madermouse's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6/13/03 The sky is shades of Paine�s Gray in my world today, so I turn to these pages to purge what feels like illness. And actually, I am ill. (I�ve had a cold for a week.) But this illness is the one that pervades my thoughts, my sleep, and my mood. This is the kind of illness that has increased in frequency and is almost my constant companion now�like holding hands with a shadow�like living on the dark side of the moon. I remember at one point it became easier to count the days that I felt good. Being sick in bed has given me too much time to think about things. I lay in bed last night and every time I closed my eyes I could see images. The year since the hospital passed before me chronologically, but in fragmented bits and pieces. I saw myself in the hospital, weakly getting off the bed to the MRI machine when something wet ran down my leg. I had shit myself. I remember just sitting there, staring, disbelieving. It took me a minute to understand how I could shit myself after not eating anything for a week�the barium contrast they�d given me to drink. It ran through my system like water. And the worse part was that I was so weak I couldn�t even clean myself up. I stood by and watched as a friend gagged and scooped up shit from my socks and I cried. I saw myself crawling from couch to bathroom to bed, recovering from surgery, sweating from morphine withdrawls. My belly hurt all the time. I was weak and pitiful. But I was thin, I was thin, I was thin. (255) I buy two dresses in a smaller size and walk around the apartment in amazement. Maybe something good did come out of all that pain. Back to work. I felt ancient. An 8-hour day was too much, but I had no choice. There was money to be made and bills to be paid. I had nightmares for two months straight. I dreamed of nurses coming at me with tubes and needles for every orifice and doctors with scalpels. I didn�t like being awake either though. Fall came. I could eat again. The dresses I bought in July, now too tight for me to wear, taunted me from the closet. They reminded me that I was only thin because I was sick, not successful. I boxed them up. Thanksgiving was supposed to be my vacation for the year, my much-deserved break. I spent the first half trying to mask my sadness from my parents, the other half getting sick, puking green bile up and curled up on the couch. The illness got less violent, but I never got better. GERD. December was a blur of nausea and running to the bathroom and doctor�s telling me it was all in my head. I felt like death. I drag myself to work and to bed, unpacking whenever I can. Food becomes my enemy. I stand in front of the mirror after a shower and notice my collarbone. My face is thinning again too. I dig out the boxes with the dresses to find they fit perfectly. Again, illness pays off in my hips. April comes, spring arrives. I do not find enchantment in the newness of growing things and baby animals. Instead I carry around with me this aching loneliness that comes from being sick and alienated. I finally feel better than I have in months, yet I sit at home alone on a Friday night yet again. I decide I�m not being proactive enough, so I call my friends to make sure they know I�m available. I suggest a movie, or an art showing but they already have other plans. I offer to meet them for coffee or try a new restaurant, but they are too tired or busy or just say no. I�m sounding desperate and I know it, and they know it, and yet I can�t stop myself. I�m driven by this all-encompassing need for friendship and it spooks everyone around me like a horse in traffic. I e-mail a friend expressing disappointment that we never spend time together anymore. She blames it on our different schedules and her busy home life, giving me the whole, �It�s not YOU, it�s ME� routine. I count it out and it�s been almost 6 months since she agreed to spend time with just me outside of work. I get the picture. I give up. I flash on me a few month�s later. I�m standing in the kitchen, staring at the caller ID. No one had called. With the exception of a few solicitors, the stupid phone hadn�t rang in a week�s time. I throw the groceries on the floor and sit on the linoleum and bawl. Am I really so awful that nobody wants to be around me? Then I get scared that the answer to that question might be yes. I vow to be lonely in a room full of crowded people. May comes and goes. I start having pain in weird places, feminine places. Just when I think my sex life can�t get any worse, it does. I�m diagnosed with CPP and begin vaginal physical therapy. Use your imagination. The month of June arrives. We turn our car back to the dealership in an effort to swim out of the debt we are drowning in. This vehicle was my freedom and I find that suddenly my world gets very small. The simplest tasks take hours by bus. The little bit of socializing I do becomes complicated and premeditated. Fast forward to my friend�s wedding. I practice for 3 months learning Celtic music on my flute. Every single day I practice for half an hour, faithfully. In private, I dazzle myself with how good my tone has gotten and how fast my fingers work. But when the time comes for me to play, the bus to take me there never shows up. I catch the next one. The bus driver hassles every fourth person about their ticket. We pick up a man in a wheelchair who, 5 minutes later, just can�t seem to get situated. I finally arrive late, disheveled and full of rage. I have no time to warm-up and my fingers freeze and stick and my dry mouth won�t make the sound come out right. I stumble through my music, clouding what should�ve been a lovely ceremony. I humiliate myself in front of everyone. The bride says not to worry, it wasn�t that bad. But after all that hard work, nobody understands how angry I was. I drink lots of wine at the reception and stuff myself with Mexican food. I flash on my kitty�s body as the vet gives the final injection. I watch the life pour out of him. I watch my husband scream and cry, repeating over and over, �I just killed my Pete. I just killed him. ME! I just killed my cat.� I cry for what feels like days until I simply cannot force another tear out. I empty his cat box. A week later I wash his food bowl out and put it back on the floor�not knowing what else to do with it. His ashes arrive in a box. Two days later my mom calls to say my childhood cat (of 25 years) had to be put to sleep. I thought she would live forever. I get sick with a cold and spend 3 days in bed, giving me too much time to remember and don�t even bother trying on the dresses. They don�t fit. 2:57 p.m. - 6/13/03 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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