Seeping Through

I really do need to talk to you. If you owe me anything it’s just enough time for me to say what I need to say in order to get on with my life. I never understood why I wasn’t special enough to make you want to change. I need you to tell me that it wasn’t my fault and that I didn’t do anything wrong. Can’t you give me that? Can’t you tell me there was nothing I could have done to change your mind? I know you. I know you cared about me enough to do this for me. You know I'd do that and more for you.

I planned it all out. I even typed exactly what I wanted to say so I could concentrate on not allowing my throat to close up and jumble my words. I wanted this message to be crystal clear- free of cracks in which he could slide through to avoid the uncomfortable confrontation he had been successfully dodging for years. I prepared for everything besides what I would do if he picked up that phone. Would you believe it? He picked up the fucking phone.

I hadn't spoken to him in over four months. I'll admit I dialed as restricted in the middle of the night on his birthday just to hear his voice on the mailbox recording. It wasn't so much a consolation as it was a painful twisting stab to the chest cavity. I didn't know unrequited love could survive so long on what little bit of life was left in me. I sought resurrection- I needed to close a case with an emotional monologue as my last ditch effort to move on with my own existence. I wanted to pour the remnants of my heart through that phone line and leave it as a steaming heap amidst his voice mail messages. Plan B.

He knew it was me after an awkward hello. I shuffled to sit up on my bed and stupidly fixed my hair as though he could see me. I tried to remain calm as moisture flooded into my palms and blood gathered in my cheeks. I tried to silence the pounding of my heart with a pillow gripped tightly against my chest and I closed my eyes to focus on the warming melody of his voice. God, how I missed the way my name fell from the tip of his tongue. His muffled giggles reminded me he had been drinking, and I reset myself to concentrate on the fact that he was an unbelievable manipulator. I stared at the words on my computer screen and waited for an opportunity to lead into my rehearsed performance. It never came.

We laughed as he urinated outside of our favorite bar while telling me he had been thinking of me and how he couldn't get the song "1901" out of his head. I melted even though all three thoughts were combined in one sentence and knew he wasn't capable of being much more tactful than that. It might not have been perfect, but it was him. It was all he was ever able to give and it sounded just about as honest as he could be. I shut the computer and my planned attack quickly faded from my agenda. I finally teared up when he asked, in the presence of his equally drunken friends, "Turn the music down will you? I can't hear Krysti." The background quickly erupted with a symphony of hellos and Iloveyous... and it felt like home.

He asked if I had called before and it was easy for me to lie. He said he was doing as fine as could be expected, working deliveries for a Chinese restaurant while he waited for his year suspension at the casino to be over. He didn't ask much about Philadelphia or my stint in Jersey, but I could sense the tiniest hint of disappointment in his voice when he mentioned my move into the city. I wasn't sure if he preferred I'd come home to Michigan, but I didn't ask and he surely didn't confess. I openly admitted I missed everyone and it was good to hear his voice- but I didn't expect anything in return. I never did. Perhaps that was my problem all along.

He didn't mention his new stand-in girlfriend. After a half hour the reception faded and I knew he was safely to the Mansion and I could sleep well knowing his drunken driving held up for at least one more night. The man was a ticking time bomb but I loved the thrill he gave me. It used to be that every time he brushed against me I felt the sensation of cold sharp steel scraping down the insides of my gut. Time slowed as my heart raced. My feet and fingers went numb and I literally had eyes for only him. I can't even think of any other presence to compare him with, because none would do justice. It never mattered how long I spent away from him. The sensations never faded. If anything, they had intensified to ensure their effect on my adaptive self. It was a sickening, masochistic addiction but it was so incredibly satisfying. By the end of our short conversation, I felt exhausted. I let the stale air out of my lungs and wondered for what length of the call had I forgotten to breathe.

I imagine what I may have felt had I executed my original plan. Surely I would have preferred to be disappointed by his answers, or lack thereof. It would have been a reinforcement to my developed realizations. I would have gotten exactly what I expected and it would have bored me. Perhaps I wasn't ready to cut ties. I was miles away from him and that would suffice as a protection shield. I had felt incredibly alive for the last twenty seven and a half minutes- and it seemed, out of four months, like appropriate moderation to me.

Standing At The Beginning

For years I've slaved against the haunting of my past. Although rooted deep in my subconscious, I still have only it to blame for the incurable incapacitation I face on a daily basis. I have to. Though vague, it is all I have to attempt to dissect the issues I have with most routine adult transitions. I'm not certain if I'll ever understand them, or even have the nerve to reveal them to myself. I only know that the struggle inside me is more real now than it ever was before.

There were plenty of times in my past when I could brush away the nagging darkness inside me and chalk it up to a side effect of adolescence. However, as I trudge into my life as a competent adult, my passiveness has begun to evolve into pure terror. Will I always battle this disadvantage? Or... will finally, someday, these shadows be enlightened with maturity and experience? Does one ever have a chance to grow out of themselves?

I feel as though that day doomed me. October 19, 2004, confirmed I was different. I was singled out completely from everyone I'd ever known. I was transformed into an outsider who was constantly trying to rationalize why she was on the outside of reality after she had seen so much more than everyone on the inside. Very few children see death. Very few children taste the bitter finalization that death presents. Why I was placed on square one of a cursed path, I guess I'll never know.

Most of the problems I face hardly seem rooted in her death. Some, I can abstractly relate to the tragedy, but others are harder to weave in. The only connection I can fathom is, ironically, the disconnection. The detachment, the distraction. It was as if that day, something inside me died with her. My childhood, my innocence, my attachment and faith in companionship. I had previously been abandoned by choice, and now I had been abandoned by chance. I suppose my reaction was the only sensible one at the time: I became terrified of loving, and even more horrified of losing.

Perhaps my inability to give and accept love is temporary. Perhaps whatever compartment these emotions have been hidden in for the past years will reveal itself and allow me to digest them properly. I am so tired of creating illusions of caring relationships from dysfunctional situations just to reassure myself they will never work. I choose my actors wisely, and sometimes believe it all so completely I suffer with the illusion of failure. It lasts only as long as I ignore my initial script, because at the end of the scene, it was me who wrote the entire play. The games, the men, the sex, the make-believe romance were always doomed from the beginning. They were doomed by me. I wish I wasn't so incredibly convincing, because the better I get, the longer it takes to snap out of character. The only thing I know for sure... is that I always do.

Winning the War

Unfortunately those of us born with the "nurse curse" often spend most of our time and energy attempting to rehabilitate certain individuals around us without realizing the simultaneous decomposition of our own lives. Characteristic of most parasitic relationships, the people we allow to feed off us do so willingly, and greedily. Not only do we allow this, but we welcome it. Ironically, the state of devastation usually parallels our own state of fulfillment. It works against every survival tactic ever realized to human kind. It can't even be classified as humanitarian, because those who are repeatedly taking from us do absolutely no good with what they reap. They are not grateful, nor willing to display the same type of selflessness to any other.

Girls like me, we never wait to see "him" fail. It is inevitable, yes, but he is never challenged to accept his fate. We free them immediately. We assist them without hesitation- without stopping for even a second to validate his credentials. We only see good. We see suffering. We see a chance to make ourselves feel better about our insecurities by investing all we can into a seemingly lost cause. If we succeed, we surprise ourselves... but do we ever succeed? Does the reward ever match the labor? It doesn't. The constant disappointment eats at us until we feel helpless, worthless, and most of the time abused, though this is never justified. How is it suitable to feel abused when the only one abusing you is... you? The man who never sought your money or help, the addict who never sought your love or support. We give them what we think they need. We force ourselves onto others uninterested in our charity. Who is being used? We seek to assist others for the ultimate feeling of fulfillment. Do we care for the individuals, or just the appeal of heroism? We feed off the vulnerability of others to eventually make ourselves feel more worthwhile. I can admit guilt here. I can admit guilt a thousand times to this realization because it is the only thing to set me free from these subconscious quests for validation. If I am the user, I cannot also be the one feeling failure. I can only feel defeat from a battle I was never equipped to win.

LIVING AND DYING

The book Living and Dying, written by Robert J. Lifton and Eric Olsen, is a collaborated work about life, death, and the various transitions people experience between them. It is an exploration of occurring and reoccurring imageries influenced by symbol gaps and the impact those imageries have on one’s desire to minimize death anxiety and maximize symbolic modes of immortality. The book is a clever attempt to approach death in a way pertinent to the masses but sensitive to individual experiences. Lifton does this by analyzing the reasons for such symbol gaps and elaborating on the effect these gaps have on this generation and our inability as both individuals as well as a whole to cope with the inevitable emptiness we experience in the face of impending grief. Further, he explores the basic human drive to attempt to overcome that intense void by improving our life imageries while struggling to create legacies to ensure our immortal remembrance.
In chapter one, the authors compare death to sexuality when it was considered taboo during the Victorian age. Although most refrained from speaking of it, the population still grew. Like death, sexual relations were a part of life whether or not anyone chose to acknowledge it. No matter if it was denied, it was, and is, one of life’s guarantees. Regardless of our unwillingness to accept the actuality of death as an inevitable end to mortality, the entire human species, no matter how culturally diverse, continuously strives on all levels of consciousness to overcome our inescapable destinies.
Unlike the progression of the acceptance of sex, death has become the Era’s new taboo topic. This can be accredited to such things as nuclear holocaust, which Lifton and Olsen also discuss in the first chapter. Blatant acts of destruction have enlightened the world- introducing us all to the reality of extinction. With that comes a wave of numbness on generations exposed to technological warfare which belittles a once well established meaning to life. However, rather than succumb to the vicious effects death often has on individuals, we are habitually driven to counteract such events with imagery-improving actions to reinstate our faith in eternal life. Without demonstrated values, faith tends to be questioned. That lack of faith severely impairs the fluency in life, which in turn causes transitions such as death to become frightening and uncomfortable. Lifton does not hesitate to compare the subject of death to that of sexuality early in his explanation of our instincts to repress feelings that make us uncomfortable and/or anxious. He highlights our frequent denial to acknowledge specific parts of our existence that are necessary for our ability to experience life in its entirety.
Also covered in this chapter is the idea of a desensitized public. Exposure to war, domestic homicides, and terrorism leads to a “blockage of feeling." People lose the ability to cope and instead grieve in ways crippling to their existence. Although sometimes essential in preventing ongoing suffering, a numbing effect of unnecessary loss can often lead to a “permanent incapacity to feel."
Not only do we repress death, but we literally shun it from our lifestyles. Our culture has completely alienated most everything related to our inevitable demise. Scientists are constantly reinventing ways to fight aging through medical means such as cryonics and plastic surgery while our elders are being sent to spend their last years in homes away from their families and friends.
These are just few of the main ideas presented in the first chapter and preface of this book. Lifton and Olsen set a thorough and exploratory tone for the succeeding chapters on the impact of the increase in technological warfare, the desensitizing of societies exposed to said increases, and the decrease in acceptance of death as part of human life.

Dead Lines

I awoke to a harsh pounding in my temporal lobe. There were screeching tires on the inside of my skull and small children banging pots and pans behind my retinas. The searing sunbeams scorched my feet, exposed from the sweaty comforter wrapped around my exhausted body. He was gone. I tried to lift my palm to shield my eyes from the intruding light but did so unsuccessfully. I felt as though I was sinking into my mattress under ten thousand tons of sea water. I fought to regain control over my sad attempts at respiration and surprised myself when an entire breath flooded into my lungs. I held it there, satisfied, until it broke through and escaped me. My lips were rough and chapped from a night of failed attempts to unlock some secret code to his adoration. My body felt weak and used. Remnants of crushed pills littered my nightstand and a trail where his wet finger ran through the middle of a dusty mess reminded me of his hands. They were such mean hands. So malicious and deceiving. So unbelievably manipulative and cruel. I felt more abused than I had each time before. I had waken up alone many times. Still, the sensation of disappointment crushed me when I could still feel the heat of his body lingering on my neighboring pillow. If I had just stirred a minute earlier, I may have prevented this feeling of complete and utter disregard. He may have stayed. I may have trapped him in this mess of tangled hair and offered another helping of my tattered and worthless body. The weight of his vessel once more was much more appealing than the weight of the regret I was drowning in now. I would only delay this feeling, but any minute of freedom would be priceless. The speed of my brainwaves exhausted me. I pushed my feet back into the sunlight and allowed my heavy head to sag into my pillow. I opened myself to the shame and let it anchor me back under the sea, one thousand tons at a time.

Small Bites.

The warmth from his tired body seeped into mine as we tangled ourselves into one another. His arms snaked sweetly down my spine to rest on the small of my back. His calloused fingers teased the waistline of my jeans. They explored for a few seemingly endless seconds before they rested limp and exhausted through a tattered denim belt loop. The breath in his chest caught suddenly before fighting its way through parting lips. The rush of it swept across my forehead pushing stray strands of sweat drenched hair from my face. My eyes, fixed first on his thinning hair, scanned cautiously to meet his. They were tightly shut, so I allowed myself to imagine swimming beneath his eyelids, lost in an undertow of helplessness. I scraped my fingernails lazily down his chest to the trail of hair on his exposed stomach. His body writhed under my touch as his iron grip tightened around my wrist, guiding me back to his ribs. He had always been sensitive to a light touch, and I watched in fascination as his lips struggled to fight the upward curls on each side. I stretched toward them, careful not to loosen the knot our bodies had formed. I let my lips graze over his swollen pout, numb to the rejection he offered as he rolled to the opposite side of the mattress. My skin chilled instantly as his peeled away from it, exposing my body to the cool air intruding from the winter night. I reached for a single sheet to pull over my bare shoulders and rested on my back. A single tear escaped down my cheek and I allowed myself to retreat once more to the lonely corner of my restless mind. I could always be strong tomorrow.