One Last Screw Before They Let Me Go

Every project, every stupid fucking project, I kept saying, "when it comes time for us to go, no amount of projects will save us".  And I was somewhat right - except for me.  Oh, it "saved" me - right into a job that I'd rather kill myself than take.  No, this isn't temporarily on the phones, and I honestly don't mind that.  So in effect, they hold my severance hostage because there's supposedly a "business need" of putting me in an area that I've very carefully chosen to avoid because I really don't want to do it.

I'm not knocking the CSRs - they're awesome people who are excellent at what they do.  But that's not something I want to do, even if I'm not given a choice.  I could use the severance money but how much is my soul and dignity worth?  Is that a fair trade?

I don't think so.  God, this is so horrible that I can't stop crying.

Happy Fucking Birthday To Me

The one thing I will miss, and will probably miss forever, is that Auntie Pillow would always take my dad and me out for our birthdays.  So many memories.  I miss the random lunches with her.  I miss going to festivals with her.  I think that this will be first year that I haven't thrown myself into so many projects that I don't have time to think so that now I have time to think.  And it's sad that I have to post this here because otherwise there will be excessive worry and it's kind of annoying because I like to share my thoughts but I always have to be guarded because then there will be excessive attention and I hate that much attention.  I'm okay, really, just let me get through it.  But I will so miss her and everything else, and right now I just wish I lived on an island alone and that I don't have feelings for people because apparently I can't manage my own feelings and I'll never be sensible about it and that really sucks because it would be nice to have friends that actually understand but sometimes that's a tall order, and I curse myself for believing people when they say that they take things seriously but then they don't, not really, not by any stretch of the imagination.  So I'll just have another margarita because tequila's been the only thing that's really ever been for me because there will never not be a moment in my life where I'm not lonely.

Insert Heavy Sigh Here

For once, I would like to be important enough in someone's life that they think of me first.  That I don't have to put up with the endless waiting and stupid "oh, I'm sorry" bullshit that seems to occur with stunning regularity.  For once, I want someone to stop paying lip service to me and actually demonstrate that I am, in fact, important.

Perhaps my standards are too high.  I hate lowering them, because that way lies madness, and I know it does, because that's a well-worn path and I'm damn tired of taking it.  I think I'm just going to have to adjust my expectations and live with the fact that nothing is ever serious and I'll just be doomed to 3 year relationships or however long it takes for me to give up on it, when I get tired of dealing with bullshit.

It hurts, but you know, I guess I have to.  I probably shouldn't have jumped off that bridge again.  Shame on me for being that much of a fool.

In the evening

So there's the lightening bugs in the back yard and I'm watching them from my perch on the back porch and thinking, thinking, because it's a beautiful evening in a twilight in-between punctuated by dots of glowing green light and why wouldn't that make a person think?  Although sometimes I wish I didn't think because sometimes my brain is my worst enemy and I end up wondering if I am really the person I am or if I'm just pretending because sometimes I feel like a fraud, surrealistic and unnatural, a thin veneer of civility layered carefully upon a hopeless and insane core, a predatory disease waiting to surface and infect the people around me, and it compells me to want to hide myself from the world because that's how it should be if you're that horrible so that you don't rage out of control because no one needs to see that.

No one needs to see the messy feelings and the heartache and the pain and the suffering and the anger, not that anyone would care that much anyway, because people honestly will never care about you the way that you care about yourself, even if you say it, even if you demand it, but then if you demand it, it's not real and a mere chore for another person to perform, and then you're back to the quandary of being a horrible person again that no one should see when you're in that mood so bleak it threatens to break through whatever controls you've set up to maintain that layer of sanity.  And sometimes it hurts to be this way because you want to say everything but you can't not that anyone would truly listen, but still, sometimes you need to say it seriously and it just sits and festers and you feel like a fraud again, hiding behind the smile and pleasantries.

And that's why I think I write here.  To say the things I'd need to say, to a nonexistent audience.

Smiles Hide So Much

The manic pixie dream girl that's all you'll ever be the girl of good times cut off by the intense emotions you ever feel and never being able to tell tell them and you wonder how long it will last before you're discovered a fraud of who you really are inside. It always fels strange but it always will that person you are versus what you show to people and it will always be a surprise despite the clues you leave behind....

Laughing At The Trees

Do I dare jump off this bridge yet?  Would I yet again freefall into the water like a rock as has happened before?  Or do I dare think that this time, I will have learned to fly?

The Things I Know

I've just had a revelation as to why the whole situation with my aunt bothered me.

It was a Tuesday.  She'd gone into the hospital yet again, pain so unbearable, she couldn't stand.  That will sometimes happen with a stroke and given her health, it was only a matter of time before the stroke happened.  Luckily - or maybe unluckily - she survived the stroke and did well with rehab.

Until the pain got worse.

Maybe, just maybe, I would be wrong about my feeling, that complete dread, that this is the end and to say goodbye now before it happenes.  Grandma was there in the dream, that swirling dream about the place where my aunt had lived for many years, my mom answered the door, Grandma was there, my mom, my great aunt and uncle, dressed for a nice occasion, and my Grandma said to me, "We're waiting for Joan to come back."  She was not there yet...but soon would be.

I will mention now, I've never met my Grandma, my dad and aunt's mother.  She died before I was born.  But she still smiled at me and kissed my forhead in my dream.

It was Tuesday.  "Please call me back," I heard my dad's voice say in the voicemail, "I need to talk to you about your aunt's condition."

We'd go to lunch every so often, and in those days, many times, places I could not afford on my own.  We - and the whole family, actually - loved good food.  The Coast, Sabor, North Shore Bistro.  Red Lobster was always hilarious, as she'd bring her own kitchen shears to crack the king crab legs.  The plate would come, and she'd pull a plastic bag with the shears out of her purse.  The last year she went to State Fair, she had trouble walking even past the gate.  "I'm not going to make it," she said.  "Don't be silly," I told her, "they have scooters and wheelchairs for rent.  Let's get one."  As a child, I loved going with her on the bus to Northridge, I'd lean agaist her and say, "Auntie, you are really soft.  You make a good pillow."  She was my auntie pillow.

"So...I'm calling you back.  What's going on?" I said to my dad.  "She's decided to discontinue dialysis," he said, his voice cracking a little.  "She will be going into hospisce.  The doctors say it will take about a week."

I had called on a Saturday in September to see if I could do my laundry at their house because the people in my apartment building were assholes when it came to laundry.  "Hello," my aunt answered, pain evident in her voice.  "Are you okay?" I asked, forgetting about my laundry.  So from then on, almost every Saturday morning, I would go over and do her laundry, to spare her the pain of going up and down the stairs to the basement.  Of course, I brought my laundry over to do as well.  We'd sit and chat, watch How It's Made, munch on ten year old cheddar and crackers.

It took forever for them to transfer her to hospice.  They wheeled her in.  "I'm so sorry," she said, "I never wanted to be a burden."  "You were never a burden," my dad told her.  "Because we love you," I said, "nothing was a big deal or a burden."  "Stay with me," she said.  "I will, Auntie, I will."  So every day for 7 days, I showed up with my lunch, watched TV, and talked to her, even when she no longer could respond.

There are times in my life where people disappoint me.  I'm okay with that, it happens, it's life.  But to be honest, there are some disappointments so horrible, I can never reconcile it with my soul.  It's like the chasm of disappointment creates a river of resentment so deep, that nothing the other peson says or does will ever repair it.  I recognize those moments when they happen; I'm just not good at letting go at that point and freeing myself from my feelings.  Oh, I loved Zombie, I really did.  He disappointed me often but I learned to live with it, even when he talked about himself for 20 minutes straight before I could blurt out, "Joan's going into hospice".

I flipped through the channels.  Nothing was on that I wanted to watch.  I touched her arm.  "I'm not good at this, Auntie," I said.  I spotted the CD case - the one she had always taken with her to dialysis - and flipped through it.  I don't remember what the title of the CD was, but it was all the church songs, some of them the ones that I had loved to sing when I was in choir.  I turned off the TV, put on the CD, and for the first time in a very long time, I sang church songs, touching her arm.  She was still soft.  Still my auntie pillow.

"All I need for you to do is my dishes," I told him.  "I've been so busy, I haven't had time to do everything."  My expectation was that he would do my housework while I was at the hospice.  I was so overwhelmed, so, so overwhelmed.  "Shouldn't I go?" he asked.  "No, I need you to help me here."  I will say at this point, I would have preferred he kicked me in the leg.  I learned a very valuable lesson that day - between physical violence/verbal abuse and emotional jackassery, I'd much rather be beat than have my heart ripped out of my chest and stomped on.  Internal bleeding goes away; looking at the person you once loved with all your heart knowing that if something horrible happens, it will be all about them and fuck you, wondering when that horrible moment will come again is heartbreaking.  And it will come again, only a matter of time.  Instead of saying, "Of course I will do this for you because I love you and you are facing an extremely difficult time," he said, "WHAT?  I didn't get to say goodbye!  Why can't I go with you?  She'll be gone forever.  Why can't I go?  I need to see her."  And on.  And on.  Insisting and pleading and insisting some more.  It wasn't until I had finished showering and crying in the shower, that I had decided that it was over between us and that all the feelings that I ever had for him had swirled down the drain, now lost to the sewage pipe.  "Rest assured," I told him as I getting dressed, "that it will be over if you make me do this."  Cue another round of tears.  Eventually, he relented and just let me go alone to see my aunt.

We were her children, she didn't have any of her own.  She spoiled us when our parents couldn't.  Travels to Disney World and a trip anywhere in the world when we were 16.  She was our Fairy Godmother.  And here Zombie was, demanding that I take him to the hospice.  Even Mr Kicked Me In The Leg had not been that much of an asshole when my mother died.

Looking back on it now, I should have just let the fruit flies take over, and kicked him out of my apartment, never to be seen again, except at my aunt's funeral.  You never expect the people you love to hurt you so badly, but it happens.  I kept the sweatshirts that I had painted for her and every so often, I pull them out and touch them, remembering the hugs and kisses and bus rides and lunches.