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9:30 p.m. - 08/17/02
::that's the way I want to be // colorful and crazy loud and absolutely free::
Sara called Sunday morning and said she was going college-searching, but would give me a ring later in the week. Despite this little promise- still no word. I feel horrid every time I connect to the Internet, knowing she's probably tried a thousand times and been unable to get through, but the Internet is also my only connection to the outside world, and if she *didn't* call, I might go crazy waiting without its aid. This would be much more of a problem if I weren't almost certain that I'll break down tomorrow night and call her myself. Does college-searching take more than a week?

Meanwhile, I listen to Winter Machine and read self-help books. Part of me wants desperately to take my Scotty out of N*land, curl him up in a room of our own, and play these songs for him. I want so much to be able to show him that there *are* other people in the world who understand his experience and don't view him as a sinner; in fact I'd wager there are just as many non-believers as there are people to brainwash him. I want to make him a mix tape with songs that might remind him what it was like to trust himself instead of the Christian right. But I can't. I can't because I don't want to go too quickly, don't want to scare him away, lose him completely...and what's more, though I'm completely compelled to tell him the truth of what I think and feel regarding this (and everything else) I don't feel like I have the right to act as if my opinion is any more true than that of the people who called him a sinner. I may think I'm right, I may *know* I'm right...it isn't really about me being more right than they are. If I tell him what to feel, I treat him the same way they did, and I can't handle associating with that group of people. I can't handle treating him the way they have. I finally learned my "liberals are capable of being dangerous and prejudiced" lesson. It's painful, but at least I'm less likely to become that kind of liberal.

I'm still reading my Melody Beattie book (I've been wandering through a few different paperbacks lately, on top of which I like to take her books more slowly), and I'm really starting to understand what the jargon "codependency" actually means in my life, and how I allow it to operate. I've started to feel really crazy these past few months, and sometimes even reading about my exact craziness in her words, I still feel like I'm completely insane and beyond help. It's scary to feel so powerless, so distant and disoriented, but I have enough recovery behind me in other areas to know that a year from now, I probably won't believe that codependency is the most impossibly difficult thing ever. A year ago, I didn't exactly believe I'd ever be where I am. Nine months ago, I didn't think I'd be able to survive, let alone live. What I have to face isn't any harder than beginning treatment was, and it certainly isn't any harder than grieving. Though I do think I'd feel better about it, if I weren't still experiencing a disarming exhaustion (physical, emotional, mental) and expected to begin a full course load on Tuesday. I've never been sure how to maintain emotional well-being in the face of schoolwork, let alone further it. But hey, I managed (eventually) with two classes, right? And I'm homebound; I make my own schedule...I'll survive.

This has been the beginning of what will probably become a year-long pep talk. You all are dearhearts, and so, you get to deal.

Somewhere at the beginning of that massively incoherent paragraph, I started to talk about codependency. I've determined that codependency in life basically means I grow extremely upset (usually anxious) when I'm unable to control (i.e. "fix") what other people are feeling or experiencing. It means that I don't feel safe unless I know that everyone else is okay, and it means that while I genuinely care for people and want genuinely to help take care *of* them, I occasionally use people to make myself feel better. I don't want to use them necessarily, and it's not something I've consciously done. (Terms like "manipulating" and "controlling" are still really unnerving to me.) But even though I truly care for the people my codependency affects, because I don't feel safe if people aren't ok, I tend to overlook what they are actually *asking* of me in order to try and tie things up in neat little piles. And I can't do that anymore because I love them and it doesn't do them any good. And I can't do it anymore because I care about myself and this caretaking bullshit is making me crazy.

Which isn't to say it's over, but I'm really putting my girth into finding a way through the mess of it.

I also realized today that what happened to Tracy might have an even larger hand in this than I previously suspected. I knew I've always had trouble with caretaking, and I knew that it became much worse with the fear that followed her death. I was afraid everyone I knew was a step away from non-existence, and that scared me completely off my rocker. Completely out of my rationale and my recovery. Almost. I knew all this, but I started to wonder today if I didn't just start taking care of everyone else after what happened to Tracy. Maybe I started trying to take care of Tracy as well. Does that make any sense? Like, maybe I'm still trying to change what happened, still trying to get her back. And even more, maybe I can't surrender my friends' lives to my *friends* in part because I haven't surrendered Tracy's life. I don't want to let go of Tracy, but I guess part of me needs to (not now- at some point) let go of what happened to her. I pretty much lost all faith after December. I still have some connection to what I believed on the intellectual level, but I don't have the same confidence in it. I no longer know that I'm safe, that things will work out, that we are all loved and so forth. I can't surrender her to God because I'm scared that God won't take care of her, that God doesn't exist, that maybe death is the end, and she's just floating around in a void somewhere I can't reach. Or gone. Maybe she's gone.

I twist my head in knots trying to figure this out. I got a big head because the meaning of life has been easy for me. Live. That's the meaning of life. But death is a hell of a lot harder to understand. Living with death is, maybe, the hardest of all. For me anyway. I want to be able to give her what she needs, and I think the only way I can do that- same as if she were still here with me- is by doing what I need first. Right now I'm still too scared to know what I need could possibly be. But I do know that I need to stop constantly worrying about and attempting to reshape the lives of others. And part of that means coming to terms with what happened and figuring out how to integrate something really horrible into a life that's really good.

In other news, I heard some pretty awful news from Chas, and I don't want to write it here because it doesn't feel right to post her life that way, but I also need to talk about what I'm feeling with it. I guess the best I can say is that it has to do with that time at the beginning of sophomore year (near the beginning of atomgirl; I'd link but it's currently passworded) when I saw her and completely flipped out because she looked so shaky, so sick, so stressed. I eventually found out, if you don't remember, that she was going through a rough time, but I didn't know what, and even though I've been aware since then that she has some battle-weary components to her expression, I've also become aware that even if she deserves The Best Possible Life Ever, she's done okay having one that doesn't quite equal that. So yesterday she e-mailed me and actually explained what has been going on (she said she knew she could trust me that I was "one of the most understanding people" she knows, aww...) and the recent not-exactly-happy steps toward some sort of resolution. I feel bad for her because I know these next steps will be painful for her as well, and for her mom, who is reportedly a dear, but I also felt in her words like maybe a weight has been lifted. I know she'll go back and forth between pain and freedom, but I'm glad that she's getting out, even if has to be by a painful means. And I'm really moved that she felt compelled to tell me, felt safe telling me. She's really one of the best friends I have. Not in that "who do you trade your lunch with" sense but in the sense that if I had to go through hell and was allowed a handful of allies, she would be one of the first I'd ask. Assuming it wouldn't hurt her at all to accompany me...

Oh, wait. We already went through hell together, didn't we? Oopsies.

The parental units have returned from a doc appointment and an airport run, and so I'm off to gather my brain upstairs in my room. I should probably sleep.

buy this. now.
chord

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