on singing and shouting for hours, if they don't have a nice clean monologue to shut them up...

And I did turn two yesterday, and I got a card addressed to Mary Brave. I also got a tiny writing/reading/eating in bed table, which, as it stands, is the only peace of furniture in my room. I don't have the bed, but I have the table for when I'm in bed. That's nice, I suppose. Yesterday, we moved what were considered the essentials. Obviously, for me, that's my computer, my music, and something to sleep on. (Pillows, bedding. Also, the normal books, journals, pajamas, and meds I pack when staying anywhere.) Since I had packed it, my mom and her friend Robyn decided that my stuffed animal menagerie was also essential, and brought most of that gang over as well. At about nine, when we went back for a second load, I had gathered enough homesickness to remember the real essentials of my life: the box of cards within my bigger box of cards, which contains only the cards from Rogers, a few of my Rogers things, and the poster that everyone who was there when I left signed. Every time I walk back into what I'll eventually need to understand is "my room" - I see that poster lying on the floor, and it becomes easier to believe. I belong wherever that poster is. Whatever place those animals (from Rogers, who all slept huddled around me on the floor last night) have staked out is where I need to be. And they helped me through. Robyn opened up some yogurt pretzels I had stashed in a cookie jar from the time that my parents each brought me some, and even though I was a bit shocked that anyone would touch my yogurt pretzels (no one ever does), I ended up snacking on them myself and glad for it. I'd gone back mainly to check my e-mail because, contrary to what my mother thought was true and therefore promised me, the phone line here is not hooked up yet, and so I have no Internet access. (Speaking of essential.) I told her any other night, I would deal with that, but not on the night when (I was feeling hugely, insanely homesick and) I would have notes in my inbox saying happy-two. So I rode with them through all the dark, street-lamp-less streets to D!@#$%^, and I sat at the computer and waited the eons it takes for my mom's computer to track down yahoo, open a message, and so forth.

To say I was homesick at this point is an understatement. I can't explain what happened to me. Yesterday, my day, the twenty-first...it was hard much to the degree that it was hard last year. I spent the whole morning being a bit over-the-top in my silliness, knowing the whole time that I had real feelings behind that silliness, which I wasn't allowing myself to access. Knowing that I needed to slow the hell down, sit down, and just let myself be silent for a few minutes. But I had to pack and eat and prepare for my party, and who had time for that?! I used all those excuses and kept being silly, though I did sit down to eat my lunch, forcing myself to relax. And the silliness, if not exactly serving the right purposes, wasn't entirely without merit. I did put on a silver tiara (with purple embellishments), which I wore pretty much throughout the day...and I did waylay the trip from D!@#$%^ into the Mortal City for just a few moments, to stop at a party store and buy myself some happiness. I found a badge-button-ribbon-ish thing that says "I am 2!" which I wore all day, proudly. I also found a set of 12 troll rings, over which I nearly lost my mind with giddiness. I opened them later in the night, put one on every finger and gave Mom and Robyn one each of the remaining two. I also wanted a balloon, but sadness of sadnesses - there were *no* two balloons. Balloons for one-year-olds, ten-year-olds, sixteen-, twenty-one, forty-, fifty-, sixty-, seventy- year olds. But no two. I asked if they had a plus sign balloon so we could buy two of the one balloons, but they didn't, and everyone else insisted it would just look like I was eleven. I'm way too mature for eleven; I'm two! So I went with the only superhero I saw: Bubbles, and she is currently hanging over my head, smiling her sweet little smile, and guarding the door...

I realized today, when what I think was migraine fatigue (thankfully, without any other symptoms; God bless desipramine) turned into depression fatigue, that I had made the �be happy; it�s a holiday� mistake. It�s so easy for me to trip on that stone. Somehow I forget that I can celebrate my recovery any day, that I can describe my ties to Rogers or my initial days there, or what happened since at any time. Why care what happens on the anniversary? I don�t believe in this calendar anyway; I put no trust in it. And if I am going to pay attention to the fact that yesterday was August 21st, why collapse all the complicated feelings into joy and pretend that�s real? That superficial silliness I layered over everything to keep from remembering the rest. The rest is what tugged inside of me, pushed at the surface - the homesickness, the grief. The rest is what happened when Mom and Robyn rallied to listen to John�s new CD, and the song he wrote for Tracy and for me played. ...When I flipped the overhead light in the car on and told my mom I didn�t care about legal or illegal; I couldn�t light a candle, so I was turning on this light. She turned it off, not having heard me, then asked if the song was the one for me and Trace. I turned the light back on and told her yes; she left it until the song was about half-over, then flipped the switch again. I sat quietly, listening to the words, feeling the tears creep up my chest to my throat. When it had finished, I was ready to cry; I was ready to commit myself to crying, to surrender to the tears. After a moment though (when Robyn, love bless her, reached up to run her fingers through my hair and say that it was an incredible, wonderful, perfect song) the two of them started to joke and took away my safe space for the tears. I wouldn�t have minded crying in front of them, but their jokes scared expression off like a startled animal. I did like the feeling of Robyn�s fingers in my hair, though, the touch of her hands on my shoulders. I sat in the car with Tracy�s song and John�s voice and my own grief; I wanted so desperately to hold and be held, and knew that I could not find that solace - for whatever buried reason - in my mom. To have Robyn there to offer her safe and understanding touch was priceless. So was the hour spent in a restaurant, sharing N*land horror stories, filling the room with our laughter. The conversation bounced between John and me and Mom and Robyn, and Robyn seemed less new than she is. It�s almost a year since I first met her, but seems like less. Still, something - maybe John�s ease around her, the normalcy of his language and jokes - made her seem more firmly planted in the family than one year could make her. And she reveled in John�s genius, in his music, after meeting him. She spoke of the passion, the art, the poetry, the music, the ability, in such a way that I felt mandated, as president, to induct her into his fan club. She liked the music loud and heard the lyrics my parents always miss.

So a lot of the day was good. Robyn and John and even Mom at times were good. I feel closer to my mom, knowing that we�re in some ways in the same lot right now, but still far from her because I don�t want our lot to be that similar, and by being in the marriage she did have more of a decision in the divorce. I�m still in shock that it�s my dad, though. In the stereotype of my mind, dads are the ones who always walk out - if one parent decides to - and my parents have always been the opposite of the stereotypes. My dad�s personality squeaks with the passive feminine traits; my mom�s blares out the aggressive male definitions. Below the surface they�re both more complicated, but at first glance, they�d be mistaken for their roles.

I did get to check my e-mail, thank love. [break: our narrator resumes her task some three days later: i.e. Monday, August 25th.] And it took so long that in the process of reading the few notes I had when the computer finally let me access my yahoo account, I received two very important new ones. The first was from Brea, whose sn in my inbox nearly threw me somersaulting, the second - an entirely miraculous e-mail from Stacy. I debated for awhile, read the other messages, and decided to save Stacy�s for last. I guessed (correctly) that Brea�s would be a more laid-back letter, complete with what�s going on in her life, and not so much a celebration of what just happened in mine. (Even though, obviously, she was celebrating.) She also said (Breuhhh!!) that I best keep it up so we can celebrate my third birthday next year. This is strikingly similar to what she said when I made it to six months. �Well, that means just another six months, and you�ll be at a year!� ...I began whining:

�But sometimes a night feels like six months!�

�I know. But you can do it.� And I start to think the only reason she�s allowed to say those things is because she does know, but the truth is she�s allowed to save whatever she wants because she�s Brea and I basically adore her. Basically...

Stacy�s was rightly saved for the finale. The tears that had started to creep up at Tracy�s song pushed toward my eyes again as I read it. I didn�t cry, but I came close, and the next day in the pain of my depression when I desperately needed to *feel* something, I started to talk about what had gone on over the past day or so, and I began with the words in Stacy�s card. I cried as I repeated them, alone the way I had not been when I first read it. Safe enough for tears. I cried and simply welled in the impossible wonder of how much I can be loved. Am loved. Her card, dissected, simplified, was an image of Earth from space, looking very round...and below a message saying how glad she was that I had taken up residency in the Round World...that the Round World had actually been *lacking* something while I was in the Flat World...and that my presence in the Round World made it even better for people like her who have the opportunity of knowing me. I felt very much like calling a car and having it drive me to Wisconsin where I could proceed to properly throw my arms around her and not let go for, say, a week. And as I repeated it the day after, the tears came up, joyous at her love, stinging with the memory of how long I�ve waited for this love, more joyous in knowing I no longer have to wait...and eventually the tears led into the other tears. The tears of not wanting to be here, in an apartment, with my mother across the hall, waiting for a single mattress/ bed to fill her room. The tears of being the child still around to deal, daily, with the fact of my parents� separation, their divorce. The tears of the facts the doctor handed me, seemingly so similar to things Harriet used to tell me - about the difference between what my parents had said and what they�d actually done - with the exception (impossible to overlook) that Dr. R has no desire to sabotage my relationship with either of my parents. He�s been working to keep me from making the decision to sabotage it for, oh, longer than I�ve been seeming him as a therapist. So I know he�s only telling me what he knows so I will know as close to the truth as I can, as well. But now I talk to my dad on the phone and want to maul him. I�m going to see him tonight when he and a great-uncle who�s kind-hearted but a stranger and a loud voice and a man come by the house in D!@#$%^ to pick up some of Joe�s things. (Everyone in my family, except my dad, is either moving or looking at moving. Sarah and Dale are both considering moves - Sarah into a different part of NY, Dale possibly to Seattle. Joe�s moving to Nashville, and John�s looking for a different apartment in the city where he could get his dog back. He had to give her up, and it was really sad, but she�s still at the humane society, so if he moves soon enough, there might be a reunion. Hoping, hoping, hoping.) Anyway, I do not want to see my dad tonight, or any night I can foresee, any night in the near future. I want to say some frank things to him and knowing (or thinking I know) that one, he won�t take them in, and two, in the five seconds before he blocks them out he will decide I�m being brainwashed against him by my mom. He actually said to me yesterday, �you know, now that you�re in the city, it�ll be a lot easier for me to come and pick you up, if your mom doesn�t have a problem with it.� Yeah. My mom has done nothing remotely implying she does not want me to see my dad. In fact, she�s offered to give me extra rides and things so that I *could* see my dad. My mom is not trying to sabotage another relationship. The one that has already been sabotaged went from �critical� condition to death when my *dad* decided to move out and not tell anyone. Let alone take any responsibility for the consequences of moving away, across a state line, and refusing to work at the relationship he�d left. I�m not saying my mom didn�t contribute to the twenty-eight years of marriage - prior to this divorce - that made me so despise the prospect. I�m not saying I�ve switched camps, or picked one to begin with. But my dad�s refusal to deal with what he actually did makes me crazy. As if refusing to do something isn�t equally powerful to doing something. He refused to do the work, but my mom is apparently to blame because she finally called the situation and filed the paperwork. By that logic, my not eating didn�t matter. It was inactive, negative, passive. It was also killing me.

But I have a pulse today, and vital signs few doctors know to check. I�m doing well, especially considering...with only a short spat with my mom Saturday morning to mar things. And I keep dreaming about Taming of the Shrew, which is making me crazy. I need to exhaust all my knowledge and memory of that play so it can stop finding its way into my subconscious. Although last night, I also dreamed about Brea...and I can�t remember what she said to me exactly, now, but I know it was hugely loving and hugely worth the dream.

And there are more cards still coming in...people are happy with me for giving them a hug, as if a hug isn�t something as satisfying to the one who initiates it! As if it�s a *gift* instead of an obvious scheme to be hugged. Mwa ha ha. I also heard from Tammy, who I finally contacted; the poor dear hasn�t heard a word from me since, say, December? - and I wanted to let her know that no news wasn�t bad news in this case. Now she wants the details beyond food, so I get to tell her happy thoughts (like, I live in the city now! and I have another play to see!)...along with the not so happy thoughts of divorce, et cetera...but what am I to do except continue?

Continue and desperately await re-connecting to the world I know. Why does that sound familiar?

...That day, Monday, was the same day I saw the doc. We talked a lot about what I'd been thinking, how I didn't want to see my dad, how being around him meant playing the same delusional games he's playing, and that makes me crazy. I can't stand any situation so lacking integrity as that. We also talked quite a bit about my role in the family, the part of the conversation which would help trigger the eating disorder so fully. My role has a lot to do with being dependent, with always needing everyone else. Hence, I'm terrified to do simple things on my own, instead of employing a parent or sibling. He said that children have a strong sense of integrity, also, and that most children would not be able to conform to a role if they didn't really believe it to be who they were. So, I don't see this as a simple "role" I play in the family; I really believe I'm incapable of say, shopping, or dealing with money, or ordering my own meal. I talked a little about dependence and independence in the eating disorder - how it gave an interesting balance because it made me feel hugely independent, the "control," the "no one can make me stop doing what I'm doing," while truly making me a great deal more dependent on those people who, for personal or professional reasons, were looking after me.

When I left, and all I could hear in my head was, "I need to lose weight" and "I can't eat" and "calories" and shame, I thought (not entirely inaccurately) that the dependence/independence issue was what had triggered it. At least, I was hoping. It was so overwhelming, so eating-disordered beyond eating-disordered, so three years ago, that it honestly took me, I think, an hour and a half to realize that there had not been a weight or food trigger, that eating disorders have to do with deeper problems than food and weight, and that I wasn't supposed to be remembering that (in my eating disorder's scheme) because thinking that my reason for these thoughts was simply "because they were true" would make me more likely to act on them.

In the days following, I fought the eating disorder with completely impossible effort. I'd call it unprecedented, if I didn't have some memory of the year or so after my diagnosis, the time at Rogers, the time when I worked to get back on track after Tracy's death... I was literally pulling myself out of bed to eat, going back to sleep, and waking to cry because I was so terrified of the relapse I felt was inevitable. At first, I simply felt it was an inevitable part of going to New York; when I went to New York, I would relapse. I was having strong memories of the visit to NY just before I went into Rogers, when I was so hugely, terribly sick, and my phobias billowed out around the notion with their best form. (Aigh.) When I regained enough rational thought to realize that I had indeed gone to New York several times, during difficult periods, and managed to continue doing well with food despite the change in location and routine, I somehow decided that I would simply relapse no matter where I was. Thinking this, obviously, terrified me, and at the same time, I was beating myself up for it, saying, "You just want to believe that so you have permission to relapse." And then I would think about all the effort I was putting up against the eating disorder and decide it didn't matter because relapse was inevitable. I didn't know how to get better; I'd simply lucked out up until now. I mean, seriously, how long have most people been sick? How many times have they been hospitalized? And how long was I sick? And how long did it take me to quit purging once I was hospitalized? Obviously, I didn't really fight any sickness - because there's no way I could have had such amazing results. So now, with sickness evident and huge in front of me, I was doomed. I was positively doomed. And beating myself up for making that choice. "But I didn't choose this the first time." "But you didn't know then all that you know to do now." "But if I didn't choose to get sick then, how do I know my choice to get better now won't matter just as little?" On and on and on, for days. In the meantime, I slept. I called the doctor the same night I saw him and asked that he call me back. I called him again the next night (when I hadn't heard) and asked that he please call me back. I told him that I needed to talk to him, in person or on the phone, before Tuesday. I told him that my eating disorder was being unfathomably mean, that I was going out of my mind, and that I was strongly considering not going to New York. The last was a subject I desperately wanted his input on. After my initial phobias, I had started to think about the trip, and how much I did not want to go...how much I felt, right now, like what I really needed was *more* routine and *more* familiar surroundings, not less. And although in some ways Sarah's world is more familiar than the one I've just started building here, I wanted my familiar world, even if it's what *will be* my world. I wanted my room, my right to not be ok, my door to close. As much as I wanted to see Sarah, the company members, and the show, (which, if you are in the New York area, you should definitely see; it's developed much, and has one cast member change from the performances in April) I wanted these things more. Unfortunately, I couldn't decide if this was self-care or the avoidance of my illness, considering that I can only believe about half of my thoughts at the moment. Hence, I very much wanted to talk to the doctor, who continued to refuse to call me back. I didn't paige him because he's added a clause to his voice-mail saying he's only to be paiged in life or death emergencies, and as awful as I felt, I think I would have felt worse either a) lying or b) calling this a life or death situation...

Wednesday, my mom had an appointment with him, and she came home from it with a "message" for me. This is never good because I always end up hating what the doctor has said when I hear it from my mom. I can't explain why, but somehow, what he says to her about what he would say to me, always makes me want to strangle him, while what he says to me directly I find comforting. She said that the doctor had been trying to stress me out a little by not responding right away (this is the part that made me crazy - who in their right mind, or even their left mind, would look at my life right now and say, "hey! let's give her some more stress!")...but he had very much intended to see me in person before he left for the holiday weekend. Unfortunately, no one had cancelled, as he'd been hoping they would. (I knew I was his favorite.) So he couldn't see me. Although he "believed what [I] am going through right now deserved to be supported in person" he would have to settle for calling me the next morning. Thursday. One week after the anniversary. The anniversary of Tracy's addmission to Rogers...(Put pillow on top of face and press down.)

9:00 Thursday morning I would hear from him. So, when my mom woke up around eight, I got up as well, trying to force myself into being awake (I would eventually be very, very sick on Thursday; fever, headache, almost-laringitis-sore-throat, stomachache et cetera) which wasn't working. My mom left just before nine, and I hopped onto the piece of furniture (by this point, we had furniture) next to the phone, as it's corded, and I am impatient. I did my best not to stare at the clock, which means, I looked at it about every three minutes. At 9:14 I wondered if the phone had quit working again. (It went dead several times after it had supposedly been hooked up, so this was a rational suspicion.) At 9:16, I checked to make sure no computers were on-line. At 9:20, I picked up the phone as quickly as I could, heard the dial tone, and set it back down. At 9:30, I lay down on the couch and fell asleep.

Said phone finally ringing at 10:30 woke me, and I pattered over, sick and half-asleep to read that it was indeed my brother, who (forgive me, I was ill) I responded to simply by going back to sleep. I was too sick, in all definitions of the word, to know what I was feeling at that point, and so I basically slept and distracted myself until around one, when the phone again rang - this time, the caller identified, as the doc's office. He should not be at the office, considering he's going on vacation. But I'm desperate so (bugles, please) I answer the phone. His receptionist explains that he got "tied up" (probably by someone he hadn't called, who took it a bit personally) this morning and also, had forgotten to bring my new phone number with him. So she had called his exchange with the number, and I could expect his call anytime between three o'clock and five.

At (anyone want to guess?) about ten after five, I heard from him. The first thing he said was, "Hey! I don't have to dial a one and an area code when I call you!"

"Yes," I said, slowly. "I'm in [the Mortal City.] ...And that's a good thing."

"Is it?" he said. I told him that, yes, of course, it was a good thing. I had not gone so far off my rocker as to be missing D!@#$%^. He mentioned some of the information I had left for him on the machine, that I was considering staying here, that my eating disorder was being mean. Eventually, I explained to him that I had spent the past few days terrified that I was going to relapse because either I could not keep myself from doing so or I had convinced myself I could not. He asked how that started, and I said with a phobia about relapsing while in New York - something sparked by memories of the 2001 visit. He hadn't realized that this trip was yet another parallel to the pre- and post- Rogers times. I talked about how scared I was to get sick, how hard it was to fight these voices, how hard it was to trust any other thoughts in my head knowing their company, and my Ever-Omni-Present-Fear of letting down Rogers. Of throwing away the gift(s) they gave me. Of disappointing them.

After a long while (filled with other important talk that I didn't encode quite as well), he said, "You know it isn't what I want for you - to relapse. And it isn't what you want for yourself; I know that. But if it were to happen, there's no way it could make you fifteen again. It couldn't make you who you were, in the situation you were in, before Rogers. You've grown too much and had too much happen to turn back into the person you were." I am not Cinderella at 11:59. I took a breath deep enough to taste the air and said, "I think that was exactly what I needed to be told. Like...verbatim."

I told him, then, that I had been thinking those same things, before my head collapsed almost completely below the weight of all this annoying agony. I told him that once, as I was berating myself with, "You're just going to take what you were given at Rogers and throw it all away!" it occurred to me to ask myself *how* I would do that. How exactly would I go about taking these deeply-rooted, intangible, entirely invisible and more deeply rooted in me than I can imagine, gifts and somehow *getting rid* of them? Is that even possible? I don't think it is. I don't think I have the power, love bless it, to make Rogers un-happen. And that means I'm a lot safer than I knew I was.

I asked him, before he left for his holiday, to answer one more question. I asked him why he hadn't called me back (explaining, eventually, that my mom's recitations always make me crazy.) There was some truth in the concept of stressing me, but not for the stress itself, but for where it would send me. He wanted to stay out of the picture, just temporarily, in hopes that I would be driven toward my mom, the parent who is capable of taking care of me right now. This, of course, sickened me and made me angry. I'm eighteen, and I don't want to need my mommy right now. He also told me that he had planned to meet with me; he'd really hoped to do so but hadn't had any cancellations. I suggested that maybe his control was missing (like mine, as we'd discussed earlier) and he laughed, agreeing. We talked about why he thinks it's a good idea for me to connect with my mom and why the parts of me that are similar to her can be helpful right now. I told him I thought he was changing the facts around, saying now that I'm like my mom, when a few weeks ago we were saying that I was like both my parents, and that's part of why I needed both of them. I told him that what he called "aligning" with my mom felt to me like picking a camp after all - and like denying the parts of me that are so like my dad. He said, "You're like both your parents; of course you are. You have parts of both of them" and wondered if we had varying definitions of the word align. He said he simply meant that I could follow the "broad strokes" of who my mom is (a "strong, female" individual) and end up in a better direction. I told him that I could handle - instantly thinking that it would drive Dale nuts to hear: No, I can't be like my mom! - but, oh? you just mean, be a feminist? Be strong and female and all that stuff? I can handle that. I conceded, also, that looking at where my parents are, individually, right now, it isn't a difficult decision who I'd prefer to emulate. I just don't want to *be* either of them, and I don't want to minimize my dad's importance to me. The doc listed several reasons why my dad is important.

"And I love him," I added.

"And you love him," said the doc.

...He told me, then, that it's impossible I will become either of my parents - or even my sister. That I have officially experienced too much, and too much that is important, to become enmeshed in them now. It can't happen. I have to be an individual. Rogers cannot go away. It's impact can never go away. I said that was good because obviously if it could, I wouldn't be able to allow it to.

"See you Tuesday?" he said.

"Have a good holiday," I nodded.

"Thanks," he said.

"Thanks," I said. I hung up the phone. I think, if you're going to take four days to get back to a girl, it's very good to be so full of magic as he is.

I am full of magic, too...and a bit closer to catching up to the only girl I'm chasing at the moment: me.

chord

p.s. We talked at length about New York, and eventually came to a point where I made a decision, which he supported, not to go. This is good apparently. It means self-care. It means putting what I actually need above the razzle-dazzle of "so I was just in New York seeing my play"...It means that I have some investment in where I am now, that the Mortal City is not D!@#$%^, and I'm committed to making it mine.

p.p.s. He remembered to say "residence" instead of home.

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