Twenty One 03.05.10

Faith, Grace, Love. You are all these things to me. And most of all, comfort. I have been so lost. I have been so foolish to have pretended I could have kept you from any part of me. To think that you were something I needed protection from is a thought now I find insulting. You know that you touch me like no other person has ever been able to, don't you? You know that the moment I saw you, I knew, I had to be with you. And it wasn't just lust, I think I knew right then; I think I fell in love with you the moment I saw you in that dress, with your aviators on and that cigarette hanging from the filter out of the corner of your mouth. Your curls threatened to knock me on my ass and my knees were already buckling. You have no idea, how I cursed and railed against myself for getting lost on the way to your house. How embarrassed and nervous I was to meet you. I honestly barely even saw your friend. From the moment I laid eyes on you, you were the only thing I could really see clearly. You were the only thing I wanted to see.

Every moment with you plays through my mind and I find a wistful smile spread across my lips, pulling them down at the corners. You know the one, it's that awkward upside down smile, somewhere between a smirk and a sneer that pulls my face into the most comical expressions. I am empty without your love. I am starting to remember that night I told you I loved you for the first time in late June, I am starting to have the sight of a phantom wad of newspaper crinkling and dancing in the breeze. I am sardonically laughing at myself for so many of the things I have done, and yet, I am so confounded. Why have you stayed by me all this time? I suppose its fitting now that you are moving on. You can be like the free wind and just leave me to my own devices in the street. I can find another way to inch uphill and back home to the breeze. Maybe some rain will come and wash me out to sea. Isn't that what they say? All drains lead out to sea. They all lead out to sea.

Curiously, there's a tear in my swallow tattoo, just on the curve of his right wing. I wake up and it's bleeding sometimes, or I'll be walking around and I smell blood before I feel it wetting my shirt. If you asked me how it happened, I honestly wouldn't have a clue. I know only this: I didn't do it to myself this time. I had to tell my therapist about that yesterday, I had to tell her how I used to do these awful things to myself. How I used to slice my skin open just to see if it would bleed. That I used to stab myself with pins and needles and tear out my hair. How I used to lock myself in my closet or my bathroom and bite my flesh until it bruised. She seemed concerned, and asked me if this was still going on. I said no, and that's the physical truth of the matter. But emotionally? Well I suppose I lied then. I suppose I just traded "up" as I got older for thoughts that could cut me open like razor blades instead of the actual artifact.

I suppose I just learned to unleash my sadistic side onto myself and when that spilled over, onto those around me. That would explain a lot I suppose, that would account for a lot. But it doesn't excuse any of it of course. I take full responsibility for any and all of it, I know now those were my actions, and I know now that I wasn't responding appropriately. And then of course she asked me if I had ever had suicidal thoughts. Well, I couldn't start covering my tracks now. No, we were too far into the woods and baby it was getting dark. Ironically, you were with me in those moments. Strange, I brought your letter into the office with me, but I never even got to it before my hour was up. I just sat there with it under my left hand on the couch and when it felt too hard to go on, when I was having trouble relating the more desperate moments of my existence, I felt your words move through me. And my right hand, it would start to tingle and then glow; the hand I used to bind my energy to yours, to vow to protect and honor you with my essence for the rest of time and beyond, no matter what became of us in the end.

Tears fell and my shoulders sagged as I related to her the darker periods of my young life. All the moments I felt I had lost control, the moments I felt completely isolated, without a god to love me or a purpose to guide me. And then of course, I had to explain myself. How does one accurately describe the feeling that brings one to contemplate ending one's life? Let alone actually capitalizing on it. Well I suppose it was logical to me then to explain how I might have been broken down around those periods, what was going on that made me so desperate to escape even the rhythmic falling and rising of my chest when I would breathe. I didn't really explain too much about the first attempt; it's still too hard to explain it without feeling my wrists shrink up in that oddly sympathetic way. It didn't matter, I didn't get far, she wanted to know something.

She asked me why I was never hospitalized. I couldn't answer the question. I don't know why I wasn't hospitalized either, I suppose it comes down to that answer my mother gave me years ago: We were too frightened to know how to help you. In truth, I think their denial was so great, and my illusionist skills so perfected by then at 13 that it wouldn't have mattered. They would have had to be on me round the clock, they would have had to supervise me showering, dressing, undressing, I would never have been allowed access to sharp objects or have any doors that locked at all. I think it was too much to deal with the challenges I was presenting to them already, than to have to admit anymore personal defeats and intercede. To send me away? I think that would have been a final admittance that they couldn't help me. No, better to keep up appearances than to admit I might have been past the point of saving. And then when that reality became violently abundantly clear, we dealt with it like the Irish mob, and kept it all in the family.

To be honest, if you asked them about it today, I think they would just draw a blank stare. I think they'd act like they had absolutely no idea what you were talking about. Ask my mother about the scar removal, ask her about the "fresh start" at Brewster. Ask her about my major depressive episodes where I locked myself in my closet and tore out my hair for hours, sustaining what would be the first of at least 3 mental break downs in my life thus far. She won't remember, or she won't want to talk about it. Believe me, I have tried. They get so bitter, so angry, so defensive when I even try to broach the subject. So when my therapist asked me that question, I couldn't honestly think of any other reason than "You know, I don't think they appreciate scrutiny into private matters? They uh...they really like to pull the denial in tight and just kind of ignore or deny anything that they can't handle." It was a lonely place, to have to admit it plainly, I was on my own then. I had no one to help me, no one to save me. No one but me and at that time, I was far too weak, I was far too ill to see reason.

At least that has changed I suppose. I can say that I haven't had a legitimate suicide attempt in years. I haven't cut in years either. I wonder if you are surprised to know that, that I have not hurt myself that way since you left. Well, I haven't, and I won't. I've thought about it sure, I'll admit that, of course I've thought about it. But I can recognize it for what it is now: a self destructive coping mechanism. It doesn't help me really, it only gives me physical wounds to fester along with my emotional injuries. I'm not centered in that place anymore. Pain is something I would very much like release from. It's had me in its toxic clutches for far too long now. At 26 years old, I should not be able to say I hold onto pain any longer. There may have been periods of my life where it was all around me, circumstantial and self manufactured, but I deserve to be liberated from all that now.

It was with that in mind that when I began to speak about my second attempt in high school and how they interceded properly then, that it occurred to me, I might give her some insight into why my mind would have wound up crawling towards that oblivion once again. I began to describe my relationship with Meg, the way we kind of clung to each other trying to save each other, but ended up drowning in codependency and acrimony instead. How in the end of our relationship, she didn't need me, but I had become the crutch and without her, I didn't know what I was doing anymore. That loosing her was like loosing my only purpose. That loosing her was the final insult in a long line of traumas I had been through in the 3 years before that, never mind all that came before it. I spoke of how I had fallen behind in my courses, how I had become maniac, hyper vigilant to the point of paranoia, and so withdrawn. How depression and rage were wearing me ragged and when she walked away, everything became clear to me: I was not in control of my life, and I couldn't even hold onto love. All I could do was implode in self destructive fury.

Ah then it dawned on me, to explain to her what had happened the year before. Because let's face it, how could something like that NOT contribute to my total breakdown? To anyone looking on, just a year ago things had seemed so different. Just a year before merciful PTSD had set in that winter and allowed me to pour myself into school, securing awards, and prestigious positions in student government and added responsibilities. But even though my mind attempted to shield me, the carrying of that terrible dark secret, that life threatening secret, that horrible despicable secret, had worn me down and finally broken me under its oppressive yoke. Its understandable that months after I was raped, the memories started to flood back. That I would wake from sleep so many nights sweating and shaking with his words ringing in my ears. And he was long gone. No longer around to torment me as he had taken so much pleasure in. He was out there, no doubt, obsessing over a new girl. Plotting ways to destroy her and take something from her that you can't even begin to understand until you have lost it. My faith was broken. My trust in humanity was crushed, and most of all, I hated every inch of myself. Wasn't it understandable that I should suffer with guilt and dejection and crack under the pressure? Wasn't it perfectly reasonable considering that I should attempt to check out early after all that had happened? I don't know what I was expecting from her, I don't think I could have even seen it coming.

She was interjecting with moments of sincere concern. She was telling me "I'm sorry that happened to you, that's a really horrible thing to have happened and it never should have happened to you." And I was completely caught off guard. She may have well have slapped me in that moment. I'm sure I've heard those words come from a thousand lips before when I tell them about my experience, but this time, something was so profound. Something broke and my usual reserve melted away, I cried tears of absolution. It was like I was confessing to a priest and he was forgiving me without any recourse or need for additional penance than to simply confess. When she said that I felt like she was telling me it was OK for me to feel upset about and not always be the stoic one. That yes, it was something that never should have happened to me or to anyone. And that somehow, this wasn't my fault after all, that I didn't deserve all the things he had done and said. The reality broke over me like waves of light. And I felt my right hand shimmering and a warmth I can only describe as your love spread through my arms.

In the end, she told me she understood perfectly why I never told anyone, she told me without me having to tell her the reason why: I didn't feel safe. God the feelings that rolled through me are indescribable. There was heartache, and pain, and sorrow. But there was also relief, and I could feel it distinctly: healing. I felt unburdened. I felt like she helped me take all the sting out of most of his words in that moment, and that she revealed his actions for what they were: vile without a doubt, but with no blame or responsibility cast my way. We had to end our session then. It happened somewhat abruptly, I despise time for that. I told her, I had said to a friend the night before, how I felt bad because this was just one trauma in a long line of them I was going to have to unload and encounter before I could be rid of its negative affects. But she soothed me saying just what I needed to hear, "You just take this at a pace that feels good for you, we're in no rush here. I'm not going anywhere." I cannot describe the mercy that the Gods are visiting upon me in allowing this chance to heal myself, to fortify my soul, and to strike out in bold new ways liberated from a painful past and the negative behaviors I learned to use to cope. Before I left the sanctuary of her office, she leaned forward and looked me in the eye, "Are you going to be alright? Are you OK, leaving now?" she asked me, peering over her spectacles.

"Yes." I found myself saying in reply and actually meaning it. I walked out of there wearing my bleeding tender heart on my sleeve and got into my car. In the parking spot, I turned the keys in the ignition, and Ani Difranco sprang to my eyes. Sweet irony, "Letter to a John" was blaring. You know the song, we used to belt it all the time together. My heart heaved and I sobbed, listening to the lyrics with freshly opened ears. And I felt with each tear, my pain being carried away, my fear being replace with healing, and my past fading back into a place where it no longer haunted my present thoughts so often. How I missed you in that moment. How I wished I could have shared with you my triumph. I was facing these demons head on. I was taking them down and I was putting them in their place, behind me. They would no longer govern my present, and no longer hover in my future like obstacles. I think, you would be so very proud of me, that in those moments I bore all and had the strength to come away from it feeling better, so much better than I have in years.

I do not mean to suggest that that is completely dealt with, no I believe I will need constant work to integrate these things and learn to cope or heal properly over time. But at least there is some hope that there is a path to light and love, and I am finally walking it with each courageous foot fall forward. I did not go home after this like you might expect. Instead, I went out and met up with a friend. We went to the Exploratorium after hours and played like children amongst the exhibits. For a few hours, I forgot all my worries, I forgot all my painful chafing wounds and was just in the moment, enjoying being me. I explored and laughed and talked with strangers. And when I drove home, I stopped on your block to return your things.

After I knew you were not there, I parked in front of your house and wrote you a note. I slipped it into the bag and walked to the front door. A door I no longer had a key to, excepting my heart which pounded your name. No one was awake, but the cherry lights of your living room flooded everything with the light I love so well in your house: amber. I dropped the bag by the front door gingerly, as if its contents were sleeping. For a moment I just stared at the door, the little Valentine's day charm dangling from it. I sent your mother silent wishes that I would see her again and feel her warm embrace. I wondered if your father was finally sleeping, it was "early" yet for us, only midnight. I miss this place so much I thought. And then I realized, I was no longer welcome in it.

I fled, and as I walked out of the small archway, my hand dragged along the ocher bricks. Tears started again, and as I crawled into my driver's seat, my breath caught. I looked back at your house once more and felt my heart breaking again. This was a place that had held such comfort and love for me once. A place I had celebrated birthdays, anniversaries, and just everyday life in. Now it was only a place of memory. Like a beautiful homey tombstone, it loomed above me. I sighed and put my car into gear and then I sped off into the darkness of the night.