Yesterday was phone tree day.
Tomorrow is another phone tree day. I can’t text you and tell you. I can’t just text someone and say phone tree day.
Big event days. First day of nephews school. Skydiving day. Big party days. Sleepy eyes locking over mugs…phone tree day.
We said it in a mellow, low tone which marked the calm before the storm. Almost a whisper.
Phone tree day.
Accepted offer. Inspection. So many phone tree days to come.
If there’s no one to say phone tree day….
I miss you all the time. But it’s become like a dull ache you get used to. Today was like snaggin a healing hangnail on a sweater.
No. It was more than that. It just hurt okay? I had a dream about you last night. You were pregnant. I saw you in a parking lot talking to a coworker. You rubbed your belly. You might have been about 6 months along.
I miss you so much. You’re right there. Half a mile away from me most days.
Right there. And a million miles away.
I love you.
I can’t ask you about miley's album. Do we like it? What is she saying in the handstand song?
Did you go to Taylor’s concert. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. You talked about buying a 10 pack of tickets. A gaggle of tickets.
I had a dream about islands last night. It was open again. The one on balboa. I was inside, at the bar facing the front door. two guys were removing a door that was nailed to the inside of the door. And then they opened the front door. I walked around the bar and picked up my phone to text you.
Then the dream changed, as if my unconscious knows I can’t ask you.
It’s like you’re gone. But still here. It reminds me of that feeling only you know. With mom. That you could replicate the exact situation is beyond me, but also so perfect because how could you not.
Obi Wan’s wife is in Ahsoka. She won’t look familiar to you, but you’d believe me when I told you while we were watching together.
We’d also joke about a map with no names and Alexandretta.
I have no one to talk to about Daniel Radcliff’s physical transformation for Miracle Workers which reminds me I need to watch Miracle Workers. I don’t even know what app it’s on since you removed me from your streaming service. Without a peep. I did wonder how long I’d be there. You had to skip passed me to get to the other profiles. Because I was there before they were.
He would see my name every time. And so would you.
I can’t tell you the spot where all my hair ties hide (between the couch cushions).
We three are the islands. Our ports are only open to each other if the tides and wind and sky and sand and sun are aligned with the stars and moon and Jupiter and settings of knobs and levers we keep to ourselves that constantly adjust themselves without us moving them.
They’re always moving.
Others come and go on our islands; ports are open to outsiders who don’t hold the stories we know. The stories we’ve tried to forget and the stories that only our bones know.
I stand at the shore of my island, your port empty. I’ve called back the balloons and banners. No welcome party to threaten welcome you
No. I don’t like Miley’s new album. But that’s just me and we don’t always like the same things.
How do you heal from the amputation of a part of you? As I type that I know in my heart what it is.
This is more than losing a limb or two limbs or all limbs. This is losing part of my dna; part of my actual soul.
When I read her email, it didn’t seem true. But I knew it was. I didn’t feel rage. I felt absolute and complete overwhelming sadness. It was like the breath was ripped from my body. My head felt full and
I read it out loud to my aunt and cried. This couldn’t be true.
I thought of all the pills in my bathroom. They were colorful candies in jars. I thought about writing my book. I didn’t feel like writing at all. It was gone. Only the image of the pills filled my head.
I was afraid of them.
when your normal headache isn’t normal but it’s also very normal when things aren’t normal. and also isn’t a tumor. (ps, this is not about my boyfriend)
You’ll tell yourself you’re fine with it. That the drama has settled and everything is fine. But your body knows you better than you. It’ll throw headaches at you. And then more and more until you’ve had a headache for five days and know for sure it’s a tumor (spoiler: it’s not) and go to urgent care.
This is different than a migraine. It’s in a different place, it feels different, and isn’t accompanied by the same aura or light sensitivity (though you’re still sensitive to light). It doesn’t react the same to the usual cold packs and pills.
Once a week for over a month you’ll call out sick. No, it’s not work related.
You’ll get your eyes examined in the fifth week of headaches. Yes, your eyes have changed.
On the fifth consecutive day of this headache, you’ll go to urgent care.
You’ll wait for the doc in a room on a hospital bed while contorted in a position that alleviates your headache, if only a little. Your lower half lays on its side, knees bent. Your top half is twisted further so your arms can cross under you; held between your body and the bed.
You’ll discuss your headache with the (very hot) doc. He’ll ask about any new stressors since these headaches started over the last couple of months.
Then. It’ll click.
No. You are not fine. Apparently. The boundary you finally set over a year and a half ago and the resulting recent tantrums have, in fact, affected you and affect you still. You were blamed for the situation you didn’t create. “But I’m fine,” you tell yourself and your loved ones. You reach out to your therapist. “You are having a very normal response to an abnormal event,” she’ll reply.
The doc asks if you’re able to sleep. “Yes!” you’ll respond with no hesitation.
He tells you to remove the stressors. But how can you remove them from your mind? Your inner thoughts? Meditation, he suggests.
You’ll find out how hard it is to actively relax your shoulders, your neck, your jaw. It is truly constant. While actively thinking about relaxing your body, you have to remember to relax your body. When you wake in the night, your shoulders are clenched, raised to your ears like hackles. Your hands turn to fists in your sleep.
You’ll realize that while you HAVE been sleeping, you have not been getting good sleep.
The doc recommends heat on the back of your head, your “suboccipital muscles.” And tennis balls to use as pressure on the back of your neck.
You look up “homemade hot/cold packs” and find items on Etsy you can make. Just after this headache goes away. It was gone for a couple of days, but it’s back to remind you.
You try to relax, even while writing this post, unable to take a nap.
“But I’m fine.”
No. But I’m getting there.
i didn't realize this until today. i mean. maybe i did realize this before. i probably did. i've been making pancakes for years. decades even. an eternityyyy.
pancakes.
greg taught me how to make pancakes. i was a teenager. he didn't wake me up and like, oooo...yolanda today we're going to learn how to make pancakes! it also wasn't the first time i made pancakes. i used to use a lot of butter in the pan. maybe that's how my mom made them? i just knew butter was good. not that i liked it on my pancakes.
why are we talking about pancakes?
i made pancakes this afternoon for my knight and me. i couldn't sleep last night. i was awake until 4. i even got up and made hot chocolate. the sugar probably didn't help, but i wanted what i wanted.
we were in the apartment in coronado. the ones the cult leader ...holy shit. nine of us. two sets of parents with two kids each. and a random member. nine of us in a two bedroom two and a half bath condo. apartment? what's the difference? don't tell me, i won't remember.
he was making pancakes for his kids. which meant he was making pancakes for everyone. we used either bisquick or krusteaz. i know we had both in the house. apartment. condo! ugh.
he probably wasn't even telling me. maybe he was, though, bc his kids were younger than us and weren't interested in pancakes. was i watching because he was cute? listening because he wasn't my parents and i didn't hate him like i hated his stuck up and too good for everyone wife (fuck, i did NOT get along with her. maybe she's who i learned how to be a bitch from. interesting. yes. always with the snide remarks. ooo this is good.)? this was before cell phones and you toobs. but we still walked around reading books when we could.
the two of them were 14 years older than me. i remember because on my 14th birthday they talked about how they were twice my age. or one of them was. christ with the memory. wow. they'll be 60.
where was i? pancakes.
he said you knew it was time to turn them when the bubbles showed up. maybe he had watched me flip them too soon and smash them. i remember holding the spatula on them (or was that grilled cheese? no. it was pancakes...my god...are you still reading?) to make the middle mound go away. they were always too thick.
he said the best time to turn them was when there were bubbles and the edge had started to cook. then it was an easy flip.
i remembered that this morning while watching bubbles form on pancakes.
i saw the bubbles and noticed the edges solidifying a bit. i slid my spatula around the pancake edge into the middle for the perfect flip.
the first pancake is usually a dud. i got two pancakes in a row before my first "grilled" pancake. small adjustments.
always small adjustments.
In my head I’m trying to use my words. You are on open side of a table with him.
In my head I can see his face across from me; smug and self righteous. Ready for a fight, ready to smash. Not ready to listen or converse or meet in the middle. I’ve been across that table with him more than I should have been.
How many times have you sat across from him at the table.
It’s not me holding a grudge. That minimizes everything. It’s not a grudge. It’s self preservation. Which sounds like I’m in flight mode. Like I’m the victim.
He didn’t do this to me or to you. He did this to himself.
You can’t argue with someone who says they’re standing up for their own self respect.
You can minimize my feelings and actions by saying it’s a grudge. But years of this is a pattern of behavior. You are minimizing my feelings to validate his abusive actions. You did this in 2011 by saying being in meetings reminded me of the cult.
The terrible thing is…I believed you for a minute. I listened and thought yeah. That’s probably why I was so upset. Why would I get so upset at someone berating me for leaving my clothes in the dryer or forgetting to take the trash out.
But it was more than that.
It was his face across the table speaking to me so hatefully. Forcing me to sit down and listen to him while he berated me. You didn’t say a word as I sat and cried.
Our bodies remember. Call it a grudge. Say “you know how he can be.” And “he’s stressed about work.”
I feel you tiptoe around him, your body tense. I hear your voice change over the phone. The plans we were making all changed when he wanted to shop for a washing machine. Not a glance at me to see if it was okay with me. Somehow I knew I was supposed to go along with it.
Always go along with it. Don’t make waves. Don’t upset them.
We shared a mother, her own tiptoes and tones changing as the sun sank.
I’ll be the funny one. You be the doting one to tend his ego.
Grudge grudge.
You tried standing up for me. You tried explaining to him. Begged. Your voice high, pleading. He bulldozed you. Ran right over your words and sorries and stops.
He wouldn’t listen.
