Tag Archives: pain

Losing my history

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Today was Robbie’s birthday. He is 22 and is one of three of Mike’s siblings. He’s also a new daddy — someone PLEASE remind me to ask permission to post photos of Ciana — and has a wonderful girlfriend, Jaysa. We all went out tonight with a couple of his friends to the Chinese buffet in Watertown.

Sushi and beer, a girl's best friend

Sushi and beer, a girl's best friend

After over three years of dating Mike — we don’t subtract the two months we were broken up — I’d like to say that his family is pretty much my family. We’ve known for a while now that we are going to get married. He is my best, best friend, and the connection between us goes deeper than words can explain. If one of us is hurting, both of us are hurting. I don’t know about him, but I feel physically drawn to him, like a magnet to a refrigerator door (or to an old-school chalkboard, if you remember them).

Right now, we are both hurting.

That magnetic connection is still there, but we both are currently faced with the C word. I can no longer lean on him when I’m having a hard time accepting that Popi is sick and may not be with us much longer. Now, we must lean on each other, and I honestly don’t know how to be there for him when I am hurting so much myself.

You see, today we found out that there is a tumor in his mom’s brain. This strong, beautiful woman is like a second mother to me. No one could ever replace my own mother — I love you very, very much, Mommy — but Tracy is very dear to me. They — meaning the doctors — don’t know if it’s malignant or benign, so we have to wait and see, and anyone who knows me knows that I suck at the waiting game.

I thought for sure that maybe she had MS, and it was an MS lesion. I wanted it to be MS, so very badly, just like I wanted my grandfather to just have a damaged sciatic nerve. Instead, the C word looms.

And people act surprised when they discover I am smoking again.

With makeup and au natural hair

With makeup and au natural hair

Don’t get me wrong, things aren’t all bad. I went to my writers’ group this afternoon, although I was half an hour late because it started at 3:30 and I work at my PT job until 4. I didn’t bring anything with me, either, so it ended early because out of the four of us, only two people brought something in. One of us wasn’t even there to perfect her writing; she is an ESL student and joined the group so that she could hear more conversational English and learn from listening to us pick apart language in our writing. She’s Russian, so she is automatically cool in my book. I sometimes desperately wish I knew more about my Russian heritage, but thanks to my mom’s dad taking off when she was a teenager, we know next to nothing.

Anyway, she was very cool and for someone who claimed to not be a writer, she had quite a bit to offer to the conversation and lots of suggestions for Chick’s poem.

Even though I had nothing to bring in with me, I did spend almost two hours yesterday writing a chapter for Secondhand Mom. So far, it’s nine pages long and is probably going to be twice as long when I finish it. It might be so long that I’ll have to break it up into at least two separate chapters. Regardless, it felt really good to actually do some writing. I fell right back into pace, and am really loving my characters right now. I just wish that I had more time to spend on writing as opposed to working.

Yesterday was also my first appointment with my new psychologist, but that’s a whole other post.

I am trying really hard to see the good side of life right now, or else I’ll probably lose my mind. I often feel like my whole childhood, my history, is just being pulled right out from underneath me by some meaner, bigger kid. Life’s a bitch like that.

Anyway. How are YOU?

Friends

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I’ve always had a hard time making and hanging onto friends. I’m not sure why. I’m (perhaps stupidly) the kind of person who will bend over backward for those I care about — and often for people I barely know. I love pretty much everyone, unless you’re a douchebag. Then I won’t waste my time.

I consider myself a warm, honest, open, and friendly person, albeit a little (lot) shy. I’m sure when I finally get to meet some of my favorite bloggy people, I will most likely spend the first hour or two quietly taking in everything before I say much of anything. During outings, people say I’m quiet but that I’m “something.”

I can be witty. I like to do stuff like rent random movies, spend a night in, go out for karaoke, watch cheesy shows like Instant Star and enjoy it, and I can keep secrets. I can also tell my own secrets, if we’re close enough.

I think I’m a pretty good friend, if only I had more than like two.

There’s Jillian, whom I worked with at FYE “back in the day.” We became fast friends. We could be best friends. We just don’t hang out enough. She recently moved to New York and then moved back, which helped with the hanging out. We have a lot of fun when we’re together. I’ve never had a reason not to like her. She loves Stephen King and drools over Julian McMahon. There are always good times to be had when Jillian and I get together. She gets me, and I can be completely myself around her. (Read: totally goofy and insane.)

Then there are my friends from high school, the ones I hung out with a lot the first year or so after graduation. Now? We barely speak. There’s Joe, whom I went to dinner with a month or so ago. There’s John, who I haven’t seen in over a year (but we still talk on Facebook occasionally). These two stick out the most, only because I developed friendships with them beyond just hanging out and laughing. The problem with them is that we’re all freaking busy. They’re both in university, living their own lives. So much time has gone by that we’ve become old acquaintances. Ghosts who still appreciate each other but have too much to do to make the time to get together.

Then there’s Nikki. Again with the busy. She goes to Southern, and while I went there we saw a lot more of each other. Again, we could be best friends, but for some reason it doesn’t go all the way. We have lots of common interests, but live different lives. I can talk to Nikki about ANYTHING, and she never judges me.

Michael, Lauren (my sister), and my Aunt Rikki are the closest people I have. They aren’t friends in the sense that they aren’t related to me or madly in love with me (because of voodoo), though. And Mike? Is not a girl.

I had a best friend, once. I thought I could tell this person anything, could trust her completely. Over and over, she demonstrated that no, she could not be trusted. I kept giving her chance after chance, and that’s probably where I went wrong. I’m a sucker, because she was my only truly close friend and most likely knew that no matter what she did, I would always forgive her.

And yet, in the aftermath of the biggest deception she has ever pulled on me, I still find myself missing her. I have been dreaming about her. (And not in a dirty way, so you guys can all stop the hawt girlsex fantasies now.) Sometimes, I admittedly even pull up her Facebook to see her statuses to make sure she is okay. And why? I don’t know. Because I truly, truly love her, even after she has hurt me time and again.

Even after all of the bullshit, I still want to call her up, tell her I miss her, and get together for a rented movie. Is it because of the history? Is it because we went through the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows at one time together? I don’t even feel this way about my ex-boyfriend, who I thought was my first love back when I dated him. (I know now that Michael is that first, true love.) I shared a lot with that asshole, and even though I occasionally wonder how he is doing (even though he is a big, fat, wet douchebag), it doesn’t go much beyond that. I definitely don’t dream about him, and he definitely doesn’t occupy my thoughts all day!

A few weeks ago, I told this girl (my old best friend) that I really, truly love her and her kids and would do anything for them. Part of me feels guilty, because that anything doesn’t include being walked all over, talked about behind my back, and having deep, personal things about me shared without my knowledge or consent. I was so angry when I first discovered her treachery, that I couldn’t even think about it without shaking. Mainly I was angry because she would most certainly not want the same thing done to her. Only three people on this Earth knew before she went flapping her mouth, and I only found out that she had told someone because, hello, I found it on her blog. (So not only was she telling people she and I knew, but it was also publicly all over the fucking internet. BEA-UTIFUL.)

Getting pissed all over again.

AND I still miss her.

Am I a masochist or what?

I think part of the reason I kept going back to her was because, honestly, she was my only girl friend. She was the only person I have ever been that close to. We shared so much in the six or more years we’ve been friends that it feels like I’ve lost a limb. And yet, with everything else in my world slipping through my fingers, I can’t allow anyone to abuse me. I can’t allow her to continue to treat me like nothing while I do everything for her without a second thought.

And believe me, I have tried explaining to her how I feel over and over again. Even when I told her that I don’t want to talk to her anymore because of what she did, she still didn’t get it. She said something to the effect of, “There’s more to the story but you wouldn’t want to hear it.” So, there’s more to the story involving her telling people something I wouldn’t want them to know? Something SHE wouldn’t want them to know? I don’t care what the “story” is — she told something about me that she knew I didn’t want anyone to know. Hell, SHE didn’t even want to talk about it ever again! So, hypocrisy is the name of the game here, and since I caught her out, she still had to try and justify it. There IS no justification; had I done the same to her, she would never forgive me. I know exactly what happened and why she told who she told, and that makes it even more sickening.

BUT.

There’s no point in me wasting my time. I am sad because I have lost a friend. It would be nice to have this friendship now, when I most need someone who understands and knows me completely. It would be nice to be able to sit outside with her, drinking cold beer and chainsmoking, while I tell her how I’m feeling, how scared I am, how much I don’t want to lose my grandfather. It would be nice to spend part of the holidays with her and her kids, watch them open their gifts and the way their eyes sparkle.

The kids. Don’t even bring me to the kids. I feel so guilty that I have stopped talking to her, because I also love those kids. But, as horrible as it sounds, I can’t be there for them, doing everything for them, while she walks all over me. I honestly can’t even stand to be around her. It would make me sick to my stomach to look in the face of someone I once trusted, someone who told a personal secret just to impress a guy.

Because that’s what it comes down to — impressing a guy who did horrible things to her over and over. I just can’t wrap my head around it.

So, at the same time I grieve the loss of my good health, and the suffering of and impending loss of my grandfather, I grieve the loss of a sisterhood.

A friend.

Prognosis

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I’ve always taken the people I love for granted. When the thought of losing my grandparents — my Noni and Popi, and my Biz Noni — came up, I’d push the thought away. See, I grew up surrounded by these three, and they are still a strong presence in my life. (I live with them and see them all every day.) My grandparents and great-grandmother are an important part of me. Noni is 62, Popi is 70, and Biz Noni is 86.

“They’re all in decent health,” I’d tell myself. “No one’s going anywhere anytime soon. Stop being so morbid.”

The truth is, I’ve been jaded. Because a week ago today, I found out that my Popi has cancer. Before running additional tests, the doctors at the VA hospital said they thought it was stage three and that it was in his liver and maybe lungs.

I told myself, “That’s shitty, but he’ll be okay.” I just couldn’t think otherwise.

A week later, we are playing a new game. The stage three is actually stage four. The cancer is in his liver, lungs, most of his spine, and his left hip. They have diagnosed it as aggressive lung cancer, and have told us that they can just make him comfortable at this point, via Percocet and chemotherapy. The chemo will extend his prognosis; without the chemo, they were giving him a few weeks. I don’t want to say what the prognosis with the chemo is. I don’t want to think in numbers. I don’t want to think in time.

According to the (awesome) doctors at the VA, the cancer took root two months ago.

Two months.

It only took two months to spread that quickly.

Two fucking months.

I went to visit Popi again today. He looked good; still handsome, but very, very tired. He take a chemo tablet tomorrow morning, and starts his first round of aggressive chemo via IV on Monday. This particular kind of chemo could cause him hearing loss and kidney problems, as well as the usual nausea and possible hair loss (not that my Popi has a whole lot of hair left, anyway).

It still has not sunk in for me. It feels like this is happening to someone else. I cry, but the pain ebbs and turns to numbness and cold disbelief. I think, “No. Not my Popi.” I write pages and pages in my journal. I let Mike hold me tight. I let my mother, grandmother, and aunt hold me like I am a small child while I cry. I lay awake at night, unable to sleep. And still, it doesn’t sink in.

No. Not my Popi.

They crawl in like a cockroach, leaving babies in my bed

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After I published yesterday’s post, I went downstairs for a shower. It didn’t take long for me to completely freak out about what I’d written. Of course, it also didn’t take long for me to have a total nervous breakdown.

It’s hard for me to talk about these things, but I have severe trust issues because of many bad things that have been done to me. It’s so bad that my feathers will get ruffled at the slightest thing, no matter how innocent the intentions of the other person were. I’m not going to go into detail, but there was a misunderstanding on both parts and I freaked out. Completely. It was understandable, from all sides, but what I did wrong was shut the other person out. Completely.

Last night I finally let Mike pick me up and finally told him things I’d never told him, things I’d never told anyone. We spent three hours being completely honest with each other about anything and everything, and even though this weekend was straight out of a Lifetime movie it was so emotionally disastrous, I think our relationship is a lot stronger now. It was really, really hard to tell him these things but once I did I felt as if I could breathe again.

After the hard stuff was over with, we spent the rest of the time telling things we love about each other. It’s a game we play every once in a while, but we’ve never gone that in depth. He literally told me he loves the way I run, because it’s “doofy looking and cute” And he loves my nose. And lots of other stuff.

It seems like every time we go through the proverbial storm, we always come out stronger than we were before. This weekend was an emotional shipwreck, but I feel even more connected to him now. I’m pretty sure that’s a good sign that it’s meant to be.

I felt kind of guilty about yesterday’s post for a while, but then I realized that someone else out there has to feel the same. Someone else out there may have needed that horribly depressing post to know that it’s okay to feel that way.

I’m still pretty shaken from everything but last night helped a lot. I hadn’t realized that these things bothered me so much still, but I couldn’t deny it to myself anymore.

I have to block out thoughts of you so I don't lose my head

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I’ve been living in a little bubble of hell during the last two days. I had weird, empty nightmares the last couple of nights. I woke up this morning thinking about old, painful things. I laid in bed for hours last night, my head all kinds of fucked up. I have lost more trust than I ever have before during this weekend, and since Friday it seems like my past has come back to haunt me. I’m scared and I’m alone and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I want more: to be alone or to try and learn to trust again. It seems like every time I put my trust in someone, they just end up hurting me or taking advantage of me.

What do you do when the one person you thought you could trust, the one person you thought you were safe with, is not that person? What if, time and time again, they keep doing the same thing? What if they apologize for it every time but then do it over and over, even though they know it hurts you? What if you can’t trust anyone?

You are supposed to be able to trust teachers. They are supposed to care about you and they are supposed to guide you. They are supposed to be people you can look up to and people you can go to when things are wrong. Sometimes, sick people hide behind the facade of someone who cares. Sometimes these people hurt other people. Sometimes, when you’ve been hurt, no one believes you. The teacher still has his job. He can do it to someone else.

You are supposed to have fun in school. You’re supposed to make friends and maybe even date. They shouldn’t make you do things you don’t want to do. They are supposed to be your peers and your comrades, but most of them are sick. They touch you and whisper in your ear, they make you want to scream but you can’t.

Time and time again my trust has been betrayed. I am naive and stupid; once I finally let my guard down and start opening up, I only end up being hurt. I want, more than anything, to give back the trust that others put into me, but I just can’t anymore. I think of all the times I was lied to and all of the times I was disrespected and it makes me fucking sick.

Once again, my trust has been betrayed. Once again I question myself and I wonder if I’m just an easy target. The things that have been done to me are sick and unspeakable, and I thought that it was all behind me. I thought that I could move on and that I could finally have an unshakeable kind of trust in someone else.