Thank you GOP Senators for Selling America's Daughters to the Highest Bidder

Thank you Senators for selling America’s daughters to the highest bidder.  After all how could we consider ruining the lives of our white, rich and elite.  I remember the first time I heard those words, “you will ruin his life.”  At the age of 16, I didn’t comprehend the cost of my silence.  But I was taught then just as we continue to teach young girls everywhere, you will never be as valuable as him.  

I could count the cost of my silence in terms of dollars and cents, because certainly therapy was never cheap.  There were years I spent on a couch trying to unravel the events that changed my life.  There was so much weekly therapy needed to help me find the forgiveness I needed for the adults that failed me every step of the way, and certainly the counseling I needed to find alternative coping mechanisms besides bottles, pills or lovers who reminded me of my lack of value.  How much money could I have possibly spent over the last 30 years?  Certainly, the near hundreds of thousands of dollars I spent could not be as valuable as his life.  And I was one of the lucky, privileged ones.  I could access therapy.  But clearly those dollars were worth less than him. 

Perhaps I could count the cost of my silence in years lost because there were many.  I lost years being unable to forge healthy relationships.  I didn’t trust anyone.  How could I when I was taught at 16 that I couldn’t trust anyone to find value in me?  And this was reinforced again in college when I was told the police weren’t needed or by my job that told me his value as my superior was much greater than mine.  I lost years trying to drown out the memory of what happened to me.  I lost years never sharing my story. I lost years of friendships because the energy it took to remain guarded exhausted me.   But how could I consider taking away even a minute of his life.  How could I have ever considered how inconvenient it would have been for him to hear he raped me?  He stood to lose so much more than my mere silence.  After all I could have blemished his career and certainly, as a white, elite man, his value was so much greater than mine. 

Or maybe I should count the cost of my silence in terms of self-esteem and self-confidence because certainly I struggle with both even still.   I denied myself opportunities because I didn’t see myself as good enough.  Imposter syndrome kept me from going to the prestigious schools I got into, from taking the job that I was afraid I wouldn’t be good enough to maintain or from dating people that would treat me well because who would want to be with someone that is not as valuable as him.

I could try enumerating my silence in terms of my physical health.  Stuffing so much inside caused me so much intense physical pain.  I have ulcers, back pain, cluster headaches, and hip pain.  I have TMJ from grinding my teeth.  For a long time, I didn’t care what I ate or how much or little I exercised because why bother when there was no value in fueling a body that was less than.

Or what about my mental health?  Certainly that was worth far less than his life.  Beyond the cost of therapy, there were also the cost for medications that kept me from hurting myself.  How does one quantify the cost of stigma from living with and hiding a mental illness?  Certainly that can’t be more than his lily white life. 

And last but not least, my sense of safety.  Can we even calculate that?  The times I have spent waiting for the “right” parking space so I am near a light or close to a door.  Or the times I spent in my home because I wouldn’t feel safe going to that club or that party.   But what value can we even place on safety when his life could possibly be ruined. 

Thank goodness we have the GOP to remind us that the value of the white, elite man will forever be worth more than me and certainly more than women of color and even more still if she is not thin, uneducated, trans, or gay. It won’t matter if we tell 30 years later or the day we were assaulted, because the greatest crime is ruining his life and that we can not afford.  So America’s daughters are here for the abuse by the white, rich and elite.  They will work tirelessly to protect the men who will raise men to hurt their daughters.  They will forego any sense of morality and justice.  Because America is a white man’s country and the GOP is here to remind us that they will sell their own daughters to the highest bidder because even their lives aren’t worth squat. 

National Mental Health Awareness Month

It’s 6 am and I am having a panic attack. I can’t help but think about how May is National Mental Health Awareness month and here I am in the whirlwind of my anxiety. The stigma of my diagnosis keeps me closeted in most components of my life. I think about how often I have been asked, “what is making you so anxious?” or “why are you so depressed?” and how these very questions are why I hold so much inside. If I knew why, I would slay it like the dragon it is but instead I am silent like the millions of Americans living with a mental illness.

Biologically speaking, I was born with a mental health disorder. I wish I could just “cheer up.” My brain just doesn’t work this way. It needs help to function; for me to function. I am on my way to work now and hoping no one notices that my medication hasn’t fully done what it needs to do. Here I am in my cold sweat and my heart beating out of my chest. Maybe if I dress nice, no one will notice. Maybe my nice shoes will distract me from the fact that I am still breathing too heavy. I know this is part of the nurture. The part that raised me to believe I should hold it in; that this is a private matter; that I just need to “pull myself together”. I sometimes think about how cheated I was. I never had a chance to not be mentally ill. I wonder what my ACE score is.

I start to think of myself as a giant redwood tree. My rings tell the stories of all the years of my life. If you were to cut me open would the lines show all the years of drought? The years of being denied the nurture I needed. Would they show the lacerations and cuts? The years of cutting myself and the years of letting others hurt me. I didn’t know any better. I just knew this was how it was, so it continued until I learned to make it stop. Until the medications helped me make it stop. And the therapy. So much therapy.

I am now typing at my desk at work wondering who will notice. I close my door because I am not sure if I might spontaneously cry. But in this space, I am the boss. There is no room for mental illness. This is seen as something our patients have. We speak about how fragile and weak they are. We don’t acknowledge that there may in fact be staff living with mental illness. Instead we speak quietly behind closed doors and deny opportunities for upward mobility because “you never know.” We have labeled the mentally ill as unpredictable and unstable. The most stable thing in this office is me. My team knows I will be here first thing in the morning and always the last to leave. I tuck my emotions in under my blazer. I have enough hours of sick leave saved up to take nearly a year off of work. But I am the unstable one because I have a diagnosis. The fear of being seen, of really being seen means I would lose the respect of my higher ups. They like to think they dance the steps of understanding, of compassion, but these are just words. I am expected to hold it inside. Just like my mother taught me. And the stigma continues. I wonder how it would look for me to out myself. To announce out loud all my diagnoses. But I know I will remain in my closet because my work world isn’t ready. After all, we are still grappling with women as people. We other the mentally ill. How advanced would we need to be to offer the space for me to have my panic attack?

And so many thoughts keep swirling around. They will continue because this is how my brain works. Is this how it works for everyone else I wonder to myself? Are we all living with this constant narrative? How would it feel to know that I am just like everyone else and everyone else is really just like me?

Today I am outing myself. I am the face of someone living with mental illness. So many of my friends here live with mental illness too. I see you. Today I want you to see me too.

#mentalhealthfeelslike #NationalMentalHealthAwareness #mentalillness#StoptheStigma

Parallel

It's Thanksgiving.  I am full, still digesting the news from two months ago.  I can't get pregnant.  I am absorbing the alone time silently wishing for a fast forward button to January.  My boyfriend has left for the day to spend the holiday with his family.  Our worlds have become parallel.  He is living and I am just existing in my own silent path next to him.  Exhausted, I barely can keep up.  We our worlds apart.  He has moved forward as if the last few years had never happened.  And I am still grieving.

I told him last night I had wished for 2 more months before the holidays began.  I needed time to mend my broken heart.  He is silent.  He has moved on and we no longer are walking on the same path together.  Craving the touch of his hand in mine just as he does when we cross the street.  Maybe it was the security I needed that he wasn't abandoning me, at least not this time.  He forgot to be my friend in the beginning of all this.  At times I felt like I was Sisyphus carrying the weight of our work and him up the hill only to have everything crash down on me month after month.  And now I am left with this giant stone.

I used to relish in my alone time, especially during the holidays.  Truth is, I have spent many Thanksgiving's alone.  My family of birth shattered years ago.  I had hoped to have a family to call my own.  It was the dream.  And now I feel uncomfortable in my skin trying to find a sense of gratitude for all that I have, desperately wanting to stop dwelling in all that I don't.  The picture around me is peaceful with the fur family gathered around prepared to catch my tears.  And me, I tap away on the keyboard as if to create a peaceful lullaby that will comfort me. 


And while I continue to search for words and thoughts to keep my mind from wandering to those dark places, I keep reminding myself that it can't rain forever, even though at the moment I am wishing for an ark.

Pause Button

It's like a time out, but I call it a pause. I have been doing them a lot lately I have noticed. It's my own personal way of stopping all that is happening around me. I turn off the news, I put down the phone and then there are too many pet videos to count. I just need things to stop and this is the only way I know how. I am not delusional, really. I know the earth still spins and life continues while I am paused, but I choose to press the pause button. Why shouldn't I have a moment in time that is just mine? I want the quiet and the calm. I waited 40 years for the chaos to end. It continues, but I can still press pause. 

Too many events. Too much sadness. And yes, too much death. On the heels of my sparkly friend who now shines from a different place and the news reminding me of how scary the world can be; it's time to press pause. And while I sat on the couch yesterday across from the woman who is supposed to help me breath through the storm, I want to pause her too. I don't want to hold on to her words. I want to let them go. This session is brought to me by the letter "T". Every single leather couch owning, note writer with several initials after their names says the same thing. Isn't this the thing I am supposed to let go? All those memories, all those events, and yes, the bad people. Aren't I supposed to let them go? Why is it necessary I have to talk about this... again? I feel like I am indulging someone else's sick fantasy. "My patient is so sick." "How sick is she?" I watch as she furiously scribbles in her note pad. And they all look at me as if they are telling me something new. As if I have never heard the word "trauma" before. Don't they understand the illness in my head? Don't they recognize the shame? Seriously, do they think I need the affirmation or that the "empathic" look is supposed to make me feel better?

I feel no better than the mouse in the lab. I am someone's experiment as they try to fill me with words just to see how my body reacts. The worst being the eastern practitioner who told me that each and every story was my fault, even the ones in my crib. I somehow asked the universe for it all and apparently my subconscious continues to crave more. I am Oliver Twisted now, "Please sir, might I have another?" I wished I walked away thinking she was wrong. But the experiment continued and the illness inside just grew. She was my Milgram.

Perhaps the pause is my antidote, my cancer fighting pill that keeps the shame from taking over. Tonight, I am popping the pill. I am putting my past trauma's on hold today and while I am at it, I am pausing all that is happening around me too. I am typing and while the words don't come out quite the way I see them in my head, the clickety clack of my typing soothes me just the same. It's the lullaby for the depressed. And of course, the sound of the button as I push pause.

Infertility

The words have been swimming in my brain and I knew to write my story would be to acknowledge the hurt. I am drowning. The tears just flow and I can't help myself. Small fits of rage punctuated by tears that appear as little dots on a page. And still I can't help myself. I let the tears flow. Everything is at the surface and raw. I used to live for moments like this, where the facade was removed and I was real. Now I gasp for breath at my reality. I don't know how to live with this and I think the harder part is I don't want to. I suppose I shouldn't be shocked. I am 42 years old. I just don't feel it. I thought I could do anything I set out to do. I believed my body wouldn't betray me. I believed in my own will. I wanted to believe that all the decisions I have made my entire life would not lead to regret. There are no "do-overs" and I see myself now as having truly fucked up my opportunity to have the one thing I have always wanted, family. I have been diagnosed as being too old. The words sting. I waited and I waited and I waited for the "right" time and now the time is gone. I thought I got to choose. How did this choice get taken away from me. Why didn't I get my notice before expiration? Wasn't someone supposed to warn me that in this case if you don't use it, you really do lose it. And now it's gone. All my fantasies of family gone. Sure, I still have the one I was born into that rejected me from day one. The one that reminded me of all their regret. And even more now, I don't understand. And in my head, they have never counted. I wanted a family of my own. I wanted that love to give. And it's just gone. This is my diary I tell myself. Where else can I go with all this? Years and years of trying only to be reminded of chronology. I feel so broken and the reality is I am. Dreams of family gone with one diagnosis. And there is nothing I can do to fix this. The girl with the perfect grades, the straight teeth, the clean home with everything in place and this. This tarnish on my record, this black mark next to my name, this blemish. Fuck that, it's more than a blemish. A blemish goes away. I still can't breath. I have been crying for days. And the letter from the doctor sits here reminding me that the purpose I believed I had does not exist.

White

A childhood stolen far too soon.
I never asked to make these decisions
I never asked for the guilt
For the yelling
For the blame
For the hatred
For the depression
For the mania
For the anger
For the loneliness
For the sense of being so fucking alone
I didn’t chose any of this and still I can’t walk away

I wonder how I would feel if she were to succeed
If the blade cut through and I just watched instead of making the call
What if the cocktail worked or the pills kicked in or the rope dug just that much deeper.
What if I let her run, what if I just let her go.

I feel so much anger watching her peacefully sleep with her wrists wrapped in white.
And I wonder, when do I get mine?

Safe

I don’t understand why they call it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The P and the T and D make sense, but not the stress. Stress doesn’t begin to describe what I feel. It seemed like such a simple decision. I need shoes. Actually, I desperately need shoes. I would just leave work early and go to the mall and buy shoes.

As I stepped out of the office, the bus was waiting as if it knew my mission. And despite the typical crowdedness the Muni usually offers me, instead there was a seat. Not just any seat either, but a solo seat. So I sat, headphones on, as the bus slowly crawled down the hill toward Union Square. I looked out the window and away from the action inside the bus. I could hear the yelling, but still I ignored the altercation around me. I had a goal and a destination.

As I stepped off the bus, I expected the swarm of holiday shoppers. I breathed slowly and deeply as I pushed through the crowd, reminding myself of my errand. I made it all the way in to the store and up the escalator and then it hit. The rush of anxiety, the feeling of being totally overwhelmed and this was beyond stress. My hands began to clench and I wanted to leave. I forced myself to wander the floor, touching shoes. But I knew there would be no success. I couldn’t open my mouth. The tears were already forming and all I could feel was shame. There was Christmas everywhere: Red and green wherever I looked. I could feel the rush of warm begging me to remove my coat. And I knew as the warm began to turn into pools of sweat I had to go.

I flew out of the store and onto the street and began to walk. I wanted to wander aimlessly until I felt better but knew I had no choice but to walk down Market Street to the bus terminal or I would be forced to take the night bus, which drops me off blocks instead of feet from my car and there would be more anxiety. As I made the walk down Market, I tried to ignore the faces walking by, but in every face I saw him. He was here in San Francisco. He was walking behind me. He was walking towards me. I couldn’t stop seeing him. My heart raced as the fear became paralyzing. I slowly let my gaze become unfocused as I continued walking, so I could no longer see anyone.

The sweat began to dry and my feet reminded me the shoes I was currently wearing needed to be retired. And I was desperate for home, the isolated sanctuary that protected me like a soft cocoon. How I wished I could metamorphose into a butterfly. There were months to go before my wings would develop and I could fly under the soft rays of the spring sun. But for now it’s tears. Not stress, just tears. Just like the deep drops of a winter rain, my tears flowed from the same dark place from within. And as I stepped inside my fortress of solitude the tears rolled down my cheeks as if to create a moat to protect me inside. And for now I am safe.

Little White Pill

I knew my mother’s offer of a treadmill was another thinly veiled attempt to let me know she thinks I am fat. It’s pathetic that there is no ability for her to offer me such a generous gift. Those niceties never really existed for me anyway. I suppose it was nice of her to give me a journal at 9 years old and a calorie counting book to help me track the number of calories I was eating per day. But the gift of a lifetime battle with an eating disorder was more than I thought I was receiving at that time. And now, I no longer looked forward to her gifts.

Unfortunately the timing of this gift offer coincided with a week of uncontrolled anxiety. And the more anxious I was becoming the more difficult it was to spend time with the man I love. I was embarrassed for him to see me like this. Leaving the house this morning I knew it was a question of minutes before the panic attack set in. Thank god he didn’t see me as I struggled to breath and my hands clenching ever so tightly. The mantras, the breathing, none of it working. I hate the shame I feel over my inability to take control over myself. I suppose I even blame myself for not controlling my nerves and letting them rule my body. And now I had a witness. Over a decade of secluding myself from others allowed me to escape the shame I felt having anxiety. Yes, I need to medicate. Who wants to admit that? The only way I can feel “normal” is by taking treatment. Realistically though, it works. It’s a relief to feel my heart begin a regular pace and my breathing no longer labored. And I don’t know how to be around him now as I work towards getting better… again.

I didn’t even know how to be better with the changes happening all around me. The Viking and I decided to take the plunge toward cohabitation. And now I had a real choice; I could choose to live with him or I could choose to live with my anxiety. At the moment I am leaning towards the anxiety because having him see me like this is too difficult for me to stomach. The fears of rejection, of him not accepting me, of him seeing me as difficult and ultimately of him abandoning me were too much to bear. Still I long for the partnership he offers and try to remind myself the concerns floating in my head were the result of my anxiety and not based in reality. I was too afraid to ask him for the truth since ultimately it would require a vulnerability I wasn’t comfortable with. I suppose for him to love me, to really love me meant he would have to know all of me. Even this… the stuff I didn’t even want to know or acknowledge about myself. The part of me I see as hopelessly broken if not for the little white pill. Yes, the little white pill. And with one quick drink of water I am soon on my way toward clarity once again.

$50,000 Angel

I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about the Gulf. Perhaps it was the drone of the news playing in the background this morning that had me thinking how ineffectual I felt. The word I like to use is impotent. I feel impotent. And I felt far away. The Gulf feels far. The floods in Tennessee feel far. And I feel removed. And truth is I am. I suppose I began to feel guilty that I haven’t taken these causes under my wing. I simply hear about them and feel powerless and yet do nothing. Even as I made my way to work, my reality of my profession couldn’t seem to pull me out of this sense of not doing enough. Preventing and treating breast cancer wasn’t enough; Nor were my other “causes du jour.” Years of volunteering with animal rescue couldn’t seem to console this sense of powerlessness I felt nor the fundraiser I began to help an injured friend. I can’t seem to do enough in a world that is seemingly falling apart.

Now I promise I am not getting “emo” on everyone here. But as I looked around me, there does seem to be injustices happening. Besides the injustices that are happening on a global scale, as I shrink my world to just that, my world, I couldn’t help but notice what hits so close to home. From the murder of my mentor by a single shot in the back, to the accidental injury that changed my friends life, to the termination of employment experienced by another for simply doing what she loves (burlesque),and to the extreme health decline of another. How could I do enough? There just is so much.

Perhaps my sense of impotence was stemming from the anger I feel as I sit with the awareness that there are people out there taking advantage of the kindness of our community. Yes, I am mad as I learned about the defrauding of my community through the solicitation of funds for a cause based in fantasy rather than reality. I jokingly said I was selfish that this situation was distracting people from donating to what I deemed a more worthy cause, my friends’ medical expenses. But was I being judgmental? So what if this other party skewed the facts of their situation for financial gain and empathy? Would those who would have donated to my little cause turn their attention away to assist in a personal vendetta in the form of a legal action? Did it really matter who was suing who? Why do I care that they are putting their hand out to line the pockets of their personal cause?

Sitting on Muni, I began to think that perhaps it’s my thinking that is flawed. Of course I am not enough. As I constantly turn to my own community asking for support, I know this. “Be the bra people” has been my tagline for years. So maybe I need to look outside myself to understand how through these 6 degrees of separation my community is making a difference in the world. We are able to look outside ourselves and practice what is known to me as “Tikkun Olam,” repairing the world. Ironically the first person that came to mind is a biker I know and a former skinhead. And while his facebook posts tend to predominantly reflect his punk rock values of “fuck everyone” he never ceases to surprise me with a government official’s address or phone number or most recently BP and a suggestion to be proactive. Or the daily facebook posts from a Little Darling I was fortunate enough to cross paths with as she continues her crusade to save pitbulls, one bullie at a time. Or my curly sister in New Orleans who was forever changed after Katrina. She moved from California to Louisiana just to be part of the solution, one child at a time. I am not enough.

I suppose as I go about my Wednesday, I am simply looking for the comfort that I impact a greater world through the actions of those around me. Or maybe this is a call to action. Doing nothing is not enough. I remember years ago backstage with The Fixx (a story for another time), I made one of the band member’s cry. I didn’t mean to and I am quite sure alcohol fueled the response. But he asked me what I did for a living. My answer was “saving the world one convict at a time.” I was running a literacy and creative writing program for parolees that I had started in San Francisco. My goal was to reduce recidivism by creating healthy options for those leaving the correctional system and to reunite families. He lamented he never did anything for anyone. My response was to put my hand out. I reminded him that I couldn’t do my work alone. For everyone on the ground, there’s an angel dropping a dollar in my pocket to keep the work going. He was a 50 thousand dollar angel.

And yes, I am looking for that $50k angel today just to make a dent in my tiny community, my community of friends. But I would settle for just encouraging everyone around me to take a moment to just do something. Write an email for a cause or write a check or play with the puppies at Animal Control. Or even add my cause of the day, the Whit’s Knee Fund. Just do something. Because it is all overwhelming when we wonder what we as individuals can do. But looking at what we all do, there’s a comfort there, so I hope people will comment and share.

Managing

As quickly as this little being came into my life, it was just gone. It seemed so unfair that I was allowed to hold on to hope, but for only a few short weeks. I felt pathetic looking at the blurred images on my refrigerator as if they were anything more than pulsating cells. And all I had to show for it now was 6 extra pounds that felt like 100 under the emotional weight I feel.

I suppose I should feel grateful I had this moment of hope. For these several weeks, I was happy with this parasite growing inside of me. Too early on to call it anything else, it came to be known amongst friends as the sesame seed. It even got to evolve into the blueberry. And I became so superstitious. As if having the fear of losing the blueberry would bring on its demise. I even kept the picture of my deceased cat on my cell phone because for some strange reason I rationalized that deleting the picture would somehow delete the moment I was having. And I was full. Full of hope, full of dreams, full of future. The woman who lived her life in the present, who stopped looking ahead was actually living life with a calendar marked months in advance.

I started to imagine family. My own family. Family had become synonymous to my friends, not the people who I was related to by blood. The growing being inside of me would fit all conventional definitions of family though: we’d be stuck together, blood related and unlike my own, I planned to not abandon the little berry. This was the dream I never allowed myself to have. And now I am wondering what the point was in having this glimpse of a dream dangled in front of me, only to be snatched away.

And I hated the word for it; “miscarriage.” I didn’t miscarry anything, because if I was really carrying this precious being, I would have taken every precaution imaginable. The last image we saw of the blueberry, it looked squished, as if someone stepped on it. It sort of reminded me of the time my dad’s turtle laid an egg and the male turtle just walked right over it and it was no longer round but flatly oval. The blueberry was squashed.

In between the moments of sadness, I just feel angry. I had gone on my whole life never imagining this moment. Realistically, this was not meant to be at all. I remember the words of the emergency room doctor when I was just 17 as he told me I wouldn’t be able to have children. Of course what I heard and took with me was that I was broken. And I feel broken now still. My friends called it a miracle, while I felt that there was some other force at work. It just seemed beyond coincidental I could conceive the day my beloved cat had died. And still, I can’t see my own role in this still seeing myself as the broken girl.

And now I am the broken girl with the broken heart. For months I have been in my head with secrets. The secret of a pregnancy, the secret of a miscarriage, and now the secret that something in me just feels broke. The words of 12-step echoing in my head, “you are only as sick as your secrets.” And I do feel sick hoping to be on the mend. I suppose there is no way to truly mend this. I am hoping simply to add this to my list of experiences with the words of Mother Theresa to comfort me… “God never gives you more than you can manage.” I guess the better response when I am asked how I am doing, is that I am managing. Day by day, I am managing.

Thoughts on Paper

Both my writing and my reality have become this secret world I dare not share. I feel stuck as if I am in some cocoon waiting to emerge. Not knowing if I will arrive as a butterfly or simply a moth. Or perhaps I won't emerge at all. Even writing now in this free form style without thought is almost liberating. And the lies continue on a daily basis, hiding myself and my secret from everyone. The stress of it all is starting to wear on me and even as I scroll through online services just to find one person like me, I want my support in person. Cyber hugs just won't do. And my inner voice yearns for a mother I have never known. There is no consoling me at this time. I am truly alone.

It's merely days now before the anniversary of my birth. The thought of celebrating is so distant, when my mood is despondent and bleak. Every morning I wake up quietly hoping that my reality feels less a nightmare and more a fantasy. My childhood dreams had not prepared me for this. I am finding myself slipping daily into some abyss when I know as time goes on, there is a light at the end of this tunnel. Maybe tunnel isn't actually accurate, perhaps it's best described as a door. Because doors provide option even though at the moment I feel encased in my situation, alone in my head, solo in my journey and empty of choice.

I have come to rely on the kindness of those few I have allowed into my narrow world. I am exhausted by my own words and have turned to this medium to express myself, insecure with the thought that I may indeed be taxing those around me. I feel a desperation to find support and have come up empty handed. I am aware I am drowning and actually want to be preserved. And again, it's time I need, but like a junkie I want the instant gratification of truly knowing I am going to be just fine. Each morning is that reminder of my uncertainty. And all the blood, there is just so much of it. I crave a morning without reminders, I would embrace a day that creates no memory, just the humdrum of existence.

And some mornings I just wake up angry. My body is a complete stranger to me. I don't understand any of it's pains. Today I took the prophylactic deciding that I didn't need to know how I felt. I knew to feel pain only affected my mood for the day. And how much I yearned for movement, for intimacy, to feel independent. Damn I hated to ask for help. Last night I found myself sweeping my dirty home, crying through the pain because I was just to stubborn to ask anyone to help me. This morning I gave in and wrote the only person who was watching me bang my head over and over. I despised turning to him feeling no confidence that he truly didn't mind lending a hand.

Since when had I become this independent? Had I become my own fair weather friend? Only wanting to see my reflection when I felt my best. The word's of my mother echoing in my head, "no one cares about your problems, so keep them to yourself." But like an illness, my disease of secrecy only made me sicker by the minute. And I knew as I looked at the image of her surgically sculpted face that behind every peel and cut of the knife, she was sicker than me.

Thinking like a slut

So I recently received an email in which my suitor let me know that he likes a girl that thinks "slutty". I think on first reading this, I had that knee-jerk reaction of reading it as him calling me slutty. But apparently I wasn't actually being accused of being slutty, just thinking that way. I found myself feeling perplexed by this, afterall what was it about my profile and writing that would lead this dude to write that I “think slutty”?

Slutty is such a loaded term inherent with lots of judgment. So, I am actually struggling to see slutty as a compliment. I also began to wonder what it actually means to think slutty. Does it have to do with the amount of times someone thinks about sex? According to the Kinsey Institute as well as every man I know, a guy thinks about sex just about every 2 minutes. Does it seem that I think about sex more than the average male and that defines slutty? Using that logic than why don’t we hear of more men being told they think slutty? This is one of those great double standards. It’s not only considered “normal” for a guy to think about sex, but it’s just as normal if he thinks about it even more often than every 2 minutes. But somehow if a woman is thinking about sex every 2 minutes, she thinks slutty? Or was there something about my profile that would suggest I think about sex more often and that somehow I have crossed the line into the realm of “thinking slutty?” While I do think about sex, I would say that I probably think about it far less than the average male. Certainly if I am getting ready for a rendez-vous, I am thinking about sex every second as I get ready, but while at work, not so much. Realistically, I work in a pretty gnarly neighborhood and usually have to walk over passed-out people with their bagged bottles still in their hand on the way to work. So not much eye candy. I am thinking that defining thinking slutty by time, I wouldn’t qualify.

Or perhaps it’s because I have written about about casual encounters, so therefore I have slutty thoughts. This hypothesis is more difficult for me to understand. So writing about “casual encounters” and looking for that type of companionship must mean that I think slutty? Is wanting to meet someone for the sole purpose of sex, thinking slutty? Or is this perhaps one of those little double standard situations? It’s not often we hear of a guy being accused of thinking slutty because he is going to go meet a woman for the specific purpose of fornication. Frankly I am happy when any of my friends have that going for them. Good for them… they are about to get laid. Slutty doesn’t seem appropriate as a descriptive term for what they are thinking and what is about to happen. And realistically, all I have to show for my “thinking slutty” is a blog.

Is the mere fact that I actually have had a casual encounter enough to qualify as thinking slutty? Or is there another threshold I am not aware of? I felt compelled to look up the word “slut” and actually found that it literally means “a woman considered sexually promiscuous.” Hmmm… so that explains why we don’t hear about men being called sluts. But it doesn’t help me to understand why dude thinks that telling me I think slutty is somehow a compliment.

Cross-Trainers

I was starting to wonder if these were simply delusions. It had been so long since someone had taken me by the hand, but perhaps that’s my mind playing tricks on me as I reached out and felt his warm calloused hand in mine. I remember as a child waiting for my father to pick me up from pre-school. He never came. I remember telling the teacher he would arrive, after all, he had promised. But there I stood on the curb refusing to return to the warmth of the classroom. I truly believed he would show. Even as the lady with the lipstick on her teeth arrived and told me I would have to go with her. I sat on the curb and began to cry. What would he think if I wasn’t where he told me to wait?

She gripped my wrist hard and dragged me away. I knew if I were gone he wouldn’t know where to look. Somehow it never occurred to me that he wouldn’t look anyhow. And as I sat in the back of her car, I was sure I saw him and yelled for her to stop. She slowed the vehicle while looking back at me and curtly said, “he’s not there and he is not coming.”

I found myself questioning my reality today, so unsure of my inner voice since it had betrayed me before. Actually that’s not entirely true either. I had hand-selected all of them, as if I needed to replicate all that I had known. I instinctively was drawn to the ones in the cross-trainers. First there was the beautiful boy who kissed me sweetly with one foot in another bed. How naïve I was to think I needed to change. Then there was the angry man from the east who had promised to never let me go even as he kissed me goodbye on his way to work with his suitcase neatly packed in the car. I called no one as I waited day after day with no hint as to where to find him. Then there was the monkey man who didn’t run but rather shoved. Even as I clung to him after tripping and falling, he smacked my hands away leaving me to fall even harder and giving him a bigger headstart. And now I wondered as I felt the warmth of the Viking’s skin against my palm how long would it be before he made the same promise to return even as he let go and walked away.

I found myself whispering this morning unable to find my voice. I sometimes wondered if the in-between time created the distance or perhaps it was the time together that pulled him away. What else could I think when left with my own assumptions? I experimented last week with words I had not spoken before in years. I was perplexed by how much the silence hurt. This was no longer grade school, so I couldn’t ask anyone to pass him a note in class. Remember those notes, the ones with the check boxes with names and questions such as “who do you have a crush on” or “will you go steady with me.” I was always passing those notes for others secretly hoping one of them would be for me. But there was no note, just a change in topic.

I began to look at my note, the email that I had written weeks before sitting patiently as a draft. I stopped myself as the cursor rested on send. I had always clicked send in the past and found myself much like the same little girl in the back of the sedan driving away from my nursery school. The difference is that I knew he wouldn’t be coming if I pushed send. There would be no tears, no betrayal, or abandonment. Just like the rest, I could give him the out I had convinced myself he needed just as I had imagined my father felt watching me being taken away.

Drowning

My mother abandoned me at the sound of my first cry. When asked, she described me as colicky and inconsolable. She would pass by my crib yelling at me to hush. I asked my grandmother about this recently over dinner. She reached across the table and grabbed my hand and softly said that I was a vivacious little girl. Her eyes glimmered as she described how independent I always was. After saying the word independent, she corrected herself and added, “fearless.” She reminded me that after the exhaustion set-in, I always returned to the comfort of her arms or nestled comfortably in her husbands lap for a nap. She described me like a kitten climbing up the curtains to the point of collapse. Then like my cross-eyed beauty, I would settle close to her nearly purring with content.

She loves to tell the tale of me climbing up the highest structure at the children’s playground and sitting there while she pleaded for me to come down. She’d even plod my older brother to climb up to get me but he was too scared. Eventually a stranger would have to get me. And after touching the ground I would rush to my grandmother and hold her tight. I loved her smell of ivory soap and schmaltz. And she would hold me so tight and quietly plead with me to never leave her like that again. She always reminded me I was loved.

Now as an adult, I no longer climb walls. Rather I have built them up like some impenetrable fortress, complete with a moat. Like a bad Disney tale, I am the king with a moat around my kingdom and I can’t swim. And worse, is I have only grown more afraid of the water as I got older. I wonder what happened to the fearless girl unafraid of climbing the highest peak. The little explorer who would stay out past sunset just to catch air one more time on her skateboard. I suppose too many times I ventured out into the cold dark water never to find the shore. Or perhaps the times I had looked for a hand to reach out to me, it never showed.

I found myself drowning today in a sea of bad memories and moments in time that I realized I don’t ever want to relive. And as I cried on the phone from the bathroom in the diner, the voice on the other end gently advised me that it is the walls that needed to go, but the moat could continue to stay.

Morning Fog

The roar of his engine came sooner than I had expected. It seemed like forever as I waited for him to knock on my door. I had held my breakdown for hours now. The nightmares had started weeks ago and I was operating on little sleep. My sense of security gone, I found myself reaching in strange places for comfort. Was it really just a year ago I was sitting in front of a body of strangers giving testimony? The word testimony seems so strange. In reality it was my life. I wasn’t reading a fictional tale from a book. I was reciting details of my life, while these five people sat across from me taking notes. I still find it perplexing that I can describe precisely what I smelled while it happened as if the smell still lingered on me like stale cigarette smoke from a bar. As I think about that day 20 years ago, I can still feel the restraint around my wrists and the tightening of my chest as I struggled to breathe.

The knock is harder now as I quicken my pace to the door. I open the door and he barely makes it inside as I collapse in his arms like a child exhausted by my own inner tantrum. I sob in his arms on my floor for what seems like hours but was really only minutes. And he just rocks us back and forth while quietly soothing me. The moment interrupted as he offers to get me a tissue. He lends me a hand to help me up as he makes his way down my hall toward my bathroom and I crawl on my couch only to have the cross-eyed beauty jump up and gently scratch at my lap. She nestles on my legs with her head pushed up against my stomach as if to hug me. And he returns with a roll of toilet paper that he hands me as he takes his seat next to me. I knew what he would ask me next. It’s the same question I get asked every year: “have you thought about seeing someone?”

Truth is I have. Off and on for years, I have sat across from strangers and recounted my story. I began to feel as if I had no other tale to tell and a few years ago, I decided to take a new approach to this time of year; denial. It came in the form of being too busy. I could excuse the exhaustion, because I could relate it to all that I was doing. This year is no different as I find myself racing to performances and social engagements. But the memory of the hearing almost seemed too fresh to deny. I could still see the face of the man that changed my world years ago and the smirk on his face. And I could still hear his mother’s voice as she yelled at me for ruining his life. I was unable to muster a word then as I wanted to tell her about how many times I had contemplated ending my own. I wondered how she could imagine I was really living after what her own flesh and blood had done to me. I almost felt jealous of her ability to deny, it was so much more deep-seeded then my own.

I had come to some terms at this point with my experience. I wasn’t a teenage girl anymore, although at times late at night, I still feel like that child; alone and terrified. Ironically, my angel must have known what was happening as my phone rang late night last night. I was relieved to see her name pop up on my caller ID. And the first thing she said was that she just felt compelled to call and check on me. I never understood how she always seemed to know those exact moments when a friend was all I needed. I hadn’t thought to call her myself, rather I had left a cryptic text for the Viking to find, still unable to clearly tell him what I needed. I guess I was just afraid of reaching out and learning that he wouldn’t want to be there for me. I wouldn’t have to wait for him to abandon me if I never set him up to be around.

I somehow managed to make it into my office, even with the bags clearly visible under my eyes. As I felt the cool air on my face as we rode his Harley across the Bay, I relaxed. For the moment I felt safe, knowing my angel was looking out for me and that he would be waiting for me outside my office to take me home. At last, there could be relief that there were no more trials or hearings, just memories that I could finally allow to drift away like the morning fog.

Cleaning

I could feel my heart pounding against my ribs as I watched him ride away. It was that time of year once again when the anxiety takes over and I forget how to sleep. And I was afraid for him to see. This is the part when I can hear my own voice telling me I am broken. Shattered pieces of porcelain that can never quite be put back together again, I was perpetually imperfect. And it was almost funny how I would try to create a façade of perfection by working constantly to craft a “perfect” home.

I clean. I literally am constantly cleaning. And just in case I haven’t emphasized this enough, I will not lay down in bed until my entire kitchen is spotless. I don’t know if I am seeing imaginary dust or make-believe dirt, but my house can’t seem to be clean enough. Today I ignored the tears as I cleaned my home from top to bottom never quite seeing it as clean. My fingers cracking from solvents, while I resisted wearing gloves. And minutes later I am on a chair vacuuming the ceiling because I just can’t stop. I ignore the commitments I have made, because I have to keep going.

I jokingly call this OCD, but really it’s not. I am not sure what to call this, since it’s not really nesting either. I am still cleaning as if no one will notice my personal imperfections in such a clean house. And I wonder if I should tell the Viking as he notices the overpowering smell of Windex upon entering my house. I have created an illusion of cleanliness when really I am just crazy. And all the while secretly hoping someone will compliment how clean my home is. It’s actually all quite pathetic, this desperation to be noticed even though there is no one here.

I wonder if my mother cleans for the same reason. While visiting an old friend yesterday he described my mother’s home as looking staged by a realtor. No sense of warmth or comfort, just everything neat and tidy and put exactly in the “right” place. Her house is immaculate. I remember as a child she used to sweep and mop the kitchen every night while my father watched television. She couldn’t stop either.

How did we get this way? Did she also yearn to have her parents tell her that she was loved, even just once? Just a week ago I listened as the Viking told his father he loved him while on the phone. I turned my head away afraid he would see my tears and then found myself absentmindedly picking imaginary lint off of my pants.

Fall

The orange radiance of the harvest moon illuminated my room like the glow of a lighthouse.
Lights and mirrors warning ships in the night
And it’s fall and I am waiting
Impatient for the shoe to drop
Too many years of chaos taught me nothing different
And I am restless

After all I am the girl who disappears in the middle of the night
The child on the buses going nowhere just so I wouldn’t have to be home
The young one hoping to be remembered
In the ruins of all that was destroyed
I forgot how to trust

And as I stared up at the brilliance above I couldn’t help but pray I wouldn’t run
Images never seen don’t need to be erased
And they never really were gone
Like little slivers on my skin there were still marks
Or sometimes they lingered like the feeling of a shiver, as the colors of the sky grow dark

Most of the time I just pretended
Under guarded smiles and a muted tongue
I thought the world conspired with me
Allowing me to hide my head under veils thankful to not be seen
But it was me that was hurting all along

After all a tree falling in the forest does make a sound
And even under the comfort of your skin I can forget how to breathe
Or perhaps it's just I am holding the air still inside
Listening for the sound of the other shoe to drop

Felony

The Viking was right, it was just a simple task: just write. And yet here I find myself unable to find the words as if they are lost somewhere like the keys to my house. The sadness is indescribable. My body feeling as if I had gained 20 pounds over night, I was unable to move under my own weight. My life has been marked my so much loss and here I was facing the loss of my friend for the last 12 years and I just break. I almost feel embarrassed to feel so much grief. Here she is laying in my lap quietly purring and content. And here I am asking myself if I am doing the right thing by letting her go. We have shared so much but I never thought we’d be sharing a diagnosis of cancer. Mine in remission and hers inoperable. I almost wished it were me instead because I could understand and I had no way of explaining to her what was going on. I still don’t speak tabby.

She was just a little grey ball of fur the day she entered my life. After a visit to a vet and a bath, I discovered she was white. Nicknamed by a friend in grad school, she came to be known as “the cross-eyed beauty.” And although she shared her first 8 years with a 120-pound shepherd, she knew she was bigger. And she was. She was my comfort in times of pain and she was the first to hear the good news of the day. She is the first to greet me in the early hours as the sun begins its ascent. And she is my melody at night as the rumble of her purr soothes me to sleep.

She ended 2008 on a diet and began 2009 unable to hold on to her weight. Despite her condition she still rules the roost. She has the energy to remind her sister that the bed is only big enough for her. And she still slaps me in the calf beckoning me to play a game of chase. She guards the house unaware of her size. Greeting strangers at the door and meowing at friends. While rehearsing and vacuuming she will stand her ground. And despite her crossed eyes, no bug has ever been safe.

And now I am faced with saying goodbye. Unlike her sister, I can plan for pictures and I can hold her one last time. And I can keep telling myself tomorrow and silently pray that the day will never come.

Cutting

The security of the Tenderloin has changed from the subtle reminder of the dangers of depression and a bottle to a world of temptation for a girl looking for an escape. Even as I stood today facing the peckerwood with the blade screaming his racist rant while his “old lady” reminded him we shared color in common, I found myself too numb to muster a sense of fear. It almost scared me how much I wanted to feel his blade. Desperate for emotions that don’t come easy, I spent my day faking a smile to every face I thought looked kindred in a crowd. I began to think about the last time I had longed to feel and absentmindedly began to touch the scars on my leg.

Fiending to cut is much like craving booze or drugs. I would desperately yearn for the euphoric feeling as I dragged a razor blade across my thigh. For many years, it was the only way I could cry. The first time I cut, I was only 12. Oddly, I remember the day I did it as if it happened yesterday. On a day that began as “normal,” I was alone in my room surrounded by my childhood friends of Barbie’s and stuffed animals. A latchkey kid since I was 5, my afternoons were typically filled with conversations with my fuzzy friends about my day. I couldn’t tell time yet nor did I know my home phone number, but I knew to put the key in the door and to find my after-school snack of oranges and peanut butter sandwiches in the refrigerator.

I had formed a semi-circle of blonde bodacious beauties as well as lobsters, bears, and dinosaurs around myself. There really weren’t any favorites, but only the big brown bear slept in my bed with me at night. I still have no clue what compelled me to leave my room and walk the narrow hallway back to the kitchen. I have no idea why I walked directly over the beige patterned linoleum floor to the silverware drawer. Instinctively I grabbed the metal butter knife and returned to my room as if I had done this before. After returning to my room I closed my door and sat on the carpet directly in the middle of the semicircle of my toys. I ran my finger up and down the blade pressing harder with each turn. Eventually my skin grew rough and began to peel revealing some of its layers. Next I ran the knife against my wrists. It wasn’t suicide I was after. I am not even sure I knew what suicide was. I just wanted to rub the knife against my wrists until I would see blood. My only witnesses from that day long gone after years of living in boxes turned their fur musty.

I remember finding it strange that the knife didn’t hurt. I also remember finding it curious I couldn’t cut into my wrists. That first time there was no blood. I couldn’t seem to drag the knife in deep enough, being too naïve to understand the dullness of the blade was conspiring against me. I continued this ritual for years trying different knives and different parts of my body. I slowly began to comprehend that my sick secret could only be kept if I opted for less obvious places. Maybe it wasn’t exactly the conspicuousness that led to my propensity for my thighs. My sensitiveness of my thighs finally allowed for me to feel the pain and the sight of the red seemed to bring relief.

And this was my ritual for more years than I care to confess. Nestled deep in my clothing drawer was my kit. I graduated from knives to razors. Disposable were my favorites as I took them apart and was left with 3 thin sheaths. Sometimes I couldn’t wait to get home from school just so I could reopen the wound I had just created the day before. It was years later before the wounds allowed me to cry. Finally I had the relief I was after marked by the color red and the salt of my tears.

And here I am years’ later yearning for this dope-fiend to participate in my ritual I had left behind long ago. As I felt the spray of his words of anger and could smell his own desperation, I recognized it was me who would be his co-conspirator in his crime. And the relief that I was after was not in the tip of his weapon, but rather in the knowledge that soon I would be walking away from all of this. Today I will mark my countdown to feel. My security no longer held in the hands of strangers or in the blocks of cement nor the graffiti on the walls in this land of the forgotten and suffering. I am still the latchkey kid opening my door to the semi-circle of fur. Now I have the cross-eyed beauty and her large loud friend greeting me as I make my meal. And there is comfort here nestled in my lap as the sound of a purr brings calm to the day.

Pacing

I can’t remember the last time I have felt this lost. Pacing for days, crawling out of my skin and no comfort to be found. Redefining myself with no luxury of time, overwhelmed at the thought that all that I have built was so quickly stripped away with a signature on the dotted line. Committed to compassion in a cold industry no different than any other bureaucracy. The thought of saying goodbye to my oldest friend is breaking me. Without the genuineness of the stripped down existence I have come to know as a second home. I no longer know where I belong. And truth is I am scared.

I am the child who disappeared before I was grown and the girl on the skateboard just to out roll the boys. I was the teen who died handcuffed to a door and the woman who sat besides men with no souls. Perhaps not having anything before made it easier to ignore the fear.

Too tired to really write, I feel unable to even catch the thoughts that race through my mind like particles of dust being swept up by the wave of a hot breeze. My anger displayed in alone moments in my car as I curse those around me. Even the exhaustion from the day that began at dawn has not lulled me to sleep. For a moment today as the rain fell upon my head as I stood in the silence of the trees and the hills, I could breath deeply as the flitters through the trees harmonized with nature’s songs. My world colored in grays and greens since Friday brightened by the sight of the yellow of an enormous slug. I think about the red of the Viking, which has always brought calm and I long for just a moment in his arms. And now that night has fallen, I feel the urge to crawl on my floor like the accused awaiting trial familiar with the routines behind the gate. I recognize the panic like waves lapping at the shore, as the clouds above turn dark. And I repeat to myself, “I am strong, I am strong.”