Letting Go of His Hand

New Job, new insurance and as far as I know my therapist is not covered.

It’s been 9 years.

I first saw him in 2013 about “The Girl”. I would go for 4 to 6 months, talk a bit, process a bit then go back. We did that off and on for the first year, then Mel died. I went quiet on a lot of it and saw him a few times the first few years, but wasn’t ready to be unstuck from the grief. I wasn’t ready to tell him the things I saw, or felt, of how out of control my life was because I was so angry and so, so stuck in the anger, the collateral damage grief causes and not knowing how to just get out of the oncoming traffic.

I went back in 2018 and had regular weekly visits. It took me till 2019 to tell him everything.

I remember telling him about what I call the “waterboarding”. I remember telling him the fear I saw in her eyes, and how that was the last moment her eyes were open, and we ever looked at one another, and she was full of fear. I remember telling him of her mother exposing her body to everyone in the room, and feeling my body lean over my best friend, and deciding if grabbing her mother by her pony tail and beating the fuck out of her, would be worth going to jail in Texas. I remember looking up and seeing my therapist crying at what I was telling him my best friend and I went through in those moments and I thought, “Oh fuck, I broke my therapists!” I remember asking him if everyone was as fucked up and as broken as me? I remember him gently telling me I have PTSD (again, still, whatever) but that mine was a little more complicated…

I just shared with him, in my last visit that the moment I saw his tears caused that fear I broke him, but later, I saw it for what it was: empathy and compassion and that what I went through, was horrible and traumatic. I wasn’t making things up in my head. The diagnosis, relieved even more weight and pressure, because I knew there were reasons I was fucked up, stuck and broken.

I asked him to never change that part of how he treats people, because that moment was a turning point for me.

So anyway, today was our last official visit and I’m immediately struck by how instantly I felt him letting go of my hand and I had myself a little cry. I didn’t realize how safe I had come to feel with him in my head and being there for me the last decade.

I got through one heavy layer of trauma and think when I finally get back to the others, I’ll have more tools to navigate the emotions and baggage I have never had the tools to do so with before.

I fell better about knowing I have some tools and coping skills now, as I see me effortlessly incorporating them into my life, but I feel sad too.

I just let go of his hand…

At A Loss…

We had a mutual friend. Mel introduced me to her. I dragged another friend of mine into it, and we had ourselves a group of girlfriends.

We would meet every third Saturday of each month for almost two years for a Ladies night. We would take turns dragging one guy along with us to act as our designated driver and community dance partner. Said male would wear the title “Goat Boy”.

There was nothing ever sexual between us and a Goat-Boy. A lot of them thanked us later for allowing them to be a fly on the wall. Apparently men don’t get the opportunity to listen to a gaggle of women sit around, blow off steam, and honestly talk. I remember one particular Goat-Boy just disappeared on us and we had to call a friend to come get us deposited at home that night, because we embarrassed him off with our conversation. Three of us were mothers, two of us were divorced. We were focused on our night out as friends, drinking, blowing off steam and having conversations like women do: No Filter.

We were a tight group for quite a while. Eventually boyfriends, divorce, work and location slowed the monthly gigs, but Mel and I never drifted.

Mel used to bail her out of payday loans. Mel was always there for her, but I noticed when Mel needed help, she wasn’t there for Mel. On the occasions I’d run into her at Mel’s, we were polite, and I accepted her because she was Mel’s friend and she as a rule, wasn’t an awful person to be around. She just had a weird competitive thing with Mel, but she could meet a fencepost, and start a conversation with them, as well as keep them laughing. She was funny AF.

She and I stopped communicating when I called her out on not helping Mel out when she needed a place to stay for a few months. Mel had ALWAYS opened her door to this person and her children. I was flabbergasted she told Mel no. I insisted Mel come stay with me, but the distance between my place, and her work was too much and she wound up sleeping in her Bronco with one of her kids, in a rest area off I-5 near Wild Waves. I never spoke to this person again, till after Mel died. We spoke on the phone. She wanted to know why Mel refused to ever speak to her again. She was crying, because I know she was hurt and regretted losing Mel as a friend. I told her why. I didn’t do it with malice, or cruelty, but I gave her the answers she never was able to figure out. She cried, and I felt bad for her, but I didn’t keep up any communication with her after that.

Last night I got a text from someone else who knew her. She died yesterday morning. I wasn’t told how, my contact with the source of the news, did not know. I reached out to someone who was friends with Mel and her and found out how she died. it was instantaneous.

I felt some ways about this.

I didn’t feel, “Thoughts and Prayers, Rest in Peace”, but I also didn’t feel, “Fuck you bitch, you deserved it.” I kind of immediately knew, that she went to the same place Mel went to and their energy became one. I know that in this space their energy now lives, there is no human baggage. I knew, they were OK with each other, in fact they are one. Still, something wasn’t sitting right with me. This morning I went to visit mom, and I was telling her all this and it suddenly hit me and it just slipped out.

Because of what I believe happens when our body dies, because I believe their energy returned to our original source, damnit, I’m jealous! This isn’t how any of this was supposed to happen and I want to be the one with Mel!

My poor mother’s face. She immediately asked, “But you’re not going to make that happen are you?”

No, I’m not. But none of this was supposed to happen this way.

I’m going to go see my friend I dragged into Ladies night. We are the last two left out of our little group of four and I have been home isolated since March 05, 2020. My mom, her room mate and my sister are the only ones I have socialized with since becoming fully vaccinated. A little drive to the coast will do me some good and maybe heal a little bit of this re-opened wound.

I miss you Mel.

53 Days

Life is pretty different. I lost my words after Melissa died. They slowly dried up and I’m sad about that. So many things left with her and I am always mourning old things I’ve lost of myself.

I’ve been shut in now for 53 days. Actually 54, but it’s dark thirty and I just haven’t scratched today’s mark. I think I have been out maybe 7 times since March 03, 2020. I started staying home 5 days prior to the official call of Covid-19 becoming a pandemic. I stopped my side gig work on Feb 29, 2020, because I didn’t like elevators and apartment buildings for delivery. My full time job called it on March 8th, when is was federally recognized and we were all but a few, placed into a shared work unemployment program. It means we were sent home for lack of work, but not released. Our insurance would remain in effect, we didn’t have to search for new jobs on any unemployment forms, and we file weekly unemployment claims, until we are slowly called back in. We lost 90% of our business in a few short days. We were a recognized and still rapidly growing, woman owned catering company. Many of our clients are tied to big name tech companies in the Greater Seattle Area. We were set to move into a new building, as we slowly outgrew our original single space in a strip style business park, after taking over 8 different spaces. With no other neighbors leaving, after getting fed up with all our work vans, personal vehicles, and people, we had no where left to expand. Our move was to begin March 01, 2020 and finish the first week. We had started, but it was ongoing as the pandemic was called and the few people out of about 500 who were left, moved everything.

Meanwhile, I’m at home, thinking,”I’m all introverted now…I got this.”, and for the most part, I do. I miss my mom. I miss my sister. I miss my friend I do side summer work with and play in his yard, learning so much about planting and maintaining a nice English style garden.

I keep weird hours now. I was so used to getting up at 1:30 AM, four days a week and working ten hour days. I’ve kept that schedule for 3 years now and been OK with it, as long as the kids upstairs aren’t being kids till 9 PM. I’ve gone from barely making it, working my ass off, to always be a little behind, to being OK. I’m rested in a way I haven’t been in years, but I am also exhausted from the panic and fear. The beginning of panic and fear was the worst.

At the start of it, it was intense and everything and every person I came in contact with, caused fear in me. I knew my health issues and age would heighten my chances of getting a more severe case, were I to become infected. So everything, caused fear. I began harping at work for masks. Being catering, gloves were plentiful. Once I spent a few days in panic mode, I was able to plan. I was ahead of the curve and managed to get some dry goods and non perishable stuff. I was able to get hand sanitizer, which I still have 2/3 of. I rely mostly on soap and water since it’s more effective and less harmful to bacteria I need. I was able to get my unemployment claim started, that would pay rent and leave me $125.00 for everything else. I called a different state agency and was able to get SNAP food assistance. I was able to talk to my landlords and let them know my status and suspected schedules at staying up on my rent. I was able to get my car insurance to continue billing me, but stop asking for money till my unenjoyment claim was deposited, same with my TV. Luckily for me, all utilities, including basic cable, internet and laundry are included in my rent. My bills are manageable, but I lost my cell phone in the grey area between normal and pandemic. Luckily, I have a work issued phone and hopefully will be able to get it all set up before I have to return it.

My days are long and monotonous. Groundhog day every day with a different TV line-up. I’ve had 53 days to drift in and out of my own head. 53 days to see my life play out before my eyes. 53 days to examine lots of ghosts in the closet. Things I’ve not delved deeply into for years, because I haven’t really allowed myself to seriously dig. It’s hard to dig childhood traumas, without a really good trigger. It arrived.

We are solving a family mystery. One we never thought we would have the answer to. My sister started digging and knew a few people who have been in a position to help with information. So far, my sister and I are the only ones who know, and we are unable to share any of it right now because it is going to impact our mother. It’s going to disrupt her life and I’m not sure how well it will play out, even though she will finally have answers, there appears to probably remain some questions. In other words, none of this is e-mail, text, phone call type news. We need to be with her and we need to see her.

This news has caused my younger sister and I to have some heavy conversations about our lives and the status of our family. We have talked about things in a way we have never talked about and traded information that has been hard to trade and digest. It has caused us to speak, listen and hear each other in ways we have never done. I’ve been heard and understood in ways I’ve deserved to be heard, as well as understood. I have also seen my sister in new ways and have a new found respect for the little ditz.

I continue to miss Mel. I miss the kids super bad too. I’ve not heard from her oldest since before the pandemic began and since he works for UPS, I’ve been worried sick about him.

I think about Mel and her untimely exit. How maybe some of us just weren’t meant to live through this bullshit. How she was lucky to not see the world as it is today. In 30 years, we have changed so much. She wouldn’t recognize the difference that 5 years and three months has made. I’m grateful in one way, she is not living through this. But the other part of me is wishing that for her kids and my selfish ass, she was still here and in fact I wish we were living through this together, even if from different states.

I don’t know what it’s going to be like when it’s time to go back out. I don’t want to go back out too soon, because I am high risk. More so due to the fact I get bronchitis. So far, they aren’t too worried about my Auto Immune diseases, because I am not on biologics. I worry though anyway, because of white blood counts. It’s s o different now, that I received a knock on my door three days ago and panicked, because I wasn’t expecting anyone and I wasn’t wanting to open the door to a virus.

What has happened to my world (our world) in 53 days, is traumatizing. A month ago I saw two co-workers, while grocery shopping in an over-crowded store. We recognized each other through masks, but couldn’t stop and couldn’t Spanglish with one another at the time. I cried outside the store. I went to work the other day to pick up a 2 meal care package and bottle of wine. Saw the new building, saw the owner of the company and a few co-workers from a distance. It was emotional. I cried out in  my car.

I get emotional a lot. Commercials and sappy TV make me cry. Anything that ties back to my current family mystery, makes me cry. Life is full of tears right now. And I can’t explain what some of the tears are for. They just are. Life is so different. The future though always “unknown” is unknown in a different way. Do we hope? Do we leave Covid-19 with a different set of values? We need to. I don’t want to return to the way we were.

Will I ever post again? I don’t know. I could be sick right now from my last trip out for essentials and not even know it. That’s how uncertain the future is. Will I ever get to share my mystery? I don’t know. I hope I do. But I can’t risk anyone accident;y reading anything online before I get a change to meet with my family.

When they say we can go back out? Will we (I) be able to walk outside and interact with people again without severe anxiety? I have had panic attacks prior to store runs and immediately after them. I’d do all my shopping online if the system was set up for EBT, but they aren’t right now.

If a vaccine is found, will those of us who are still here have a giant collective case of survivors guilt aside from you asshats, protesting Stay at Home orders?

Till next time…

Susan

Dear  Mel,

Susan is dying. As I type. I just got off my phone with mom. I called to see how she is doing in the midst of this, because she is right there, with Susan’s sons, a daughter in_law and , of course Pat and Susan.

Just last week, I stopped by to see mom and Pat was gone. Mom was upstairs with Susan, so that is where I went.

I had been thinking of you and losing you. How painful it still is and the fact I have come to accept…it always will be. I will never smile at your death. It changed me forever. One of the things I think about, is what if we both knew that last time we spoke, what would you could have said to me to think of in my lowest moments?

What would you have said?

I asked Susan if I could ask her a question, and record her answer. She said “Yes.”

I turned on the recorder on my phone, said my name and that I was sitting with Susan. I then asked if I had permission to record the conversation. She said again, said “Yes”

I told her I often wonder what you would say to me when I am in my toughest moments regarding your death. I told her I knew we would celebrate her life, but that I know people (Pat) will still get sad. What would you say to her when she is in her saddest moments? I’d like to be able to give her that knowledge.

And Susan spoke.

Her words were beautiful and loving to her son’s, daughter in law and, Pat.

I imagine if the one thing you said to me was, “I am happy we were friends, with no regrets and You Bitch, were the best friend to me too.” I would feel comfort in that.

I miss you very much, now go find Susan who is walking her road.Help her walk the road, my love. I’ll “feel” you when it’s my turn.

She Looks Like You

I see so much of you in Jensyn. She smiles at me now.

I didn’t get to see her a lot after she was born due to my 4 month injury at work, so that she recognizes me, smiles and lets me play with her is special to me.

Tonight, she got kisses from me and she liked it!

 

I gave Jake your picture in the white dress. His eyes got a little wet.