But, even in the middle of an extremely lousy week at work, there are good things I want to hold onto. Twice I had customers I could speak French with. Fun surprises! The man with the booming voice and Super Bowl ring came in on Saturday and, even though he went through another line, he made a point of coming to speak to me and being sweet. Two of the men back in the meat department were my angels on Wednesday night. At the end of a brutal shift, they were chivalrous and kind - a balm to my spirit. And, y'all, I am so grateful for those 2 men. Their gentleness made such a difference. Because things had gone so wrong in produce, the trickle down from that affected my being able to close my section. The 2 men back in meat let me invade their department and take up a lot of space to do what I needed to do. And, the whole time they were making me laugh and smile and unclenching all the tension in my neck and uncoiling my guts. They were warmth and kindness. And, here's the STAGGERING part. Those 2 men? Y'all know what? They believe in me! They think I'm good at what I do, and they support me. I. Am. Floored. Fast forward to me supposedly having today (Monday) off, but I got called in tonight to cover a closing shift (not cool -- I needed this day off! But, Pixie was in a last minute bind so, of course, I was gonna step up and help her). However, it ended up being kinda nice. I worked with Ballcap and Ozark, and I enjoy them so much. I smiled a lot tonight. It was a blessing to get to work a mild shift with them.
Anyway, why haven't I posted in a whole week? Obviously, the answer is work!
But, onward -
Please pray, put good energy into the universe, or whatever you do for Pilot. She's sick and has been for weeks. And, it's getting worse and worse. She feels awful, and I think she's actually getting a little frightened. She's had lab work and is beginning a string of doctor's appointments on Wednesday. Hopefully, answers will soon come. I hope she can find a solution and relief, and I also hope she isn't grounded from flying. I just want Pilot to be healthy. I hope soon we'll hug tight and get coffee and get up to mischief like normal. I wish I could protect her.
I was talking about tattoos tonight (Monday) with Ballcap. I have 4. (I'd have at least 4 more, but money is a thing, y'all!)
The first I got the weekend of my birthday in Dec. 2012. It's an anklet around my left ankle. It's to remind me of who I am when I get lost in the muck and mire. Well, it's at least who I used to think I was. It's who I wish I were still. And, for a while, I was that person. I was actually pulling it off on a small scale. And, I had hopes on a larger scale. I'd like to be her again. It was an identity that felt like my truth. Like something God would smile about. Anyway, it's in an Art Deco font and in my 3 favorite colors. In green, it says, "Bibliophilia," which is Greek for love of books. In violet purple, it says, "Autrice-Artiste" which is the French feminine for "Author-Artist." And, in an oceany teal, it says, "de la Mer," which is French for "of the Sea."
The next 2, I got on the same day. It was in Feb. 2014. I had been called down to Dothan in December 2013 and spent a month down here in the time leading up to and after my dad's death. Bad stuff happened, but that's not a story I'm going to tell, now. Maybe not ever. One person (oldest, dearest family friend -- she's known me literally my entire life) knows the whole story. She's the only person I would allow to take care of me while I was taking care of Mama and everything else. And, for a few days, she's the only person who could touch me without me flinching. (Which is weird because I'm so tactile - I'm all about hugs!) Three people know a big portion (Micah, Andy, and Deb, of course). I've finally gotten to where I don't have frequent nightmares about it. And, I don't get freezing cold and blank away for minutes and lose time to seeing the movies of it in my mind's eye when I'm tying my shoes or folding laundry or any other mundane task anymore. So, whatever little Tupperware container it's sealed shut in in my head, it can just stay there unstirred, ok? Because, the aftermath SUCKED for months afterward, and I'm not going anywhere near that again. Anyway, I'd had to send my son back to his father to go back to school. And, I made my way back to Arkansas a couple of weeks later toward the end of January 2014. My dad had died on Friday, Jan. 3, 2014. The funeral was the following Monday. That same week, I got ahold of Julia at Second City and found out the upcoming schedule. I told her I was coming back up to Chicago as soon as possible. As soon as my tax refund hit my account, I made the arrangements to run away to Chicago in February. I went to play on my safest playground. I went to immerse myself in the most alive and soothing world I've ever found. For 3 days, I immersed myself in improv class all day and then catching shows at night. I flung myself fully into the joy of my craft and stopped thinking about the yuck. I was very, very much myself. Wait. Even moreso. I was very brave, very bold. I was clever and nimble and daring! My mind was slippery and sharp, and I believed. I even got on stage during InnerCity! Every night in the shower, I'd find loads of new bruises I had no idea when I'd gotten because I'd been so in the moment that I didn't feel any pain when they happened. Going home to Second City was exactly what I needed after all the mess around my dad's death but before sliding back into normal day to day life. My son was spending the week with his dad.
I made the drive back down from Chicago home to Arkansas and still had 2 days left to myself. I crossed the river into Tennessee to have Noah ink me some more. The one on my right shin is in green and in a Celtic font. It reads, "West of Ireland Sigh." My all time favorite fiction writer is Andrew Greeley. He was a Catholic priest. He was a delightfully activistic, muckraking thorn in the Church's side! An absolute warrior! And, on top of being a sociologist and a troublemaker (of the best kind), he also wrote novels. He wrote a few series and some one offs. My favorites are the Bishop Blackie Ryan mysteries. I know this is going to sound weird, but in the stretch a while back of a few years when I almost completely walked away from any semblance of faith, when I was completely suffocated by the dark fog and couldn't believe in a loving God in the midst of such suffering, it was those novels -- silly little fiction mysteries! -- that showed me a God I wanted to hold onto. Greeley packed some lovely theology into those novels. A God I wanted to believe in. A different view from what is normally put forth in Christian churches here in the Deep South in America. The lessons that the fictional priest in that series of books taught were a thread I clung to. My favorites by far are The Bishop and the Missing L Train and The Bishop and the Beggar Girl of St. Germain. My other favorite isn't part of the series. It's a one off, but Bishop Blackie appears in it. It's called Contract with an Angel. Andrew Greeley died on May 29, 2013. That was just a few days before the first time I ever went to Chicago for Second City. I went to the Ghirardelli cafe on the corner down and across from the Hancock Center (the cafe where the protagonist in L Train meets his love interest) and raised a glass of chocolate milk (part of Bishop Blackie's stories) in Greeley's honor across from his apartment where he had just died a few days previous.
Fast forward to the following February (2014). I had returned to Chicago and Second City after my dad's death. And, that week I got the tattoo on my right shin. It's a nod to Bishop Blackie (a descriptor that appears in each book of the series) and Father Greeley. It's to honor and express gratitude for Greeley. And, it's a reminder to me to always hold onto what I learned about God from that fictional, mystery solving priest. It's also a nod to my Irish ancestors.
The same day I got the ink on my right shin (Feb. 2014), I got the one on my right inner forearm. It reads, "...who have come alive" in a very simple, streamlined Art Deco font with no serifs in the same oceany light teal as on my left ankle. Those are the last 4 words of a quote from Howard Thurman. Thurman was an African-American theologian famous in the first half of the 20th century. He is one of the pioneers of Liberation Theology. The quote is, "Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is more people who have come alive."
I used to really try to live by that. I believed it. I tried to come alive. I fought hard for it, especially after having been lost in a deep, dark pit for years - that long post-divorce and plunge into poverty stretch when I stayed alive to take care of my son and fight all the battles that come with raising a special needs child but 100% completely lost myself. I clawed and climbed to come alive. And, I thought it would be far easier to come alive now that my dad was dead. I could be freer since he was gone. Wash all of that away. I pursued what gave me that warm, otherworldly energy that comes from doing something God created a special joy for inside me. That which seemingly magical opportunities flowed from when I was in the middle of it. That which made me so vividly alive that I was able to send out ripples that made a positive difference for other people. Contagious joy. But, I screwed up. Last September. 2016. I fucked it all up. Hugely. Irreparably. I failed beyond description. I wasted my shot at my wildest dreams. And, it almost killed me. I'm still not sure why I didn't just let it. I guess I was too much a coward to kill myself. See? I even fail at failing. But, technically, I'm still alive. I breathe. I eat. I sleep. I walk. I talk. I work. I piss. I make things. Sometimes, I even laugh. And, I love. Even though, apparently, my love is useless. I live. But, I'm not come alive. I blew it. I don't get to be. I let so many people down, and I decimated myself. Probably the next time I get ink, it's gonna cover this one up.
The last tattoo I got was in April 2016. It's on the inside of my left lower leg, above the anklet tattoo. It's a line of the lyrics from this song, the most important OMD song to me, my survival song.
It's in a darker oceany teal in a clean, simple font with no serifs. It reads, "There's a part of my soul that I'm setting aside - the piece with the fear, the rage, and all of the pride."
After almost 4 solid months of being deathly ill and then the long recovery, I was finally able to breathe and was finished with all of the medication. I had just almost died twice and then had a long, frustrating recovery. In December, I'd been hospitalized because I had a near lethal asthma attack on top of having double pneumonia. I couldn't pull full breaths. I was fighting for every partial breath. I felt like I was smothering, drowning. I kept blacking out. I had really long hair at the time, and I would sweat it fully soaked wet. When I was in the ER, they told me that if I'd waited even 48hrs more, I'd've been admitted straight to the ICU and probably wouldn't have made it. As it was, I ended up in the hospital dealing with respiratory care and blowing IV after IV (I have lousy veins). They got me stabilized enough (and on drugs enough) to go home for my birthday, but it was into the beginning of April before I got my full lung capacity back. I have never regained my stamina, though. I don't run 5Ks anymore. (This IRRITATES me.) While I was in the hospital the first time, I picked up a secondary infection in house. It spread so severely that it became a systemic problem, and I ended up going back into the hospital a few days later. They started me on a course of 4 strong IV antibiotics on top of continued respiratory care. The first night I was back in the hospital, they pushed an antibiotic I'd never had before into my IV. Turns out, I am deathly allergic to it. I went into anaphylactic shock, and things went quite badly. I remember most of it, but not all of it. And, most of what I remember is sounds. And, feeling like my chest was being crushed inward, like a monster was sitting on my sternum. Even when I couldn't see, couldn't move, couldn't talk, couldn't anything, I could still hear. And, OH, MY GOD, I wanted that monster to quit crushing my chest. Part of it, though, I have no memory of at all. I went fully into the darkness. I'm missing some time. Bottom line, they had to call an urgent response team. And, they called for a crash cart. And, my blood pressure bottomed out. And, a lot of people were yelling at me and tugging on me and working on me. And, there's more, but I don't want to tell the story. I could hear things and feel things. Seeing was a problem. Even when I could see, everything was distorted and had weird halos of light and seemed far away. I still dream about it. A lot. At least the nightmares have gone from more than once a night to just once a week or so. So, hopefully, that means it'll fade away soon. I still sometimes wake up ripping the blankets off because I feel like I'm tangled in IV and oxygen tubing. I hate this. A lot. It needs to go away.
By April, my body was my own again. But, on top of all of that, moving back down to Alabama had opened up a nasty can of worms that I could avoid while I was far away but slapped me upside the face and demanded attention down here. Just because my dad is dead doesn't mean the damage is erased. And, now, I'm in the thick of things with my mom which is a whole 'nother level of complicated. There's a lot that sucks about having grown up in a household with an angry, alcoholic dad and a weak, cowardly, enabling mom. And, it keeps sucking for a long, long time after. It leaves scars that fuck a person up pretty thoroughly on into adulthood. But, I don't want to tell that story, now. Nope. Nope. Nope. But, it's stuff I've been trying to be honest about and deal with. (Inspite of my mother. She....... has no use for the truth.) It's some garbage that needs to be cleaned up and washed away. But, after months of family drama and then having my body break, too, by the end of April, I was just like, "OK, something's got to give. I am soooooo done with this shit. Time to demand something better for myself." I was furious.
I had spent so much time sick and weak. I'd read and read, watched documentary after documentary. But, a lot of time, I just listened to music and daydreamed. (It didn't help that one of the medicines I was on made the room spin. Blech!) And, cried. I did an annoying amount of crying, too. And, tried to figure some stuff out. And, tried to forget some other stuff. And, mostly, I listened to OMD's music. And, the 2 songs that mean the most to me lyrically (even though, musically, they aren't necessarily my favorites) are Kill Me (above) and No Man's Land. Kill Me is my survival song. My get over the past and go get a new future song. I didn't die. So, now go live. (Obviously, there's waaaay more to it than that. But, this is the basic point). And, that line of the lyrics was the determined course I set for myself. And, I was aiming for moving to Chicago, and that line represented how I wanted to live, who I wanted to become in Chicago.
Of course, months later in September, that all exploded into 10,000 shards. My life became metaphorical shrapnel.
But, if there is any hope of redemption for me (99% of the time, I know there is no hope. 1% of me is stupidly stubborn, though. For someone who's supposed to be really smart, I am such a dumbass - I can't manage to destroy that last 1%), it's gonna be if I can figure out how to live the truth of that line. I don't know, y'all. I don't know. But, I listen to that song a lot. I know I have to settle. I know I have to resign myself to a lesser existence. I need to accept that. It would hurt a lot less if I could just accept it. I don't deserve better. I am getting what I deserve, and resistance is torturous and foolish. But, I can't manage to suppress the ornery little fleck of me that still listens to that song and dares to daydream.
I'm not getting that tattoo covered.
No comments:
Post a Comment