I don’t know what I’m nervous about- my apartment is relatively clean enough to relax. My panic is not real. It is the idea of people invading my space that I don’t know how harsh I’m going to be judged.
I think they just want to check on the progress of things they already wrecked, the whole reason my transfer fee has been waived. I wouldn’t get those two things if they didn’t intend on letting me stay.
I’m a perfectionist who didn’t call in maids and regrets it now. That’s because they’d only have to do things that I don’t have the energy to do, like dust & vacuum, making the place look less lived in because they can get around easier than I can. I have all kinds of mysterious bruises from the last few days as I organized my stuff.
It happens a lot because of my cerebral palsy. I’m off balance and have no 3D vision. I run into things by not being able to judge distances side to side. I fell weird a propo of nothing at my dad’s and said, “I have lane assist on my car, not in my body.” I’m glad I was able to show him that I’m still the same klutz I’ve always been, it has just gotten worse with age as my compensatory skills wear down.
I have a large safety net now, from a dad to a sister to a cognitive behavioral counselor to Michael, who keeps an eye out from Texas. It’s all about creating healthy relationships with all of them, adding more friends to the mix.
I am good at making acquaintances and getting better at maintaining communication. I had to learn how I worked first, that there was a reason why I preferred communicating over the internet- it matches how my brain is built.
I just cannot let the pendulum swing too far. I need to get out and meet people. For instance, I have to go back out because I forgot to stop by the pharmacy and get my medication. I’m in no danger of running out, I just forgot.
Things are actually going really well with my psychiatrist, because she always remembers to schedule our appointments long before I need medication and remembers to fax it in when I’m due.
She prefers to see me more often, so she doesn’t often prescribe refills. I take this as a positive. We have a few minutes of pleasant conversation and then she sends everything over.
We talk about my goals in therapy, and she would like to hear from my therapist as well. I have known since Psych 101 that psychology and psychiatry are “inextricably related,” so it’s easy for me to understand why they’re a team, along with my counselor.
Things are really looking up these days, after months of feeling horrible about myself. Aada thought I was punishing her, but I was raking myself over the coals for all the unrest I’d caused.
I felt like I had betrayed everything I believed in, which was definitely bigger than her alone.
I hope that she does, as I do, go back and read her favorite entries from years ago. It will come across differently once it feels like it’s happening to a different person.
The positive and the negative will be weighted differently, because she won’t be feeling anger of the moment she read something. I stand by the fact that it was okay for me to get angry, but it wasn’t fair for me to get as angry as I did. It had consequences beyond me that I didn’t think about because I wasn’t supposed to do so.
I was supposed to say what I thought. There was no one to intervene in that thought process to change it. Therefore, love was lost slowly as we failed over and over to “give each other the grace that love requires.” This is not a new problem, but not doing that to each other anymore is a goal.
It’s a goal with everyone- that things they love don’t become flaws and failures later. But many people love my writing about others, but hate when I hold a mirror up to their faces.
Aada called it “the flaying of her skin,” and not the “working through grief” I needed. She asked me to go. I went. I had feelings that weren’t even for her to know, but she kept reading thinking that my goal in life was to take her down, embarrass her, etc.
Absolutely nothing about how much I glowed about her except it was suspect.
It’s the most unhealthy thing I’ve ever read about my own writing, that it took a long time but I’d finally alienated the only person whose opinion mattered to me, because she could only take in what she perceived as attacks. I was not writing about a very complicated time in my life.
I don’t think that Aada understands that she puts me in the mood to write, that writing about her is the most interesting of all my relationships because there’s so much mystery as to how we could maintain a close and distant relationship for many years.
It boggles my mind, really.
We are sorry we manipulated each other, and that is enough for me as I sort out the wheat from the chaff.
There were so many genuine moments, but some of the best were built on a lie that spiraled out of control. I can forgive her for that, but I cannot control what happened after those entries were published. I can only regret, because I’m not in that person’s shoes.
I’ve never been a muse, so I don’t know what that’s like. But I do know that Aada has been too gracious in giving me room to be myself.
For 12 years, she has inspired some of the most beautiful lines I’ve ever written, and that’s what I wish she would take away instead of “we all get it. I’m a terrible person.”
God, that line has driven me crazy for days.
How much more can I say?
How much more should I say?
It makes me feel bad that she doesn’t see real tears of remorse. It makes me feel bad that all she sees is punishment in my writing, so she thinks I’m rejecting her when I’m literally screaming THIS WAS A COMPLICATED TIME AND WE WERE BOTH COMPLICIT.
None of the things I’ve done have warranted another chance, but she’s always given them because when I’ve known better, I’ve done better. I have bent to accommodate her except when I couldn’t.
My life collided with hers because it couldn’t not.
All I can do is move on, basing everything on her point of view. Why do I want a friend that only sees the negative aspects of my writing? Why do I want a friend that’s so gun shy about meeting on the ground? Why do I want a friend that stuffs her emotions behind a wall, leaving me to guess what they are?
I could write about her more beautifully and more accurately if I had a real idea of who she was in the world. I don’t, and I never have. It’s been the wildest ride, a Billy Joel sized tale. I find it hard to swallow that if I wrote about her more accurately, she would like my blog better, but she won’t give me the chance to know her any better than I do right now.
She says that the punishments have to stop, and I wonder what she meant. I sincerely don’t know and it’s at top of mind. I don’t mean for it to be, but I don’t have a bigger mystery to solve… who is this person, and how did our lives become so enmeshed?
She slowly isolated me from all my other friends, so that she became a huge topic in my writing because I wasn’t spending time with anyone else. It’s not that I set out to do anything- my blog is reflective and started long before she walked into my life- by a decade or so.
I have never set out to ruin anyone, and they’ve seen it when they’ve gone back. But they don’t see it if they don’t ask me what I actually meant and sit in their own reading comprehension…. often much different than what I wrote and emotionally punches me in the face.
People give me more power than I actually have.
Aada complains that I’m the one writing the story, but I’m the only one capable of it. She doesn’t have time.
Nor will she, and/or because writing every day may not be her calling when she does. It will be a downright pity, and I will buy her first novel. I won’t even wait until it’s at Dollar Tree.
I can’t wait to see if she is more like me in retirement.
She will always be too young for shuffleboard, so she’s got to find something.
It still bothers me that she said she was reading my writing to check for assaults. Assaults on what? How much I wish that I could take back everything negative? How much I wish I had behaved differently?
I cannot explain my reactions without explaining what happened. People are always free to disagree with me, because I cannot be right all the time. Being my friend starts with believing that everything is true, but only according to me.
Everything.
I wonder if the reason that Aada hasn’t met me is that she thinks she will wreck something. I just think it’s time to switch mediums. Let the mystery die and the reality begin.
Reality is starting to creep in, that I need to get back to listening to podcasts and hopefully drinking a lot of water. Both of those things will energize me enough to take care of another load of laundry.
I tend to choose Aqua and ABBA when I’m cleaning, and I have noise reduction headphones so that I can listen while vacuuming and things like that.
But I’m not worried. I’m just a nervous Nelly.
Stories That Are All True 