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.