a bride

i have been a bride and i have been a bitch and i have watched the door close behind him.

i have learned some things.

and i won't fight your battles and i won't mend your wounds and i won't watch my days slip through the sunsets.

dance dance where ever you may be.

so christmas is almost here. it's been a year since ivan died and it's hard not to get caught in the grief but i don't want to lose christmas to suicide and nostalgia.
because i love christmas. love spending time with family and the smell of the christmas tree and the beautiful lights and cookies and bagels and the magic and the surprise with giving giving giving. i love going to the christmas revels with my family each year and filling stockings. i love everything about a time of year that celebrates love and kindness and peace on earth. because in my family that is what this time is about.

and i am lucky to have my family.

and i am so grateful that i don't have to have that other family tarnish my memories with their judgments and their hate ever again.

and so much is on the horizon for joe and i. where will we live? where will we go to school? a new home. time to lay roots. it is all so exciting.

and i will think of ivan and of those christmas eve's years ago and the bent cards with my name misspelled that he would give me and that i still have in my top desk drawer. and i will bake cookies and watch christmas movies with joe in the home we have fought hard to make real and warm and safe for us.

i like believing for a month each year in peace on earth and the loveliness of being a child.

holiday cheer

i love christmas. i have always loved christmas.

i don't know why now it just makes me feel sad.

ugly side

i have seen your ugly side. i have watched you punch holes through the boards and the beds and the places i lay my head. i have watched you drown things that didn't even belong to you. i have held my breath for days on end.

you took things from me that i didn't even know i had to give. you broke things in me that i didn't even know could break.

i have spent nights pacing the halls waiting for you to take it back. i made myself small. i have closed my eyes and opened them again and again waiting to see something else but its always the same old thing again and again.

you gone. me here.

the sound of a gun and your head.

i promised things to myself before. i will make those promises again.

you know the ones.

don't live in fear. don't let it control you. it's not your fault. it will get better.

those mantras that i want to believe. that i want to live. that i almost felt but there is always something. and there always will be.

that's just the things isn't it. if its not your dysfunction, it is mine. and i never realized until very very recently how lucky i have been my whole life to have this family that i have and not yours. and maybe i don't have my health but i have my will and bygod it's stronger than alot of what they have got.

i have seen your ugly side. and i have mine. and i will sit in this quiet place for the rest of our time. i didn't want you to leave. i didn't mean to let you be anything but fine/mine.

these days

my cousin had an accident and is in the icu right now with a subdural hematoma and skull fracture. and by accident i mean he fell somehow and hit is head bad. he doesn't actually remember. we don't really know.

and we have been waiting to hear anything for too long and i just want to know.

and isn't that funny how seven years ago next friday i ended up in icu after my own fall.

it's hard to know what to be afraid of when its the stupid things like walking into your bathroom after work that nearly get you killed.

things i had

there was white light and floating on your back and sunsplashes and freckled noses and whispers that said things like 'hold my hand' and there was full speed ahead and not even caring about the stones we left unturned because there was peace in the motion there was promise in the healing there was serenity now and.

and i woke up to the first frost and this bright fall sun and i realized that i have surpassed the part of recovery where things can only get better.

things are starting to get worse.

this summer: my stomach.
this fall: my leg.

and it knocks the wind out of me just the slightest bit.

it just that this part never even dawned on me.

i realized i was wrong.

the doctor was saying they could have fixed the nerves that night way back when if they weren't too busy saving my life. the doctor was saying that maybe they could stop the new nerve damage that is happening now from scar tissue from getting worse than it already is.

he was saying sorry kid, your accident sounds horrible, and now i don't know how to tell you it could get worse.

i get it. i saw more doctors. i hear you.

hope

today for the first time in the nearly seven years since my accident a neurologist alluded to the possibility of nerve repair for my leg. he didn't say it was possible but he said there were steps we could take to see what our options were. but his sentences ended with hope and possibility he used words like options and understanding.

i had given up hope on that kind of recovery years ago. i was told that was not possible.

while i am scared of the light i can't help but lean towards the fresh air tumbling through this newly opened window.

love stories

so i'm not always one for love stories. always wonder what comes next. there's always more. it never ends with girl meets guy. god knows i have run circles around strangers asking them to be more than they can. have tried to let his love somehow turn into my love. have wasted my time trying to make something work because it seemed easier than actually making a bet that i could lose.

today it's defiantly autumn. with a chill but without the wind. i have packed lifetimes into this year. folded up relationships that have rightfully failed (you don't need to make the wrong size fit__). a friend who actually put a gun to his head. pushing forward without two solid legs to stand on (though we shall see - maybe surgery can fix that).

after all these trial runs. the false starts. the early endings. i am ready to move towards my real life at last.

i have found the love that i stopped believing could happen. i find myself laughing so hard i forget to feel scared. and my house is a lot less clean than it once was. my emails longer unanswered. but for all the crying and relying i do, i have never felt better prepared.

doctors are annoying

and so are nurses that don't listen. or open your file and read it before they speak.

i mean really. i shouldn't have to say "i need you to really hear what i am saying right now" to get the nurse to really hear what i am saying.

i am the expert witness to my body.

don't try to tell me.

10 months yesterday

and its like each day i wake up, i get dressed, i get my coffee and i pick up that grief and i hoist it on my back and carry it with me. it goes everywhere i go. and it is heavy.



tomorrow i take the lsats. then i move forward. following dreams. and as i think about where i have been, where i will come, what i came from...

it's hard to believe that an entire group of friends is dead or dying. a few of us made it. but the drugs won hard in that contest. and my best friend and my best boy both chose heroin over me.

i never thought.

it gets better

some times i get so sad when i see the ways our society beats people up. how it doesn't matter what you do. sometimes it is what you don't do.

all these gay youth suicides.

any suicide.

ivan.

it breaks my heart the ways we let the world take down our youth.

i want this to stop. i want to wrap my arms around them and grieve for the world. the little girls on teen mom, the gay youth who can't take it any more, ivan and his drugs, your friend and their drinking. it's everywhere. it's everyone.

so today i want to just remind myself, to remind you, to take a minute to really see the people around you.

lets remind eachother it gets better. and lets believe that it is true.


http://www.youtube.com/itgetsbetterproject

The Trevor Project:
1-866-4-U-TREVOR
1-866-4-8-87386

caught up

i am so type a. so apt to get caught up. got so absorbed in the frenzy of top scores and top schools and top tests and with getting back to the place i thought i would be in that life, that world, that place i lived before. i almost forgot that i don't want that thing anymore. i have spent five years finding balance and peace.

i want to reach for the stars still.

but different ones.

law school, yes. but one where i can grow and reach without all that go-go-go. 'cause in that environment i will be the best. i can't help but compete. and i have made the choice to leave that game.

so we are talking about maine again/still. a school that focuses on making a difference in the world. where i can bake and knit and breath.

i have worked hard for this life i have now. this pace.

and i don't want to leave.

angry

so today was the liver walk where i took my tired ass lsat studying bad leg dragging body to walk and raise money and try to feel hope that we can get this research going keep it up do it in time for my dad. we don't have endless time.

and i felt alone and angry and broken.

and you were not there. and i don't want you here again.

proof

i wanted to pick apples off of trees.

you wanted to throw apples at me.

stress

applying to law school is stressful. i spend over 15 hours a week in LSAT prep class each week on top of my 40 hours a week at my job and then in my free time - well - that's when i do my practice problems. timed tests, logic games, reading comp practice. i read the new york times and spend my train time solving logic riddles.

i have started dreaming logic games. toss and turn trying to figure out which class anna is in if brenda and carla are in geometry and dana and elaine are in history and if carla is in geometry then ann can not be in history and oh my god.

i need a break.

so i have been riding my bike alot. 8 miles a night. it helps me breath.
and i have decided that i am not going to run for the train. there will always be another one. and maybe a chance to sit and wait will be good for me. and i am not going to clean my house. i am not going to have dinner guests or go out of my way out of obligation.

instead i am letting joe make me dinner. i am sleeping in.

this shit is big but its not bigger than joe or me or a cozy saturday cup of coffee.

or the prison shows we watch on sunday where we laugh and lounge and dream about the lives we will change when we finally do this thing.

you belong with me

this has been a lot of work.


& he is so dead.

i tried so hard to stop this.
i miss my old friends.

and this afternoon i cried to my ipod
singing 'please mr. postman'

the things i would give
to have those things.

nantucket

after four days of kayaking and bike rides and eating nothing but lobster and fish (lobster nachos, lobster mashed potatoes...) it is seriously hard to be home. lsat studying is going well. i am immersed. i dream it. i will do my best. but work has been busy and i get home so late and sometimes i sit on my bed and cry and joe rubs my back and makes me rice with beans and salsa.

i wish i didn't have to work my job right now.

weird shit is happening there.

want to work against the man, not for him.

the man blows hard.

soon it won't be so humid and hot. joe will be writing stats on genzyme basketball games and playing his electronica while i brush my teeth. my test will be done. i will come home and drink pinot grigio instead of doing logic games.

first day jitters

i guess it's kinda like that first day of school again... for some reason the prospect of my first lsat class tonight is making me anxious. like real time anxious. like that walking-through-a-movie-set feeling kinda anxious. where my house feels weird and i can't sleep. maybe it's cause i am getting over being sick. that way that i get sick since my accident (you know - joe's three days of sniffles are my ten days of a fever) that makes me sometimes entertain defeat. like how can i work a career in this half rate body i walk in. and this class is for that test that will get me into some school that is gonna change my life. and i don't even want a harvard degree. don't even need that kind of degree... for what i want suffolk would be okay. but still.

and things with joe have been so lovely. talking all night. telling eachother everything.

and when i looked at my legs last night in bed my left leg was alarmingly smaller than my right. like the legs belonged on two different humans.

that's the thing. this is just the way my life will be.

summer fevers

it's true i was feverish for ten days. by the end i felt like i was losing my mind. those dreams. those colors. all that soup.

but there was something nice about that quiet time. playing board games with joe and laughing at the stupid things we would say and do. it felt like being in a tent for a week. all cuddled up watching documentaries and reading books and singing songs about junk food and kissing.

but that's alright cause i love the way you lie....

i did. i loved him. i always let it go. because when he saw me it was clearer than i ever saw myself. that was ivan. my lighthouse. my candle light. my full moon. mygod. i could scream all night and still it wouldn't be enough. still you wouldn't know. still it would be too silent for the things i am trying to keep inside for you.

of course i have a line.

you live on it. spit, jump, punch at it. you rub my nose in it. but i stand here still. i stand here proud. i watch the sky and i believe you know as well as i the difference between wrong and right.

re:(stitution)(tribution)

fuck that family. fuck those "friends".

i bite my tongue
i make excuses for the followers. your church friends and cousins.
i can only imagine the things you say. i don't want to know those people who keep your company. no one like you could ever be like me.

what i meant to say all those years though is that i hate you.
you are incredibly unattractive people. outside and in.
you disgust me.

the ways you talk of me while all those years you beat him. did you know his therapist said you were toxic. narcissists. almost sadistic with the things you did. did you know a professional told him to limit contact with you. perhaps its because you walked around naked in front of your 20 year old son. or the names you called him. or the father fists making things come undone. the years you gave christmas presents to everyone but him. how can you call yourself christian and then treat us that way? judge so many?

you called us names for trying to make it work while teen after teen in your family had babies. how does that work? how were we the heathens?

you called me a temptation of the devil, left your crazy religious bull shit in our car, my fathers car, on our computer. i honestly think you are crazy. outside and in.

and you pretend now to know me/us/your son/what happened. he saw my family before yours on christmas. he has not slept in your house in three years. maybe four. you have seen him less than a handful of times in two years. he is sick and broken and angry because of you. he might even hate you. that is why we didn't tell you anything. let you find out from friends of friends on facebook. that must have been humiliating but perhaps you finally listened when he said 'it's not me it's you. it's them.'

so don't say my name one more time.
or i don't care. my god also has plans for you.

thailand

home sick with a summer fever and a more-fucked-up-than-originally-anticipated hand and in these moments of novel reading and plan b planning i imagine myself alone on distant shores eating with strangers and forgetting to be afraid of things. of the easiest times when no one is there for you and you don't have to wonder cause you know you are alone. and sleeping close to best friends in matching cami's and mirabelle has the best laugh and i have been sicker sunk lower and believed more grotesque lies.

i will pass my life like i pass my time thankful but burdened by this gift of living.

prayers

all i could think when i closed my eyes was

please help me.

finger licking good

yeah, so, i sprained my pointer finger and i am allergic to pretty things like flowers but the humidity has lifted and we - joe and i have gotten through so much and i spent friday at walden pond just feeling the sun on my face and eating grapes with a good friend. i am actually excited for my lsat class and then to have the rest of the seasons to just relax and be happy with the days because the next stuff is ready when we're done.

(joe has the softest hands and the wisest eyes and tells me things i don't want to hear but need to know like eat-eat-eat and the summer always reminds me of those younger days hanging around in beach dunes and main street doorways with those forever friends that i will never see marry because they are dead or worse yet dead-to-the-world so i feel trapped in time remembering remembering and wishing we could meet up now all grown and wise and beautiful. i think they would have had things to say that i would want to hear if they could have just held their breath or learned to tread water shoulder touching sun & shine).

let's be honest

you never loved me.

you just wanted to not be alone.

six years i lived with your inertia.

closed my eyes and turned my head and took my place outside of the world.

the thing is,

i don't want to be right.

i just want to be happy.

(and grief is heavy and thick and suffocating. colds even the warmest sun. and i will never again on this earth in this body speak to or hold or touch one thing from ivan. and every day that i talked to or didn't talk to ivan in his life he reminded me that i was able to be loved. and that meant something. and i wanted to be enough. i want who i am with all these mistakes i make to be enough.)

and i believe in now. in the bike rides and the dinners we make. the vegetables we grow and the things he tells me i am and the things he asks me to stop being.

i am allowed to need and give and hate and take.

and mostly i believe that we all try our best and some of us fall and most of us break but some of us make it anyway. all skinned knees and black eyes and open hands.

but i won't ask you to wait for me. i won't tell you what i can do. i don't know what tomorrow will bring.

i only know that i need this. a park bench and a lunch date and that lady who gives you her seat when she can see you need it more.

reality bites

i just watched the end of reality bites on tv and it reminds me of things like kira and chunky monkey ben & jerrys and those rolls with the flour on top that ivan used to bring to me from the tedeschis in dennis when that was the only thing i wanted inside me. soft bread.

and its kinda the story of me and joe though not really at all. but i am feeling sentimental. and my day off would be so much better if he was here.

i am fragile.

and i used to sing that lisa loeb song to ivan all the time and when i was sixteen he hated it but when i was 31 he would text me the lyrics when he was getting coffee in the morning and i was at work.

he died before i turned 32.

and when i dream of ivan now i am no longer taking the gun from his hand. i am laying on the bed next to him with my arms on his shoulders telling him again and again that he is not alone. that if he has to go at least he should know that.

and i wonder if he knew how much i loved him. how i would have done anything for him. i wonder if he knew that then?

already

i thought i told you already.
i tell you every day.

you just don't listen. you never listen to me.

and it is gray here. then sunshine. and love takes a whole lot of work. and i always give everything to people who only know how to take things away.

give me back my socks. and my dog. and the sound of the bushes brushing the window in the front of my house.

i have a pretty face. i have a pretty place. i need a pretty hand to hold me.

i am not young but i will always be your child

sitting there in that same pink bedroom wondering where my days will unfold. when that moment will come. will i see it coming or will the sky collapse on me as i lean from the car to get the mail. and it is summer there, always, when i think of my home. warm skin, beach hair, the sound of my dad mowing the lawn and my mother moving through the kitchen. peepers peeping, the buzz of the high tension wires, nana glo calling her cat in down the street.

there is no suicide, no divorce, no feeding tubes and no failing bodies --
just the silence of a flower ending and beginning, ending-and-beginning, ending, and, beginning its bloom.

working lunch.

i saw a lady faint in the park. then get up and talk to herself alot.
she said she was okay. i don't know. maybe she was drunk.
i had lunch with a work friend. it was a "working" lunch. we were talking about a client we have in common. i told my workfriend that one of my close
friends killed himself in december. workfriend told me her dad killed himself two years ago.

life is funny.

or rather, life isn't funny at all.

because

because even on the messiest days,
you take care of me.

i promise.

i will take care of you.

rewrite

and eff you. the truth is it is summer time and that was our time and ivan i am pissed that i can't say these things i want to say to you. pissed that you left me here alone. you knew how much these people here hurt me. you knew how sensitive i can be. you were the thing. the one. the person i could tell everything too. you were the one who always always always loved me and now i am here with all of them and mygod you know how they can be. how intolerable this heat is with nothing but that ones nasty notes and this ones rainy day blues. why couldn't it have been them. him. her. anyone but you.

you told me you would always be there.

and now there is no where i want to be.

(and you are not helping. with your morning time grumpiness that lasts through the day. and you are not helping with that screaming you do. why do you have to always scream at me. and you are not helping with those things you always expect from me. i am allowed to have a bad day i am allowed to have my sad times i am allowed to tell you to get the fuck away from me).

i want you to leave.

i want him here with me.

i want the sidewalks to turn into soft spots and the neck cricks to become cookie dough and i want peanuts instead of peanut galleries. i want movie time romance and popcorn balls for the birds to eat and i want soft winds and i want the kind of running that takes me away from all of this and all of you.

Heat Wave

heat wave. so july. so classic. spent the weekend at the cabin and staring at the sky. it's good to be home. breaking my to-do list into little tiny chunks. found a way to not work fridays through august. work is busy but it's good too. these are the days we more than just get through.

4th of july

i can't believe it's already july. yesterday i spent the better part of the day clutching a heating pad not even able to keep water down. i seriously thought i was going to die. today, a little better. joe is cooking us dinner. the house smells good. chopin. sunlight coming in the window. the buzz of the air conditioner and jenckes next to me on the bed. we are going to the cape for the weekend. starting tomorrow. i wish we were going for a week. i always get the creepiest feeling when i am home from work sick. too many years of sick days and i can't appreciate that yay-daytime-t-v because instead all i feel is oh-my-god-will-it-ever-end. it takes so little to push me over that line into that falling feeling where i am afraid to walk down the street waiting for that next thing.

and i want to breath and believe. and i am trying to meditate and let go and find my balance. i just guess i didn't realize how long forever can be and now that i am past feeling lucky to be alive i am having to really learn to expect and accept the way my life will now always be. it's like i am always surprised when my leg goes numb and i can't walk or my stomach doesn't work or my heart gets all bumpy in the heat. and it's not something i have to get through. it's something i have to live with. sit next to. learn to embrace.

and some days that is hard for me to do.

another day

it is hot like a steam room outside and i think that acupuncture and heating pads and belly massages are starting to help my belly just enough to offer some light on the days so i feel better even if only by a fraction.

the thought of having to go back on meds that lead to problems with my heart that lead to more medications that lead to....

i can't go back to that.

not yet. not now.

and summer is here. and we have a garden. and whatever it means... things are gonna work out the way they should in the end.

safe

ivan once said that i was a "people pleaser" but that i needed to learn what i need to please me.

ivan shot himself in the head.

shot
himself
in
the
head.

all the hungry makes me grumpy.
i need arms to fall into at the end of the day.
a promise that they won't ever ever go away.
this make-believe.

this promise against death and dying.

and it's always me to go.

giving giving giving and then giving up.

because i can't do everything.

ivan shot himself on his head.

the last thing he said to me was that he was glad i was home and safe.

he didn't tell me he was about to take that feeling of safety away from me.

and i can't seem to shake the meaninglessness that has come over my life.

three weeks

i have til july 15th to gain some weight or at least not lose any weight or i might have to get a central line put in and get my nutrition tpn. i am terrified of eating from a pump. literally terrified.

i do not want to live with visiting nurses and all the monitoring that would mean.

so i went to whole foods right from the doctor and bought every food i like. in hopes that i can trick my stomach into letting me eat. to get it to stop hurting.

i hope it works. i am doing everything i can.

oil spills, cancer cells, belly aches, growing pains, pizza dough,

back talking, forward walking, you never listen when i scream your name, pineapple flavored liquor - no it's better with vodka, hot dogs, shaved ice, what the eff is eating all my basil, red ants, i am too small for even my skinny pants, lsat practice tests, application essays, beach light, salty air/hair, i miss those cape cod summer nights, grilled kale, lobster bibs, honey-suckle, bird sounds, slowing down.

get me out.

i am losing ground.

weird. i wrote this july 1st last year. and i lost.

dear j,

remember i had that dream about ivan? remember i was afraid he was dying? i finally talked to him today and he was alive and he was the same and full of memories and full of honesty and it was so exactly what it should have been and it made me feel lighter but heavier too. heavy in hope that i don't ever have to lose him. don't have to watch his body destroyed by the drugs he gave his bed too.

he reminded me of things like:
him waking me in the late night hours when he got home and i was sleeping on esther's floor. or the nights i went to sleep in his bed when he wasn't home yet (behind that padlocked door) and he came home to find me. of prom night and me stumbling around in the morning without my glasses or contacts in not able to see a thing. the pact we made when i was 16 that if we married other people we would get together EVERY SINGLE YEAR and cheat on our spouses with each other. that meant true love to us then. we were it.

can you imagine. can you see the years? oh that fresh young love. that time when loving is ENOUGH and nothing else matters. oh the romance of love for loves sake. dry humping and third base and kissing until it hurts your face. not being bogged down by things like paying bills and the realities of dating a person that is broken so badly they could just possibly break you.

it breaks my heart and fills me up. because if there was just love and no real life i could have been with ivan all this time.... and the real world has kicked the shit out of my romantic little heart.

i thought then that two people like us could never ever be together. that people like us burn so hard that together we would burn each other, destroy our very souls. that the intensity would be too much. that it would consume me. destroy me. in some ways it's because ivan did. ivan and i burned hot. hard. we destroyed each other but we loved so hard. now i think that maybe i was wrong. that maybe i need that fire inside me. that maybe i need to be a little destroyed.

love, h

shot through the...

ivan broke my heart when he shot himself in the head.

what little faith i had. it's been hard to find more.

(but i am trying. trying to believe. and when i am laying in the park next to joe listening to little league sounds and the sun is on my face i forget that i was ever afraid of anything.)

how do you harness that. where do you keep it when you are far from home.

blah blah blah

hungry. hungry. hungry.
i will punch the next skinny obsessed girl who tells me i look good.
stupid sick starving themselves effs.

i would give this to them if i could.

cause i'd rather have curves and lobster. cause i don't want to go down like that.

it's sunny here. joe and i are gonna escape to somewhere quiet & familiar this weekend.

happy birthday zac.
(who would be 34 but is instead 10 years dead).

please, i will do anything.

cause it is hard as shit to do anything well when you feel like you are going to throw up every second of the day. i spend my day drinking carrot juice and dreaming of enchiladas. wondering how i could possibly feel this full after eating a fuckin rice cake. what the hell dude.

i am tired of
holding
on.

this was not in the agreement i made with the universe.
fuck the small print.
you should have told me it was gonna be this bad.

maybe i would have reconsidered this journey.

cause this is shit. cause this is bad.

cause i am starving and sick and i feel so weak and dizzy it makes me feel panicky.

and this is shit.

and i am not really in the mood.

and i am scared of dying. want to know what happens there. i wish i believed in that heaven full of dead friends and open hands. but when i think of dying i think of that day in the emergency room when i held on for my life trying to stop this thing that was stronger than me. and when i couldn't hold on anymore there was nothing. no montage. no white light. just this blackness. and i was alone.

and how will they know how much i love them if that is the dying. and how will i know they are okay if that is the dying. and where will i be. and will i even know i am dead.

or will it all just go away.

like ivan and leigh and zac just
went
away
from me.

thing

i've got a good thing going.

you should see his face.

you should listen to his sound.

you should feel this way.

what i don't like about being a girl

i don't like the way it feels when men stare at me when i walk down the street. don't like cat calls or his eyes on my tits. while i know the power of being pretty, feel it like i feel the eyes burning into my body as make my way, it takes things away from me.

i don't like how pretty ladies make each other into the enemy. how we have learned to scrutinize our own imperfections so effortlessly it is all we see in each other. i hate how we have convinced ourselves that we have achieved something meaningful by keeping ourselves skinny and pretty. how we have cut off our own tongues. i hate that we think these are the things we need to be.

and i hate the magazines air brushed thighs. the ones that i have spent my lifetime trying to achieve with exercises and salads and squats. i hate how hollywood has taken to believe that we must all stay young and firm and those plastic surgery lips and those fake boobs that stand so unnaturally still and i think they look creepy but then i look in the mirror and can't help but wonder without those things will i lose him? and these men with their balding heads and their beer bellies and wrinkled skin... how come we women have to stay perfect to keep them?

and i hate the assumption that men feel with their dicks. that they need a tight ass and perky boobs to keep their erections over time. this idea of "boys being boys" meaning men are not responsible for these things. this "reality" written in storybook and movie-reel that men may cheat or leave you for the next best thing. like it's all a matter of time.

i hate those men.

and i don't want to measure up. don't want to be afraid. don't want to have to tell that guy to fuck off when he stands to close to the place i am.

i want to be allowed to grow older. to gain wrinkles where i had questions, markers for the places i have been. i want to be able to enjoy pizza and ice cream and hot dogs without worrying about the weight it could bring. i want to see pretty girls on the street and not have them look at me like i am competing for the shoes they are in. i want to walk down the street without feeling those eyes staring... without wondering about his wife at home... without hoping that my own man never stares at a young girl like that when i am sixty years old and tired and stretched out and beautiful and soft from giving my life to him.

heroes

your heroes are misogynists.

you throw your women away.

i want to be forever young.

six months.
i miss you ivan.

every
single
day.

peace

we have a tiny herb garden in our yard and two tomato plants. i have been reading alot and knitting again. this summer feels good and it hasn't even officially begun yet. i want to find some peace. picture our days dirty in our huge garden in our yard. i like where i am. i look forward to where we will soon be (whether its a cape cod winter or a maine life).

in december we are going to go to costa rica and do nothing but look at monkeys and sloths in the trees and drink iced tea. in the quiet.

i found out on thursday my aunt has melanoma. who knows how bad it is. i try to remember my friend who had a couple of melanoma's removed to no consequence and not that joe's dad died of this years ago.

and i also remember those first moments after my accident. when i was in the e.r. and they didn't know if i was going to live. in my terror and disbelief (as the nurses asked me if i wanted a priest to talk to) all i could think was "my god. so this is how it's gonna go down." after a life time of being afraid. afraid of cars and strangers and men on the streets it would be a night of dancing that would finally kill me.

and in some ways it was this weight lifting. like i don't have to worry about this anymore. like i have nothing left to be afraid of. like every breath i had was a blessing, a win, a feat worth celebrating because what could be counted on in the fight for your life.

and yes, i did that. i fought for my life. and i won.

and it was the scariest most beautiful thing that i would give anything to keep you from ever going through but i don't begrudge the battle because in the end i got the living.

change

so, i'm gonna live. am adjusting to the diet changes (mainly the lack of solid food in my gastroparesis "Diet"). living on less calories and less caffeine. most brutal because i am so hungry. but getting used to it and some things like carnation instant breakfast with almond milk are really not that bad.

we had a really relaxing amazing peaceful sunshine weekend on the cape. it was just what we needed. trivial pursuit and farms, beach walks and the sounds of birds in the reeds on the marsh. it was really just nice.

and the next year things are so temporary. we are trying to decide where we want to be... before we settle into the rest of our lives. three years of law school will keep me in one place. this next year i could be anywhere. so we talk about moving to jp. or maybe joe could quit his shitty job and we could live on the cape. spend our nights in the salt air. joe could do his marine biology. it could be amazing.

or maybe we will stay. who knows. it's hard to say. but right now we have the freedom to move around and make changes. and maybe peace of mind is the most important thing.

fight of my life

so this is the fight of my life. some days, these days. i have to psyche myself up just to get out of bed. cause for fucks sake you can't feel okay on a liquid diet. and i have to go forward with this. with this body i have been given with all its beauty and its breaks. and its pretty broken. my god. if only you had left me with a little more blood. a little more muscle. a little more courage. but this is what i have and i know i am lucky to even be here after all of that but when they told me i would never be the same i didn't know they meant i would never be the same. i miss my old body. i miss being able to run fast and far. i miss hiking. i miss ballet. i miss eating. i miss getting drunk. i miss living without all this stupid pain.

and i have to go on. my stomach might be like this for months and i have to get up each day and go to work and throw up on the bus and study for lsats and drink broth and gaterade and eat a quarter of a sandwich at a time. because i can't give up now. not after all of this. but i would be lying if i didn't say that some days i want to.

some days i want to say.

i surrender.

i give up.

i don't want to do this anymore.

morphine

i don't like the way i feel on morphine. that rush people talk about. that rush people like. it feels the way that i imagine dying would feel. and my muscles tense up and hurt. and those hospital smells. that get into your clothes. that soap they use. the memories. and one size does not fit all. not ever. i get so lost in those gowns. can't tie them tight enough to cover me. and i miss my heating pad. and i hate being npo. it makes me dream of eggplant parm and mac and cheese and all these things i might never get to actually eat again. if it really is scar tissue hanging out inside of there.
i don't mind the blood tests or the ultra sounds or drinking lidocaine but my mouth gets dry from the drugs. and they don't let me drink any water. and it makes me dizzy when they wheel my bed so fast. and my veins are scared and bruised and tired. and i wish there was more than broth for me to eat.

when i think about

our future, me and joe's, i feel happier than i have ever been. like maybe after all this bullshit or as my therapist says (to soften the blow of it) my "amazing life story" i might actually end up where i always meant to be. i picture a house with the biggest yard and the brightest kitchen in maine. law school and sandwiches on the beach and studying in a library that feels like the forest. a life time of laughing with joe and jenckes. traveling. singing those songs. we will go everywhere. i will always feel safe because my home is his two hands.

i had a birthday

and i am 32.

i wish every weekend could be a weekend away. just me and joe. and the sun and the sea.

angry

i am angry.

angry that you can't be here for me. angry that you will always have the last word. angry that you didn't give me the chance to hear you. angry that you left this way. angry that you froze me out. angry that you gave up on me. angry that this is how it has to be.

i want to break things. or leave things. or hit you.

but i can't. and i am here. trying to be the understanding one still. trying to be self-less. trying to take it.

but i am tired of the punches and i am tired of letting this be the thing we do.

there are things that i had

things that i lost.
those days that turn into the longest days.

i am feeling a little fragile today.

don't be surprised if when you call my name i turn the other way.

this is not what i thought life would be. ivan said that to me a month or two before he took his life. i didn't know then how much that took away from him. so i didn't dissuade him. didn't give him a pep talk or some sunny story that was full of almosts and lies. instead i said i know. me too. i listened. and maybe there was more i now would do.

but i knew what he was saying. i know how that feels. this is not what i thought life would be.


but i don't want to leave. i know this is how i will grow. it's just that this is hard. this is hard. this is hard every single day. and i have to do it anyway.

so i am breathing in. trying to hold onto that light. trying to feel this body that i am in. trying to sit with my sadness and not let it sit ontop of me.

sometimes i do okay.

and this weekend was perfect. again. joe has taught me how to relax. how to be calm and comfortable doing nothing. just reading. making banana bread. hearing the sounds of spring. snuggling.

and it makes monday all that harder. leaving that safe warm place that is full and quiet and warm with him.

we are planning a trip to costa rica for the fall, after my lsats are taken and my law school applications are all turned in. we have finally found a way to keep on running without losing anything at all.

dear ivan,

i am trying. i promise you i am.

but this is hard to do.

every day. breathing deep. saying good bye over and over and over to you.

i do my best.

i give it all i can.

it is all i can do. and sometimes, i know, i am not very good at it.

but i won't give up so please don't you.

back to black

here we are again. that time of the month. when no matter how slow i breath i can't shake the death. ivan invades me. subtle things. coming across his number in my phone. hearing a woman at the conference complain about a "sentimental" resident who has boxes of "clutter" because her son died and she won't get rid on any piece of him... and i turned to my co-worker beside me and said "if someone asked me to throw one thing ivan gave me away i would punch them in the face". i carry his high school i.d. in my purse. sometimes i just reach in and feel the stiff plastic on my hands and it comforts me. just to know that at one time he touched that corner of plastic, knowing that he gave that to me at a time when he loved me, knowing that no one can take that from me.

and i am alone here. and i don't want to network or mingle or watch tv. and i am having a hard hard day.

thank you.

it struck me as i was driving up to connecticut for a conference i am attending for work how hard life can be. how far it is from anything you imagined it would be. how you could never have guessed that both your parents would die, or that a carelessly placed wine glass could threaten to take all your blood, or that your first love would grow up to shoot himself in the head. could never guess you'd get engaged twice before you were thirty and married then divorced too. you thought you'd have better judgment or that you would know it when you were in love (you know it now).

i don't know how i got here. i wouldn't go anywhere else. cause this shit is hard but i am trudging my way through and i am on the brink of the whitest light. the softest breaths. peace will come. and life is so hard but it is also so beautiful. breath-taking really.

hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, all this fighting to live and grow that we all do. mygod. it knocks me right over some days. knowing the things that we all go through. the way that each of you has woven your ways into my very skin. my toes. how i feel you. how you carry me. how it all gets harder and clearer and easier to let go. to accept the journey. to know that you will never know.

and i am doing my best. you are. and the love. this love. is all i've ever wanted to know.

Battles

Hilary: 1 Blue Cross: 0.

But the war has not been won. And I am tired of the fighting. Of spending my days split between ultra sounds, lab tests, and calls to doctors, pharmacies and blue cross. This is not my job. This is not how I want to spend my days. And I confess I have gotten so fed up I find myself flying off the handle the second that voice on the phone starts rattling their Blue Cross Bull Shit. "Who are YOU to tell my DOCTOR what medication is best for ME." That sort of thing.

I don't want to feel so angry.

And it can't help this ulcer that I have developed since not having my medications.

And here in Boston we are boiling our water due to a water main 'catastrophe'. It has been hot. The red line is still running slow-ly. Delays Abound.

And the weekend was nice. Dinner and a movie with my parents. Joe and I spent a lot of time reading, sitting in the sun, laying in the park, watching the hours pass by. It is nice to let go. To not do things that I think I SHOULD be doing. To instead just do the things we want.

Love that Dirty Water.

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.

damned if you don't

sometimes in the bustle i forget where i was. not but six years ago. purple gloved hands washing my body like i was a rack of dishes in a restaurant kitchen. stupid useless legs. resting on a shower chair. stupid useless body. not doing the things it was supposed to do. i remember it all in flashes. the visiting nurses with their lap top computers changing the dressings on my wounds. the way it felt to lay in bed and feel the blood trickling out of the drain they had shoved ten inches into my body. the way it throbbed every time i moved. the time the physical therapist told me i had the body of a swimmer as i did my round of leg lifts in bed. or mornings passed lifting arm weights because it was the only thing i could still do. it's hard to read. on all those drugs. it's hard to feel. when the world acts so bad. it's hard to remember. when your days are so terrifying.

i was terrified for so many years.

come back to now. and that damn scar tissue from my abdominal aorta tear is getting my down. it hurts to breath. i am not sleeping well. and it is hard to not be in a bitchy mood when this pain is so persistent in reminding you of the ways you failed to heal. the things that will always be wrong with you. and i don't have the energy now, for this. i am not going back to those regimes of drugs and shots and forced hospitalizations.

i would rather sit very still. i promise not to move.

luck

i am lucky to live among the most precious things.

mygod

for the first time in over a year the place i live feels like a home again. i moved in may in the midst of a breakup. i couldn't get invested. i didn't know where i was or if i could stay. but now we have a bedroom that feels so nice i don't want to leave. two working tv's (being sick will never be better). a loveseat to go with our couch. a christmas light chandelier over our table on the porch. a firepit. shit. it's perfect. and we found a store in brookline filled with all the russian food joe misses and the flavors that remind me of that long ago (now) kazakhstan trip and they had the sweetest honey and the most bitter beers and i felt, again, like i am living here, and not just going through the motions on a street that could be anywhere.

and saturday i missed ivan so much my heart hurt. i remembered the first time he told me i was beautiful. we were at the stop sign down the street from my parents house. and he might have been the hundredth person to say such things but when he said it i felt beautiful and not like he wanted something from me.

it's monday now. and it's raining. steady-like. like it's gonna keep on raining. and i have the lsat's to study for. budgets to break.

and for a second before i stepped off the train i didn't have one thing to be afraid of. and that feeling. again. like life is going to be good. despite all this shit we are all stuck in.

once

i just wanted to feel your breath. i just needed to know you were here (anywhere,near,).

* footnote

for those of you who judged me (and you know who you are) i would like to retract my year of agonizing and the guilt i felt for finding happiness with the statement that josh is moving in with his girlfriend of as many months as i have had a boyfriend. (josh who is co-dependent and who couldn't be in a relationship and be his own person. Josh who didn't want therapy because he just really needed to find himself). me, with my open, bleeding heart, let you make me feel bad about myself like it was me who did something to josh by moving forward when he told me to leave. and you judged me assuming i didn't try hard enough or that i moved too swiftly. and so i guess we were all wrong.

but at least i can boast integrity. a heavy heart full of new beginnings. white light. i found my peace and i am living a better life than i ever even thought could be.

and you.

you are just an ass hole. who reads my blog.

perspective

my mother has multiple sclerosis. my dad has hepatitis c. my first love shot himself in the head. my boyfriends parents are both dead. they have been since he was 17.

it's easy to feel bitter with this kind of scenery.

but then there come the cloud breaks. the high fives and the prequels. the never-meant-tos fade away and in their place come the it's-like-you-were-always-theres.

i ate a huge m&m cookie for lunch. nothing first or after.

sometimes that is just what i have to do.

a spring cold

and really we're still in the last days of winter and i have a fever with this cold so maybe it's something more menacing and i am used to being sick but mygod how quick it takes me to that place. to those days. to those years spent decorating hospital rooms with magazines and flowers, looking forward to my hand picked meals and cable shows and physical therapy. the little things that won't go away and eff my compromised immune system how about my compromised heart. my compromised ideals. the ways women have to compromise their dignity (or else we are uptight for caring about the media and the mens exploitation of our tits or the ways we look right through each other).

or how about that blanket he took. how about the days i crawled on my knees begging him to just stop yelling. to just talk straight. to just forgive me.

how about the lies he told. how about the stories he fed me. how about the ways i agonized over the promises and the dishes when he had already given up, already run away, already taken the gun and the pesto and the good sheets to his corner. already said his good-bye.

and i am not crazy.
and it was not my fault.
and i am not responsible for the ways that he/they/you failed. me.
and you failed me first. and hardest. and without reply.

and i merely decided to let go.
so go.
and don't you even text me again.

Noah's Arc

We are beginning the need Noah's Arc here. The rain just keeps coming down. I like the sound of the rain drops ka-pluncking in the trash cans all through my office. Like the dark-ness of the day. Like the slow-ness of my office. But I don't want to get carried away.


http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/hilarysmama

tgif

cause i have had nothing but meetings today. one-after-the-other.
and i am tired of meeting.
you know?
tired of listening, tired of pretending, tired of stating the obvious.
and this morning rachel in my office started telling me about deb and her dead wife and we both started crying and neither of us knew why.
but really we both knew why because ivan is dead and leigh too and her mother in law died a month ago. and everyone dies. and everyone who lives is left living this life that sometimes, even on the brightest tuesday, they don't even want.
and who would want this?
and who wouldn't?
and who knows what number is gonna be pulled at the senior center bingo game by that woman wearing too much perfume. and who knows who will keep track and yell it first and who will have bingo for three letters and not say a word because they really don't care and they don't need the 50 gift card from target they just needed somewhere to go.
because the house felt so empty since he went away.
and his shoes. his shoes. his shoes are still by the front door.
and she can't bare to move them.

and i love you.

i love you so much the walls cave in and my throat feels tight with all these sad songs.
and i wanted to remind you to stay through the spring but the sky is gray and there really isn't anything.
is there.

and some mornings, and most evenings, and when the dog wakes me at 3 to go pee i picture the things that i could have been had i spent a little less time hiding.

I'm Sorry

Mama Please don't tell me
that this is what I'll do
Cause the days have grown much longer
since I said good bye to you

So tell me you're sorry
or tell me that you're scared
or tell me your story
and I'll take better care

And Father can't you scold me
the way that you used to do
tell me of the forrests
and all the things you do

And tell me you're sorry
and tell me you're scared
and tell me your stories
so I'll take better care

I hurt him in the morning
and I felt quite alone
And I knew he was stronger
than tea leaves and poems

And I know that I'm sorry
I have always been scared
And there's no time for stories
But next time I'll take better care

So leave here or hold me
Or do what you must do
But always remember
The ways that I loved you.

me, i've heard what you have to say.

and you, you just shout in my face
and i, i tried to be a little more pretty
i tried to clean the sky for you
i held my breath until my tongue slipped away
and i danced wearing nothing but the sheets and
the light of the moon and you, you never even saw me.

simmer down

sometimes the hardest part is saying i do care.

the blues

my baby said he'd never leave me.
i thought i never could.
thought he'd always see me
the way that he should.

but the days are gettin warmer.
and his feet are growin cold.
i know he's a charmer
and alone i'll grow old.

i said good bye to my favorite lover.
he took a gun to his head.
the nights have grown so much longer
since he is gone and dead.

i thought i found a reason
in this old sweater of mine
instead i found a season
and this stupid little rhyme.

and its well passed midnight
and it's like i've been doing time
sitting here with my computer light
and trying to stop this cryin

could you drink just one sip with me
twirl me in a line
tell me your sweet stories
and i will keep on tryin...

(baby i've got the blues)

footing

you gotta find your footing.
gotta sing the blues.
gotta yell so loud the glass shakes.
that glass that lives inside of you.

you gotta reach for the stars.
spit on the outlines.
don't ever let the spirit carry you.
you gotta carry yourself.

away.

south

So I have been out of town. Santa Monica for pleasure and now New Orleans for work though we have had time to slip out for a swamp tour and a really depressing IMAX film about Katrina. It's been good to get away. To get some perspective. To feel less of that weight that woke me some nights. I am thinking of going to law school. Joe is looking at film school. I can picture our future full of late nights and hard work but it all feels so happy when I let myself believe.

I always wanted to be a lawyer but decided it wasn't practical. I spent so many days sick. I thought I might be too tired for those kind of work days.

But sometimes I want a profession that offers more challenge. And I am so good at the fight. That is what I do. I would be the kind of lawyer that helped people. Basically what I do now but with the power of "esquire" that "social worker" doesn't award.

I am excited to get home. To go to Joe's shows. To study for the LSAT's and to spend afternoons baking bread and dreaming of the places we will one day be....

maybe

maybe i learned nothing.

maybe i will let you tear me in two.

again.

maybe i will always hate you.

nothing

maybe i learned nothing.

maybe i will let you tear me in two.

again.

maybe i will always hate you.

i've seen the needle and the damage done

i didn't want to find you here. i didn't want you to have my ear. i meant to make you stay away.

(i hope she doesn't spit on my face. this time i hope i spit on hers.)

easy

it's easy to run. what's hard is getting away.

bruised knee, open palm of hand.

last night was the darkest night yet. for some reason my grief crawled across the floor and consumed me. mygod i could hardly breath. and i am not even sure i wanted to. and i looked around and there was not one thing i could think of that was worth being here for. of course it was a fleeting moment. less of a thought and more of a hiccup. and this must be what hopelessness feels like. and this must be what listlessness looks like. and i felt so hurt so judged so over the things i was in.

and i just wanted peace.

and i just wanted an end to this ache. ivan. why.

(is it a dream, is it a lie)

later. same day. same place. but i listened to the saddest songs. then the mean ones. the fuck you songs. the fuck it ones. and then the other ones. 60's girl bands. arcade fire. i let jay z convince me that its okay to be forever young.

and maybe it's okay to be so sad you can't breath. as long as you go on and breath anyway.

sometimes,

i really hate the things you do.
but mostly i just hate being so far away from you.

stay a little longer....

i am being haunted. in the most spectacular ways. sweet sweet dreams and ivan is there so tenderly for me. and i wake up to my little family in our little house and i feed jenckes and whisper my good byes to joe and then ivan and i walk to the t stop together and i feel him everywhere holding close to me and sometimes i wonder if i am losing my mind but these dreams are like nothing i have ever had before and some days i can hardly breath and i don't want even one sound, one movement, one thing to happen. i don't want him to go away again. and when the day breaks with snow flakes or sun sky the world becomes it's cold cold place and i am alone again. and i am running out of numbers to call. faces to pull. places to hide. dead friends piled next to my bed.

be mine, valentine

saturday was leigh's funeral. these things are so hard no matter what i try to tell myself. no matter what i try to do. the hymns. the things people remember. i left fast after. saw alot of people i didn't feel like, in that moment, spending the time to remember. i don't like the funeral-time-shit-shooting. i wanted to be whispering sick-stories with leigh again from my hospital bed. i wanted to be away.

so we left. stayed at a chatham inn. twenty minutes from my parents house but it felt a world away. high tea. sherry. a fireplace and a shower made for two. we ate my favorite foods (bread with brie, olives, chocolate covered gummy bears, prosecco) and he kept me from breaking right in two.

light

so the days are getting longer and that light has that brightness that hints of spring and this is the time of year when my pulse starts to quicken with all the expectations of those bbq days.

grates

ohgoodgod this constant pain starts to grate on me. i wish i could just sit with a heating pad and some pain meds til it gets better but i have a job to go to and a house to clean and dinner to cook. what am i supposed to do. and it's getting worse not better and i am not going back to that hospital. it's the last thing i want to do.

i have grand plans. things like knitting my very own sweater. baking bread and some dessert food every sunday. pineapple upside down cake waiting at home for me (okay that part is already true i made it for superbowl sunday). summer days making homemade jam and pickled corn and maybe even a garden too.

so now, and in the meantime, i just have to keep pushing through.