This is of course tied with Robert Glasper’s “Black Radio” and Jason Moran’s “Ten.” These three albums are what’s carrying me through my life in pain and joy.
And right now, there’s a lot of pain.
I wrote about my favorite album last year, how “The Eminem Show” molded me over a number of years. But today is so quiet that I cannot focus. There are people coming at 11:30 to deliver sandwiches, including my former high school principal. As it turns out, she’s a good friend of my dad’s.
My sister is coming over later, and my stepsisters after her. We’re all trying to make the most of our family time because I’m not in town all that often. That may change- we’ll see. Nothing has been decided about our future.
Nothing.
We’re all in this together, as my dad keeps repeating. And we are.
I wish I could say more and will in the coming months, but I’ve reached a crossroads in my life where I’m wondering what my direction should be. I have a lot of choices in front of me, and normally all those questions would go to Aada, who is I’m sure grateful for the reprieve from the constant barrage of e-mail I’d normally be sending her about now.
But this time, there is no “Jesus Christ, just come pick me up..”
That was our code when I’d enjoyed all I could take.
I miss my darling girl, but I have to remember that I chose to separate from her through thought, word, and deed. Things have been done that cannot be undone. That does not make grief at not being able to talk easier. I wish that she would accept my apologies with all that I am, but I do not think that is possible.
What I do think is possible is that this is supposed to be a learning curve for me. That I cannot act in a vacuum. I can wish for forgiveness all I want, but that does not mean it will be granted.
I know what’s on my heart without being allowed to know what’s on hers.
I’m writing about this grief to avoid writing about others, but I’m really going through it right now. I could use all of your good thoughts because there is no hope of anything but major life transitions in store.
The thing I must concentrate on is walking to the river without blinking.
So far, I have. I’ve been afraid and shy and all those things.
Before I was born, my dad got 26 scholarships in trumpet performance to places like The Julliard School, Tanglewood Institute, Eastman, etc. He’d just gotten first chair all-state, meaning that his senior year of high school he was literally the best young player in Texas.
Before I was born, my mother was a piano performance and pedagogy major, often accompanying my father. She’d played piano at her church since she was a kid, and was a middle school choir director back then, transferring to elementary school music when I was older.
My mother tried to teach me the piano. My father tried to teach me the trumpet. To this day, I play the radio better than either.
When my father was in the ministry, the music programs at our church were unmatched. Therefore, my music education was twofold. I took trumpet at school and sang in the choir on the weekends.
I am a much better singer than trumpet player, because I don’t get stage fright when I sing………….
Once, after a particularly misguided attempt at a solo, a parishioner said, “I’m sorry your trumpet misfired.” So, you see, I was TREMENDOUS.
I’ve been able to read music almost as long as I’ve been able to read books- with the caveat that I’m golden as long as it’s not bass clef. My mother’s piano lessons did not take on me. I still can’t read bass clef and it’s been 40 years.
“Leslie, could you read the bass part up an octave?” “No. No, I cannot.”
My mother was giving a piano lesson when her water broke. So when you ask me what my life would be like without music, I can only give you a blank stare. I’m steeped in it, performing for the first time when I was three. I stood on the chancel with the rest of the children’s choir (with my mother conducting) and my mother couldn’t get me to open my mouth. When everyone was filing off stage, that’s when I decided what the people could really use was a solo.
I AM A PROMISE! I AM A POSSIBILITY!
I am not sure whether my mother or my father stopped me.
My imagination is not good enough to unweave mental material this thick.
I celebrate holidays when I’m with my family, but when I’m alone they’re just like every other day. I write. I drink lots of coffee. Repeat.
I think it’s because after all those years of growing up in the church I sort of got the idea that I was a stagehand, and not necessarily worthy of holiday magic myself. I like to give holiday cheer more than receive because I genuinely do not know how to receive it.
Do I believe in the power of waiting for the baby for Christmas? Of course I do. But I’m in charge of creating that liturgy, not following it…….
Dana was indignant when I told her that my ex-girlfriend’s mac and cheese was better than hers. Dana and I weren’t together. I know that I would have been sleeping in the backyard had I said that to my wife. But Dana, already being very crushed out on me (without me knowing it) was hurt. Really hurt that she covered up with humor, telling my ex-girlfriend when we saw her at church.
She looked at Dana and said, “I think Leslie likes the package that comes with the mac and cheese.”
This was quoted to me by Dana for the next seven years.
I was just trying to pay my ex-girlfriend a compliment… and Dana, too, actually.
Because thanks to the pair of them, my mac and cheese is my favorite.
And I’m starting to like the package that comes with it.
One of the bonuses of not having a car is having so much exercise built into my day. I walk everywhere I go unless it’s too far, and even then I have to walk to the train station. I do belong to a gym, but that’s a convenience. I get enough exercise as is.
I don’t run at the gym, though. I have cerebral palsy, and it’s hard for me to keep my balance while I’m going that fast. So, I set the program on the treadmill to raise my heart rate with incline instead of speed. Exercising feels more like a hike in the hills than a marathon.
I prefer hiking in nature, like when I used to drive out the Columbia River Gorge. But at the same time, it is still relaxing to hike through the wilds of daytime television. It reminds me of when I used to go to the gym with my mom after school and we’d walk to “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” Now that Oprah has moved on, it is generally just a cacophony of Judge Judy and Maury Povitch.
Sometimes I bring my own entertainment with Bluetooth headphones, watching YouTube videos or listening to podcasts. My favorite is “Murder, Mystery, and Makeup” by Bailey Sarian. My sister said, “you don’t even wear makeup!” I said, “that’s how good Bailey is. The stories draw you in.” Each episode is about an hour, so the perfect length for a treadmill program.
It’s gotten to where the only time I spend watching TV is at the gym, because it’s guilt free. I am still doing something while I’m watching. And in fact, the treadmill is really the only machine on which I feel safe because the others threaten my balance too much. I’m afraid of falling because it’s happened so many times with disastrous results. In no way should I ever try the elliptical again……….
So, the short answer to “how often do you walk or run?” is “A LOT.”
I do not see myself as a leader because I put my thoughts out into the ether. People rarely comment on these pages that are connected to me in real life. Therefore, occasionally I will be blown over by the things people will say about my writing because I didn’t even know they were reading. I do know that I lead the pack in vulnerability, because none of my other friends are willing to spill their guts online with the same frequency. Therefore, I know that people look to me when it comes to saying the hard part out loud.
My writing is basically Hemingway:
Write hard and clear about what hurts.
The first draft of everything is shit.
If I’m going to be a true leader, I need to step up my game and start working with an editor regularly. These pages are all first drafts, and carry that stench. But from what I gather from fans, my first drafts aren’t too bad to read, they just need polishing….. or at least, that is my take. I am constantly surprised when people tell me that I am a wonderful writer because if I know anything, Brene Brown would take one look at my blog and say “congrats on so many shitty first drafts.” It’s not because my writing is shitty. It’s that the SFD is the part of the writing process where you’re just getting it out. It’s more akin to verbal vomit than a working piece. She wouldn’t even be judging my writing, just the rawness of it.
In order to step up my game, I need to workshop and perhaps stop being so dedicated to being self-taught. Depending on my financial picture in 2026, I’d like to do some professional writer’s retreats where I learn to write in different styles. I am thinking that taking a class on fiction wouldn’t hurt…. and neither would taking a class on learning to use AI as a writer.
My stance on AI is that I will not use it to generate text for me, but I will talk to it like a colleague to spur creativity in my brainstorming phrases, as well as it taking a significant chunk of research off my back. I do think I have been a leader in advocating for assistive AI, because I came up with an interesting theory, and it is twofold:
The CPU is modeled after the autistic brain because autists created computers. However, we did not see its neurodivergent patois until the CPU could process language.
Loneliness is crippling for neurodivergent people and our relationship track records. I wonder how much of creating these personal digital assistants is designing a friend who can’t leave you.
I think that idea is Meta’s next big commercial…. the friend that’s online when your humans aren’t……
I have a ton of creative ideas, but I’m an unusual role in an organization. I’ve been tested and my office personality is what’s called “The Plant.” The plant is the person who can sit in a meeting and synthesize everything that’s being said and come up with new ideas that benefit everyone. It’s a fantastic, creative role that most companies, in my experience, do not like.
That’s because the role is basically “INFJ dreamer.” No one knows how to harness your weaker skills like organization and execution so that you can fly on your own, because nine times out of 10 companies do not want you to be new and different.
I do not see the world as it is. I see the world as it could be. Therefore, I’m someone who would probably excel working in a startup where great ideas are actually needed. I did not always fit in at a state institution like UH, where academia is a river you cannot fight. The current is slow, and there’s too many places where your boat can run adrift.
But as I have said, my cognitive behavioral group is saying that I would be better served by applying for disability because bipolar disorder is debilitating at times and I cannot be counted on to be consistent in my energy levels. There’s so much more that goes into having a job than just being good at it. For me, the hardest part of having a job is getting there.
It was easier getting to the kitchen because I was always so excited to be there. But I’m not a leader in the kitchen. I need to be told what to do and how to do it most of the time, but I catch on fast. In an office, I’m just a neurodivergent mess. I fit better in the world as a writer left to my own devices, because my own iron structure is the one I’ll follow.
I am trying to be a leader in getting my neurodivergent cookbook together, and my coauthor is going to meet up with me soon so we can get started. It’s also looking like I may be in Houston longer than I thought, possibly moving home for a while to take care of some family business. So, Evan can come and visit me at “the parents’ house” and we can write our book in the hot tub. This does not sound like a bad deal at all.
Alternatively, I would love to go to Portland sometime next year because it’s been a while since I’ve seen both Evan and Bryn. So whichever city Evan and I choose, we’ll be working more closely together. I believe in this book and so do a lot of other people, and I don’t want to let myself down, either.
It’s hard thinking about being in Houston longer than I thought, because I will miss my group here- they’re the ones slowly putting me back together. But my family is the most important thing to me so if I need to be in Houston, that’s where I’ll be. There is nothing keeping me from moving next year or the year after. It’s just that my immediate need is to help where I can while we’re all adapting and changing. “Family business” is nebulous, I know, but you’ll hear more as we go along. I’m just trying to use an abundance of caution because I hurt Aada with my stories. I don’t want to hurt anyone else.
I think that my relationship with Aada is a teaching tool for better or for worse. Our relationship was a model for the digital age- defying closeness at times and repelling each other at others. But it’s an interesting anthropological idea that relationships changed as did the medium through which we create them. I don’t know that I have helped anyone, but it would make me feel good to know that in reading these pages I have reached other people in the same boat.
But honestly, even if no one is going through anything similar to me, the fact that I write so intimately about everything makes other people open up to me. You don’t get vulnerability without giving it. Sometimes it’s tough wearing my heart on my sleeve, but I do it. It allows everyone else to show up unarmed.
In Spanish, my favorite word is “equipaje.” It means “luggage.” In Finnish, my favorite word is “kellari,” or “basement.” In English, my favorite word is “honestly.”
None of these words were picked because of what they mean. It is how they feel upon my tongue, the resonance in my throat, the musicality…
I say “honestly” in a quick three conducted in one, the world’s fastest waltz.
I am not doing anything this evening because I didn’t plan for it. No one has said that they want to take me anyplace on a Wednesday. But Aaron is coming over this weekend and I’m going to visit my family at the end of the month. My birthday celebrations are planned, just not on my official day.
That seems to be the way every year as adults are busy during the week. I have spent my birthdays as an adult alone most years, with parties planned for the surrounding weekends. The best I got today was a free drink from Starbucks, which I ended up paying for because I was locked out of the app and couldn’t get it to work to claim my birthday drink. I’ll fiddle with it and go to Starbucks again this afternoon.
I’m hoping that I get some Starbucks birthday money, because that’s how I fund my coffee the rest of the year. 😛 Bags of beans are quite economical as birthday presents, and I usually get a mug to commemorate the day. It makes me happy to buy something tangible because the beans will get used quickly. I like Komodo Dragon almost as much as Cafe Bustelo.
The drink I got, in case you’re curious, was a venti no whip mocha frapp with two shots of espresso. It was the perfect pick-me-up for all I have to do today. This mostly involves putting on the gangsta rap and getting it handled, and by that I mean laundry.
I think someone who has so many red flags of their own has no room to say what red flags they will or will not accept. I hurt one of my best friends because I was angry in a moment, and have regretted hurting her ever since. My red flag is impulse control, because I was not the loving friend I needed to be at the moment she needed it. The feelings of regret this has stirred has made me reticent to say that there’s anything about anyone that I don’t like in other people because people have to tolerate so many red flags with me that I cannot predict.
I’m not going to sit here and pick apart others when my energy is best served by thinking about what kind of person I want to be, developing coping mechanisms for anger so that lack of impulse control isn’t dangerous.
That’s the thing about red flags…… you can’t change a single one unless it’s yours.
In order to fit me, my ideal week would still have long swaths of writing time built into it. I wouldn’t heighten it by going out in a way that interrupts my flow. I like being introspective and contemplative, because it makes my days monastic. I prefer pure signal vs. noise, and I will go to great lengths to get it.
On Monday, I’d walk to a coffee shop to load up on caffeine, then sweat at the gym. It’s an ideal week, so not only do I remember to do this on Monday, but every morning. In fact, it’s almost 0700 and I think a trip to the gym sounds nice.
Lanagan, it’s Tuesday.
Better late than never.
Because of course now that I’m thinking about what my ideal week looks like, I’m trying to create it. I really don’t think I will have an ideal week in this apartment, because yesterday was filled with service maintenance workers filing in and out all day. Luckily, everyone was nice to me, but I just felt in the way. So maybe this didn’t start out as the ideal week, but tomorrow is my birthday.
So far, I don’t have any plans except being at home. My birthday party is really dinner with my family when I go to Texas. I don’t leave for that until the 27th. So my actual birthday will likely be quiet. I should go to Starbucks and make sure I get my birthday drink, but other than that I’m good.
It really doesn’t take much to make things ideal for me.
I have never really been into sports save my senior year of high school, when I was actually dating an athlete. I got into soccer because I wanted to “speak the lingo.” Now, I still can’t tell you in depth about the offsides rule, but the only reason I know who any professional athletes are is because of her. I was 17 and easily impressionable; Mia Hamm was the perfect role model.
She was my favorite because her coach told her she ran like a girl and she told him that if he picked up the pace he could run like a girl, too.
Now, the pendulum has swung so far in favor of alone time that when I want to relax I call a friend and try to get out. My answer would have been different if I’d been going out lately. I’m naturally an introvert and need huge swaths of alone time to both recharge and create.
By alone time, I mean absolute quiet. My apartment is currently too loud with the dehumidifiers going for my purposes. Normally I like it to just be the sound of the clacking keys interrupting the madness of my mind.
Writing is relaxing because I can take a puzzle I’m considering and mull it over from all sides. That being said, when I don’t get out and about I tend to navel gaze about why I tend to blow up all my relationships. It made me feel better to learn that this is a neurodivergent lifelong trait and that even though it’s sad, it’s not uncommon. I have to have a support system so I’m trying to get into some kind of housing arrangement that provides it. I would probably be living in Baltimore county somewhere with not a lot of privacy, but it is something to consider vs. being alone all the time.
I waffle on what it is I can truly handle, not what I want.
I have truly big questions on my mind (it is a very busy place), so Aaron’s visit is expertly timed in terms of needing to get out of my head and stop spending so much time alone.
And in fact, it’s my birthday the day before he arrives, so I know that we’ll want to celebrate together, as well as all the birthdays of his I’ve missed over the last few years. I just don’t know what celebrating means to either one of us, yet.
I hope the weather is nice because I’d like to take him to places I find relaxing, like the Inner Harbor and Fell’s Point. And in fact, it would be good if he’d take me around to find a place to live, so if he doesn’t mind I might rent a car for us. However, I respect a man with an itinerary and everything he wants to do in DC sounds like something I want to do, too. I will suggest going to the African American History Museum as I want Aaron to see it before there are any drastic changes to the truth. Plus, I haven’t gotten to see Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther suit yet.
Going to museums and book talks are relaxing to me because they generally aren’t as overwhelming for me as say, a grocery store. People tend to quietly look at things- save opening day of the spy museum. That was nuts.
Plus, school has started and we can go to the museums while the tourists have cleared out. This is the perfect time to visit DC, in my humble opinion, because I lived there for over a decade (and may move back to the Maryland suburbs eventually). DC is better without tourist season if you’re neurodivergent and cannot handle crowds easily. If you don’t mind tourist season, the cherry blossom blooms are incredible in the spring.
I find that I am more relaxed when the weather is as well- therefore, fall and spring are my two favorite times of the year. The temperature is not to either extreme and I can wear hoodies, my favorite cozy and relaxed feeling.
And now it’s time to call in my last relaxed feeling- a clean home. My friend Josh hooked me up with the number of a housekeeper and I’m finally ready to address both the mess created by me, a bachelor in a female body, and the enormous task of washing everything that got wet. I had to get over my executive dysfunction enough to admit that I needed help.
Mostly because I’ve been navel-gazing, and now it’s time to look a little further ahead. Before, I didn’t have a timeline on how long I would sit with grief, unable to move.
I folded into myself when I forced Aada out of my life, because it was such an impulsive decision that had disastrous consequences for us both. I can’t say that I didn’t mean to hurt her, because at the peak of my rage, I absolutely did. I wanted her to hurt the way I did, because the consequences of her lie had gotten into the fabric of my other relationships and it hadn’t gone great.
So relaxing is not high on my to-do list when I am afraid to look myself in the mirror and admit that red mist rage overtook the rest of my senses and I could not think straight. I also cannot go back to that moment in time and undo anything, anymore than I can go back to the point at which we went wrong originally.
I can only accept that my rage didn’t help anyone, and try to pick up the pieces in a constructive way. I don’t want to forget the moments in which I failed to give Aada grace. I need the reminder not to be so quick to anger.
Scar tissue is stronger than it was before, but the memory of the injury stays. I have a ton of them on the outside from being a cook, but the internal ones are what tend to plague me and stop me from thinking that I deserve more than an apartment who actively seems to hate me.
It’s the second flood since December.
I don’t want to live in squalor, but my brain tries to tell me I don’t deserve more. That it’s okay my house looks the way it does because I’m the type of person that would screw over her best friend in a blaze of glory, then realize the consequences. I have absolutely treated myself like shit, and I’m writing it down because this is also part of my growth and development.
I went down the internet rabbit hole and started living like Comic Book Guy. That’s why I don’t want to be Aada’s internet friend ever again. It led me to a very dark place, and she participated.
It’s a tall order to even get her to e-mail me again, much less meet up. Just because she’s mad doesn’t mean I don’t have wants and needs, and the biggest one ever is for the next 12 years not to be a repeat of the last. My life has just been a disaster in terms of my mental health and I’m going to blame some of it on this relationship, because Aada had a bigger and better dark passenger than me.
I am trying to have empathy for both parties when I say that things were never fair or easy.
Not always relaxing, because relaxing together lived in my daydreams and not the daily reality.
What I would find relaxing with Aada is going to a coffee shop as early as she can stand it. I’m a morning person, she is………….. not.
There’s just something about the early morning that brings its own special brand of conversation, and I’d like to look into her eyes when I tell her that I’m sorry things didn’t go better the first time around.
But I know that she thinks that all of this is a grand manipulation, so coffee is just one of the things I think to myself to make me happy in remembrance. It’s a relaxing thought, not something that will happen in the future- as much as I wish it would.
It is relaxing to me to think of better times, because I cannot explain the last few months without my friends saying I need to go back to the doctor. My consequences in this whole thing are more than I can say to anyone but Aada, a time when I really need her to listen closely, and I pushed her away.
But not entirely.
At coffee, I would hope that she was affectionate and warm as we planned out next steps…. if there is one. What if we meet in person and all the love we thought we had was our writing voices? I don’t want there to be pressure on this one coffee to have anything else happen after it. I would like to just be, taking in this person’s facial expressions for the first time, despite knowing each other for over 10 years.
I found writing to her relaxing, so I know that the tone takes on letters to her quite frequently. And sometimes I just say it flat out. There are things I miss about being in that headspace.
She frequently went long periods without replying, me not really noticing because I was entertaining myself. But there was something about my e-mails that made her feel like I was searching for more closeness, and I was. It just didn’t have anything to do with writing to each other.
She felt no shame in explaining my family dynamics to her, yet castigated me when I’d respond in kind. It was a one-way street, a brick wall, that had just started to come down when she lied. That’s the saddest part of all. I was starting to see all the wealth our friendship had to offer and I didn’t breathe.
I didn’t relax when I should have, because at every turn during this internet relationship I haven’t made the choice to relax.
I finally have, but it has come at a cost.
My brain doesn’t work the same way, and I miss that part of it. I know I’ll always “be a part of her wild and crazy brain,” too….
It’s just a shame that we didn’t become real to each other before she admitted her lie. To let me have my first human reaction with her alone.
For instance, my second e-mail to the person also affecting this lie suggests they should talk to each other. I didn’t win a prize, I batted cleanup on Aada’s behalf.
She had a very real way of imposing on my life without being able to see the consequences of how it played on the ground, despite my color commentary.
Like her misreading the situation with whom she called my “bellwether friend” completely wrong. That’s a time in which I needed her to turn toward me instead of away from me because I was out of my mind with worry. Those consequences didn’t turn out the way she thought they would, either.
She cannot read social cues over the internet any better than I can, and we both developed hair-trigger tempers. The thing that used to relax me became a melting pot of toxicity that I spent a very long time trying to clean up, and then she admitted something to me that she thought was innocuous.
It really, really wasn’t over 12 years…… and really isn’t, now.
It was easier to break my own heart than to let her do it.
My overreaction will cost me not being given grace when I wouldn’t give her mine. But if I was able to start over, I would…. relaxing over a cup of coffee.
I tend to overuse the word “awesome” and should probably look up some alternate words. It would be good practice if it was struck from my vocabulary and I had to work around it.
Yesterday, though. Yesterday really was awesome.
One of my best friends since 2014, Aaron Brown, is coming to visit for a week. I’m so happy thinking about all the things we can do (or not do). Aaron and I love to do nothing together, and we’ve been calling it “running Aarons” for at least 10 years. We definitely want to do DC for a day, and I know that Josh wanted to take me out for my birthday so he’ll get to join me for that. Plus, I’m not the only friend Aaron has in the area, so we’ll be visiting around Maryland as well.
Things are also shaping up for my Houston trip at the end of the month, because I’ve wanted to see Brene Brown speak and meet her (again) for a long time. I’ve said this before, but I will say again that Dr. Brown and I have a slight history. I taught her how to do something in Microsoft Word 30 years ago and now I cannot remember what it was. Back then, she was just “one of my kids,” what I called all the graduate school of social work students that studied in my computer lab. I was watching YouTube a few years later and said to Dana, “I think that’s one of my kids.” Just to be sure, I contacted her team and made sure that it was her.
It was.
It’s amazing how you accidentally run into famous people if you wait long enough.
Aada used to be taken with Dr. Brown to the point that she joked that she was going to marry her. That she didn’t end up with Dr. Brown as her Girl Friday, she unfortunately got me. That I was so delighted my epitaph was going to be “Eat It, Brown.” She was not amused by this. I have laughed for almost a year.
Sorry, not sorry.
So, anyway, that’s what makes me excited and heartbroken to meet Dr. Brown. I want to tell her what a kick it is to see her again as a Real Adult instead of a kid in grad school. I will not tell her the story about Aada, because it would be just my luck that I’d tear up.
But when you feel such shame and vulnerability, who better to go and see than an expert?
But before all that, Aaron and I are going to have a good time in Baltimore.
I don’t hold grudges because my memory is not that good. I tend to search out the good in people and forget the rest. I own when I am not the best of people, and try to correct those ills. Nine times out of ten, I only remember my role in a conflict because I’m constantly searching for it. I don’t constantly search for how other people are to blame in some way.
It leads to a much happier life because people come and go as they please in my life. It’s an easy give and take, barring the blowup with Aada because I don’t have the chance for keyboard warrior anger with anyone else. It was my downfall; Aada being so remote made her not real. I lost my humanity in a way that I couldn’t with on the ground friends because it happened so fast. I lost my mind during a meltdown. My punishment absolutely should be not reconnecting because you never realize how bad you’ve treated someone else until you’re trying to explain it to someone else.
I saw a Facebook meme today with that saying in the other direction, that you cannot explain how bad someone hurt you until you’re trying to explain it to someone else. But most people aren’t willing to look their dark passenger in the face and wrestle it away. The world is often “me, me, me…. everything happens to me.” I find that it’s more helpful to move on in the knowledge of the role I played. It makes all conflicts melt faster; I’ve moved on knowing I wasn’t the perfect person, either.
I wish I could have been the perfect person to Aada because she was the perfect person to me. My bipolar disorder and the nature of the internet didn’t mix. I mistreated her from the beginning with all the marks my abuser left on me. We’d finally gotten past all that and she decided to unburden herself of her lie.
I, in the words of Bob Lynn, “failed to give her the grace love requires.”
Lying was wrong, but I won’t remember that she lied nearly as much as I’ll remember my overreaction. I don’t carry around my pain. I carry the pain of others, taking it especially hard when I’m the one that has done the hurting.
I didn’t have empathy in the moment, and it’s something I’ll always regret in some ways, because there were better ways to say “stop the bus. I want to get off.”
Much better.
It was a case of turning away from each other when we should have turned towards. I was feeling freaked out and isolated, so I lashed out instead of saying “we should talk about this.”
I do that with my on the ground friends, and I don’t know why this was somehow less and more important. I don’t remember what I was thinking except “end the madness. You’re turning into a hermit.” None of my excuses were valid, I just acted.
Poring over my own actions will propel me forward in life. Thinking about things done to me limit my ability to see the places I do have control.
I have not taken control of my life lately, preferring to let it weather me by moving me of its own accord. I need to fix it, and these entries are my first steps toward recovering from the person I used to be…. someone who very much wouldn’t blame anyone for holding a grudge against me.
Literally, the furthest I’ve traveled from home is Paris. I did not feel at home there because I did not speak the language, but I found unparalleled beauty everywhere in the urban jungle. I particularly liked the Metro’s dedication to typography. Luckily, my dad was with me so I didn’t spend the whole trip unmoored by unfamiliarity. He does speak a bit of French and had been to Paris before so he could lead me around.
I will never forget misreading a menu and accidentally ordering two ice cream sundaes for dessert, then to the amazement of my father, proceeded to take both of them down in stride. I think it was all the walking- my appetite was insatiable at mealtimes. At the Musee D’Orsay, I ate what amounted to an entire duck…. or seemed like it.
We actually got trapped in the Musee D’Orsay for a while because the yellow vests were protesting and they locked down the museum just in case. It didn’t matter, I was lost in the Van Gogh room, looking for signs of Amy Pond (there are none, it was just fun).
I would fly back to Paris just to eat breakfast at McDonalds, strangely enough. The cassis sundae I had was better than anything I’ve had in the US, and the same for silver dollar pancakes with Nutella. Proof that in France, the ice cream machine works……….
Figuratively, the furthest I’ve been from home is this time in my life. I have no idea what I’m doing. My apartment needs to be majorly overhauled and my executive dysfunction is having none of it. I made some progress by doing some laundry yesterday, but I’m going to need help to get everything clean. There’s no way all my blankets are going to fit into our washer and dryer, and it’s becoming the season to need them.
I’m overwhelmed by the prospect that I really do need to apply for disability and get the ball rolling, because my bipolar disorder spinning out three times in 10 years has convinced my cognitive behavioral group this is what’s best for me. I am on board because bipolar disorder is not the only disability I have, it’s just the only one that’s heavily documented.
I was diagnosed with hypotonia at 18 mos old, with no follow ups. I think it might have been a misdiagnosis in the 1970s because the people with CP that I do know say that I walk with the “CP Shuffle.” But whether it’s CP or hypotonia, it creates problems with movement, particularly outside where the sidewalks are uneven. CP could also be responsible for my lack of stereopsis, another disability that causes problems while walking and driving. Things literally come out of nowhere because I can only use my left or my right eye one at a time in terms of focus.
The laundry list of what’s wrong with me and why is starting to add up…. that disability is something I could have gotten at 18 and am now only starting to deal with my disorders because I was masking so hard to cover them.
It’s a journey that’s incredibly far from home if you’ve never taken it. Unmasking can be a kind of freedom, or it can slowly become a prison as people see you more and more differently.
Stories That Are All True 