bad run

so i am having a bad run.

it's just my stomach hurts in the strangest, newest way.

or maybe it was this bad before. those vague far-away days when i threw up more than i kept down.

but i am so hungry. and i can't eat. and it hurts so bad. i can't sleep.

and i am cranky when i don't get enough food.

stupid silly yucky days.

sick day

home sick. it's not the way i remember. i have such fond elementary memories of day time television, vitamin c drops that tasted like candy, and my mom making cinnamon toast for me.

i spent my day reading and catching up on work emails. racking my brain hoping i didn't miss anything really important. i am pissed pissed pissed. it seems so unnecessary. i had been what my doctors call "stable" for so long. tomorrow i waste my morning at the doctors. again. hassle to get there. hassle to get back. rushing to make my meetings.

but the sun is shining and i have a good couch and jenckes has been laying on my belly since the morning. joe bought me gatorade and chicken soup and pot pies and gnocchis.

all my favorite sick-things.

i wish i could make blue cross reimburse me for my time.

what i said

what i said was going to happen is happening. sore throat. sore stomach. can't eat. raspy voice. doctors doctors pills pills.

ethics. ass holes. the reason i am pursuing my law degree.

there is nothing special to say today.

just that i feel let down and it has everything to do with you.

kidneys, birthdays, and getting by

on friday there was a lab error that prompted a rush to the emergency room and blood tests to check to see if my kidneys were working. and i lost ten years of my life to the stress of. not again. and there was that fleeting moment sitting on that mass general stretcher when i gave up a little thinking, maybe this is the life i am meant to have. maybe this is all it's ever gonna be.

and i was less scared and more forsaken.

i gave up.

only to find out i was okay.

two special little girls in my life had birthday parties this weekend though i only was able to go to one.

joe and i watched a little league game, sat on rocks, and played ball. those are the moments that feel just right. i have never wished for a life of weekends like i do lately.

i am trying hard to lift this weight. to take care. to let it go. but it's still hard to do, with him gone, and knowing what i know.

dear god

i was kidding. please don't let it be my kidneys. i need them. i want them both.

okay okay

i don't want anything to happen to your babies. not your daughters or your sons. i would never wish on you what my family has gone through.

blue cross

so i know that the cost analysis is a business practice. i know that when you see the numbers you don't see me. and hell, why would you. you aren't the one that spent a year forcing down banana smoothies because you vomited up every solid thing you tried to eat. your doctors never made you gag down ensure weight gain, the kind that has oil in it that you can actually see floating in the disgusting chocolate "shake". you probably didn't spend your mid twenties projectile vomiting in churches, parking lots, job interviews, grocery stores and at every holiday dinner. you probably never got so thin your skin looked more like parchment paper over blue. i bet your voice never got so coarse from your regurgitation that you had to go on steroids just so you could swallow and breath. you probably never got to the point where you decided you wouldn't fight it if they pushed the feeding tube if it could stop what you were going through. of all the things that accident took from me the motility in my stomach is the thing i most miss. nights slept sitting up my heart beating trying to just keep down my food. oh i'm lucky to stay so skinny that's what you think right. but i am nauseous all the time, my throat hurts, the stomach spasms i have make it feel like i have been punched a hundred times some mornings and i am constantly in the hospital for dehydration, low potassium, stupid shit that i would rather not have to be dealing with and doing. it has taken me close to three years to finally get my stomach to be tolerable again.

and blue cross decides to not cover my generic medication anymore.

so yeah. fuck you blue cross. i hope that i end up back in that hospital. start having to take that expensive zofran again. twice a day. three times. i hope that i need an ambulance and in patient treatment (like i did before) that includes cat scans and nuclear medicine tests to see how delayed my gastric emptying still is. i hope that this aggravates my heart condition and leads to longer stays on the cardiac floor at top tier mass general. i hope that i require holter tests and stress tests and a stress test echocardiogram. i hope i have to get a hundred upper endoscopies. and
i hope your daughters go through what i have gone through. shrink before your very eyes. and so then you can tell them about your bottom line. how the studies show... how for most people its this way and how their months, their health, their happiness aren't what matter because what about that penny in your pocket and what about your sweet vacation. and when your daughters start losing their hair and their skin gets dry and they hug their heating pads instead of going to prom i hope that you still believe that this was the only thing to do.

because otherwise.

just look.

look at what you do.

enough

i am something.

and you can do or not do whatever it is.

shitty time

so maybe i am having a shitty time.

maybe you have been a shitty friend. like the shittiest.

bygones.

right?

let's be bygones. or how about i remind you of the yous that you have been. the christian you, the one that didn't believe in evolution, and then there was the pathetic you, the one that let me pay your tuition, and of course the controlling you, that wouldn't even let me drive my own car. and you couldn't imagine how much i hate that voice you put on for your other friends. and i am pissed that i wasted five years listening when you didn't even care what you were saying.

yeah dude.

you are lame. and i am so angry i want to throw your christmas pajamas and that tv you left in my grandmothers basement onto your parents lawn while yelling the loudest fuck you ever spoken.

want to kick box your face until my bad leg turns strong. i want to catalog your costs, all heartbreak, and belly ache, and fool.

love that dirty water

if i knew a better way, i would tell you. stay in the edges (or don't care one little bit). use complimenting colors (or ones that clash all over your shit). take your time (or rush forward, get through it).

there is no best way. no short cut. no secret code to get you in the door.

but i think you can do it. and i know you'll be fine. and it just takes everything.

so root for the home team. play catch in the yard. i will be sitting here on this same worn bench.

watching

for

the

cars.

this way

ivan why did you have to leave me this way. oh you can't imagine how i hate every saturday. these open days and i can't seem to get myself out of bed. i know i just got to get there and it will be okay but getting there is hard because i can't imagine how i can face a day. can't think of one single thing i want to do. not one thing. not one way to be okay. without you here.

ballet

so i have started taking ballet classes. i used to dance when i was young. and again when i was living in santa monica. i love the classical music. love the sound of the ballet shoes sashaying across the floor. it's relaxing to me. and on the top of the list of things i lost along with alot of blood and my sense of safety all those years ago. (also jogging, hiking, back country skiing, riding a bike, playing any sport that involves running and a lot of things that i used to love to do).

it is still hard for me to have to acknowledge that i have a bad leg and i will have a bad leg FOREVER. that i am not the person i used to know. that one night could take something from me as important, as huge, as basic as my ability to run and jump and to live on the third floor (as stairs are something my missing muscles and nerves do not seem willing or able to adapt to).

and so i try not to think about it. i try not to try. because when i do it feels like a rock falling on my chest and i feel so frustrated and sad i don't know what to do. and i miss the way my head used to feel after a jog. the wind on my face. i miss riding my bike down santa monica streets. the freedom in the fast-ness. the arrogant ways i would ride drinking my coffee, passing the cars on those crowded california streets. i felt better than them. and hiking. oh hiking. summers spent sleeping in a tent and taking on the next peak. that was my youth. that was my way. that was who i was.

so my rehab doctors said try yoga instead. try elliptical machines. recumbent bikes. try swimming. gentle things. walk. things made for broken people. (and all i hear is broken people like you). and i did. and i do. but sometimes it feels a little like giving up.

and i don't want to give up. so i am trying again. anyway. and who cares if i fuck up or my leg shakes or that i hate looking at my thighs in a leotard (a touch of body dysmorphia is what joe would say but i think i just hate the ways my legs have failed me).

and the shit is brutal. i'm not gonna lie. missing half my calf muscle on my left side makes balancing on that leg HARD. and each class i tell myself that i will just do half of each set to conserve my leg but i don't work that way. once i start i can't stop. i have to do them all. and it's not that relaxed stretching to classical music that it used to be. that whole body massage. it's more like that last mile in a marathon. every part of me having to push so hard to get that leg to just hold me up. but i am winning. the war.

i am making.
strides.

i am crossing things off that list.

tell me again what i can not do.

or eff you spaulding.

watch me go.

dream life

in my dream life i have things like a sunny yard, a rocking chair, fresh baked bread and tomato plants.

in my real life i am getting pretty close to all those things.

isn't that the way.

a series of the longest days. a bum leg acting bum. feeling so tired the ache won't go away. the boxing in that happens.

followed by this day. when the love is so real its like you know now how it was always supposed to be. and the streets feel like home. and the coffee does its thing just the way.

i was inspired at work this week by alot of little things. and then i went home and fell deeper in love than i have ever been.

Happy Birthday Kira.

grief

maybe it's because yesterday was the 7th, marking four entire months since he passed, or maybe it was the memorial benefit show, maybe it was the look in sam's eyes or the way those songs made me feel or maybe it's just that i have been listening the the soundtrack of once on repeat and my boy is feeling kinda grumpy. but for some reason these days have been so hard.

the things i need to tell ivan. you can't imagine all the things. you can't imagine all the stories and heartache that is locked up in my chest without him for the telling to. all the texts i have not been able to send. all the love i can't get from him. all his patience. all his laughter. all his ways he knew how to hear me. all the comfort i got in the forgiveness he would always give me. and i can't get that anywhere. anymore.

the alone. i feel. the heavy. in my heart.

the tears i cry. that mean nothing. that can't comfort me.

it's like i am waiting for the sky to open and for him to be here. that story. that line. that time-heals-all-wounds bull shit. kept waiting for the happily-ever-after of it all.

but this story is all about the climbing. the battle. the journey stripped down and standing naked in the light. all stretch marks and surgery scars.

the shape of my thighs. that shape that i hate. that smell of the city in the heat. the tight throat. the strike of his hand so close to my head but it never hits quite right and i am scared of the noise and of where this will go.

heart break doesn't even begin to name the things i am trying to say.

train rides

there was a pretty girl on the train this morning with the saddest eyes.

(it was me).

she was too young to know.

i wanted to reach for her as she walked through the door.

tell her it's going to be okay, but it's going to get much worse, first.

but of course i didn't say anything.

(and i never listen anyway.)

and along came the weekend.

and the weekend was good.

inside jokes,

pet names, flirtatious comments that aren't really what is said when it's just between friends.

why do girls gotta be such bitches.

sixth grade, i am so over you.