I was not fond of CVS last night. I went to pick up my nerve pills, ’cause everybody be wonderin.’ The pharmacy tech or the pharmacist or whatever said that I didn’t have any prescriptions to pick up. I told her that I knew I did, because I knew they’d been called in. She said that it didn’t show in my profile. I said, “I know they’re there. Could they possibly still be on the voice mail?” Then, she printed out my entire profile and took a marker and explained to me all the prescriptions I had were still waiting on the doctor’s approval. Then, she said with a sneer in her voice, “I don’t have any voice mail.” Then she went toward the phone and indeed, the light was blinking. I could see her face change as she heard that the prescription was for Leslie Lanagan. She got a lot friendlier after that, and said, “just give me five or ten minutes.” I was really nice about it, but oh my GOD was she ever rude to me. It was not the day to be rude to me, and she was lucky that my head was pounding so bad that all I could do was stand there with a dumb look on my face instead of popping off.
I bought a Diet Mountain Dew and took my meds as soon as she handed them to me. By the time I got home, my brain was flooding with the right chemicals and my mood had improved considerably… my headache was gone. Samantha was sitting on the porch when the car pulled up to the house (I Ubered because it was raining cats and dogs), so I sat with her on the porch and told her my tale of woe. By that time, I could laugh about it. In the moment, I just kept thinking “if I felt well enough, I wouldn’t be this passive. Maybe that’s a good thing.”
After Samantha and I finished talking, I went upstairs and watched the first episode of Mercy Street, a new PBS show set in Alexandria, the city where I lived the first time around in DC. It’s during the Civil War, but the neighborhoods look roughly the same. Both the state of Virginia and the city of Alexandria have donated money to the show, and it’s fantastic. The only “big stars” in the show are Josh Radnor (How I Met Your Mother) and Cherry Jones (Transparent). Everyone else is an unknown, and this will be their breakout. Fair warning: it is very, very gory.
Then, I wrote to Argo and told her again how much gratitude I have because she helped me remember who I am. It is the biggest blessing of my life to be able to write to her. Yesterday, her words were Gilead’s balm.
I fell asleep to an Independent Lens show called “Autism in Love,” which was also fantastic, but I didn’t make it to the end. I drifted off counting my blessings, and thinking about all the beauty there is the world, just waiting for me to find it.
In some ways, I already have.
I was going to get a haircut, but like every time you tell yourself you’re going to get your hair cut, your hair miraculously decides to be good and you can put it off. I put it off to sit here and write to you. At about 2:45, I need to start heading into DC, because I’m getting together with Pri Diddy and Elena to celebrate my freedom from Dana. I will never forget our time together, but it’s time to bless and release with friends who understand how much I love her and how hard this is for me, but at the same time, know how necessary it is for my own growth and development. I was lonely and made the grave mistake of Googling her. Here’s a tip. Don’t.
I saw a picture that jarred me to the core, and I realized how much this breakup is a good thing for me and not the end of the world as I know it, which I thought for a long time. In a lot of ways, I still think that, but not in a bad way. Endings are often great beginnings, and I think this is one of them. I am starting to chase my dreams instead of hoping they’ll just magically appear. I’m now certified to work with youth, having finished all of the required classes so that now my “Safe Sanctuary” training (or whatever it is that they call it in the UCC) is finished. It feels good to have a certification- something to say to parents that I’m trained to look out for their kids. I mean, I’m an expert. I lived it.
And now it’s time to re-live parts of it to get rid of it for good. I need to find a new therapist and psychiatrist because Vesta does not take my new insurance. I’m hoping to find people near my office, so that I can schedule appointments that don’t require me to miss more than like, an hour and a half of work. If I can keep it to an hour and a half, I won’t lose any hours, because we often stay at the office until 6:30-7:00, because no one will get up in the middle of anything. It’s kind of like working in a doctor’s office, really. There’s no set time to leave, because leaving depends on the project and not the clock. I can’t remember the last time I got up from my desk for more than 30 minutes. In fact, I don’t think I ever have.
Being so involved at the office leaves me very little time to think about my personal life, because I don’t really have one….. and that’s okay with me. So. Okay. When I stop to think of all the changes I’ve endured the past two years, I feel pain that is gut-wrenchingly terrible and I will do anything to avoid it. I am grateful that I get to process on this space so that I don’t have to carry those feelings with me all the time, but in a way, I do. On some days, I can reassure myself that since I’ve written about it, I can bless and release it. It’s like telling yourself you’ve given your problems to God. When I put things into the pensieve, I know they’re there. I don’t have to think about them again that day.
Invariably, though, I read old entries A LOT. I want to know how far I’ve progressed in order to know where I’m going. As I have said many times, this blog is for me, but you are invited… and that is so true it hurts. When I take up my emotional space, not everyone likes it, and I have to put up with friends walking away because they don’t understand that they can say what they want about me, too. That they have every right to have as much emotional space as they do. I’m only one part of the equation, and I always will be…. and actually, there are always three sides to every story. Yours and mine are subjective, and Truth is somewhere in the middle. I put up with friends walking away because this blog is for me. I will be friendless if I have to be in order to know myself, because the more I know about myself, the more I know how I need to change and grow as a person. When I read back over old entries, I can clearly see where I’ve been wrong…. and I’ve been wrong a lot.
I am just tired of wearing the “everything’s perfect” mask I’ve worn my whole life. No, things are fucked up all the way to my neurons. It’s my job to rewire every one of them. The biggest thing I’ve learned is that not everything deserves a reaction or a response. I can just keep reading and drinking my tea. The people who love me will catch me no matter what, because they love me whether I’m right or wrong. And when I’m wrong, sometimes they even love me more, because they want to comfort me when I feel bad about my mistakes. I’ve made a lot of them. I probably always will… but at least now I can move on to new ones.
I can bless and release the old ones, because surely learning from my mistakes will allow greater things to happen in the future.
If that’s not the point of writing about myself, I don’t know what is.
Stories That Are All True 