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.
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
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.
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.
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