8:50 p.m. - 02/10/02
a battle that cannot end in peace.
it's been so long. I'd forgotten how painful it is.
I won't say it was a panic attack. it wasn't - not a full-fledged panic attack...I was not gasping for air. I was not hyperventilating; I was not completely lost inside the tornado that takes over when the buspirone is innefective and the world is crashing in...
but it was so.fucking.close...I was shaking harder, faster, than I have in ages. I grabbed onto a hook that's lodged in the wall, and tried to steady myself. I sat down, tried to breathe, remember how they taught you to breathe?, but I couldn't stay sitting, I had to move, I had to keep moving, I had to stay one step ahead of the fear.
if the eating disorder is half as evil as the anxiety one, then I hope to God I never purge again, because I don't want to feel anywhere near what that was ever. again.
and it happened because of something good. it happened because of something good. how fucking unfair is that? I was writing a letter to Dave, and I started to cry, which is really a bad sign because if the thought of *Dave* can bring me to a level of homesickness worth crying over, things are really shaking bad. and I started to think about how I haven't called red since before I left for New York - since that night I talked to Brea and bounced around like a lemur on speed...I told myself that I'd write a few letters tonight, tomorrow - and sometime in the next few days, surely I'd call...but all the memories were pouring in, the memory of all of them, and I knew I'd never call. I'd never hear them, I'd never sit in that room, I'd never get to feel their arms.
and I wanted to follow Tracy. I was shaking from all of the overwhelming pain, and I wanted to follow after her.
so I realized I had to call. I had to call and I had to call *tonight* - even if no one was going to answer, even if I didn't know who was working, even if there was the possbility I'd bawl the entire time I talked with them, or for three days afterward - I had to call. so I went downstairs. I picked up the cordless. "are you on the Internet?" I asked Mom. no, she said. I went upstairs.
I picked up my little kitty-address-book. I flipped to the r's. I didn't even think about how many times I'd have to dial the number, which is a less clear way of saying I only dialed it once. they answered.
extension 314, I begged.
it was ringing. it was answered. jen. jen? jen was barely there when I left; will she even remember me?
oh, jen, how can you know all this about me, and how can the very timbre of your voice sound like those late night talks I'd forced myself into forgetting we had?
jen.
at one point i am on the phone and my hands are trembling so hard that the rest of my body has to jitterbug to keep up and she says "are you ok? you sound kind of shaky?" I tell her I just waited too long to call, she says she's glad I did, I tell her, yes, I am a little shaky, literally, I am shaking, and she talks to me until I know I will probably call them again within the week.
I say to her "it's been hard since I heard about Tracy" ; she says how hard, how unexpected that was...I realize for the first time in over a month, I am talking to someone who knows the girl behind the name, and I am oh-so-beyond grateful.
when I hit the power button after my goodbye, I collapse onto the bed and I am convulsing. I can't breathe. I grab the stuffed dog I bought in memory of Tracy's pup, and I try to hang onto his tangibility, but nothing helps. I bounce around the upstairs until I look presentable, then go downstairs, return the phone to its den, and lie face down on my parents bed, trying to distract myself with the Simpsons.
I do ok until I think of how I'm never going to see them again and then I can't stop shaking...
it wasn't a panic attack, but it was worth cutting, purging, killing myself over, and that's serious enough that it scares the hell out of me. it wasn't a hurricane, perhaps, but a tropical storm. and though I did nothing "destructive" to lessen the intensity, I still feel like my body is the ravaged site of a natural disaster and this moment is simply the eye of an unfinished hurricane.
oh, god, what I wouldn't give for them to have diagnosed these when I was four, and saved me from this hell.
chord
"is this really living?/ sometimes it's hard to tell/ or is this some kind of gentler hell?"
-ben/h.
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