This Blessed Mess » monsters

Crazy can’t save you from cancer.

Mrs. Messiness — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 19:46:29 +0000

There was no end to the excuses I would let my grandmother get away with. I would nod when she told me stories, nod when she got them backwards, nod when she called me by my mothers’ name.

I believed everything she said – every time she spoke, because she was an anomaly to me. She was fascinating and strong and beautiful. She was amazing and scary and strange and comfortable to me. There were days when she would tell me with great clarity of her love affair with my grandfather and days when she couldn’t remember his name.

When I was little and I would visit her, she would transform her entire house into yellow heaven. Yellow was my favorite color, so naturally, she would throw everything out that was anything but yellow. Soap, coffee cups, rugs, peas, toilet paper, bedspreads – every un-yellow thing had to go in the trash.

She ordered candy bars by the case. She called 800 numbers to see if someone named Ben would answer – because she wanted to talk to a Ben. She fed me cucumbers and chocolate syrup and Coca-Cola for lunch and orange-flavored cough medicine for desert. She kept a picture of Lee Majors hanging on her wall because she thought he looked like Jesus.

There was nothing on God’s earth that could have extinguished her like cancer did. It crept in unnoticed and unannounced and swept her away before she had a chance even to battle it. I held her cross when I got married and clutched her rosary when I was baptized last December, and I think about her when I see yellow in unexpected and unexplained places. She was my hero – cancer her villain.

My uncle – her son – was invincible. He was made out of pure steel – unbreakable and unsinkable. He fought in wars and in bars and was never afraid. He loved his wife madly from the minute they met until the minute he died and he never let her doubt it. There was simply nothing on earth that was strong enough to break him like cancer did. It was fast and violent and painful and we all deal with the guilt of thanking God for ending it when He did.

My grandfather wore his dress uniform to both funerals and saluted his son’s casket when it passed. I remember thinking that I’d never seen him look so handsome. I remember thinking that he looked so tired and so sad. Both times, I prayed that God would hold onto his heart and not loose all the pieces if it shattered. Both times I prayed that God would not make me see him cry. Both times I prayed that this time would be the last time that cancer stole from my family.

My mother and her twin have both seen the shadow of cancer on their doorstep and they both check and check and recheck to see that it’s really not standing there anymore. We’ve all been told we should check and check as well, and we do.

Today, though, it feels like no matter how vigilant we’ve become, no matter how many motes and canals we dig around our castle, or how many dragons and monsters we chain to our front door – cancer keeps finding a way in. The shadows all over my grandfathers’ lungs is cancer. His heart condition has progressed to the point that a pacemaker is a necessity, but the aggressive nature of the cancer treatment he’ll need will destroy it.

Well played cancer – you fucking win again.

Being ‘Better’

Mrs. Messiness — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 02:08:53 +0000

I have not taken a drink of alcohol in 2 years, 2 weeks and 2 days, as of today.
I have not smoked a cigarette in over a year and a half.
I don’t smoke pot or take pills or even use Nyquil.

I get nervous when my allergies act up because it means I might have to take something stronger than Tylenol and that means I might slur a word. My eyes might droop – my head might nod. I might miss something. And most certainly the scariest thought: I might like it.

I don’t know why a disease that tortures everyone around me never swallowed me whole. I don’t know why I don’t take chances with my sobriety. I don’t know why the same monster that chews on the souls of people I love never bit me as deep as it did them. I don’t know why I refrain from destroying myself. I don’t know why I have the ability to keep my shit together now. I don’t know why it’s no longer hard.

What is hard, though, is staying grateful and thankful that I don’t ache for that escape that I used to build my world around. It’s hard to love the light when people you love live in the dark. It’s hard to hang on to being free when those around you stay caged – hard to celebrate when they suffer.

I don’t know why I don’t know how to share being better, why I can’t give it away. I don’t know why I can’t love or fight or hate or beat the beast that is this disease out of everything, everywhere, but I can’t.

I don’t know why sometimes I desperately wish I could just want to drink it or drug it away, but I can’t. I don’t even want to anymore.

Sometimes being better just pisses me off.

There are no monsters in Texas & the streets are paved with chocolate.

Mrs. Messiness — Tue, 26 May 2009 15:51:22 +0000

A long long time ago, on another planet (it seems), my whole world took a turn for the insane. I’ve only sat one person down in the whole world and explained what happened from beginning to end. He knows what I mean when I say ‘the stalker’. He knows that I refer to not only a person, but an event – a happening. An incident.

My husband knows that when we reminisce, when we retell our lives to each other, when we recount our worlds pre-us, some of the stories run into ‘those’ stories and sometimes I choke on what comes next. He knows I use stupid phrases that don’t fit to encompass entire periods of time. He knows that when a story comes to ‘and then, the stalker’ that that is, in fact, the end of that story. That ‘and then, the stalker’ is where many of my stories just hang.

I don’t even have a proper name for it.

Either way – here’s the point: I wasn’t the only the only one there, then. I wasn’t the only – victim? Survivor? There were a lot – more than I’ll ever know. More than, I think, I even want to know about – but everyone else was inhuman to me. Their stories tried to make mine fade and tried to make my reaction invisible. The others stole pieces of my pain to smooth their own, and tried to turn me into a number. All, of course, but one.

She became human to me – made me realize that we were still women, still alive. Still going to live. She really was a survivor. I would have never considered adding ‘victim’ to her story – she was going to beat this. She was going to kick this things’ ass. And she did. And now, years and years and years later, and on another planet (it seems) she wants to visit me.

In my home.

In my new life, in a whole new state.
Where I live safely because no monsters live here or ever have lived here.

I am beside myself with worry that with her will come the rest of the story. Or more of it. Or some of it. Or just the ashes of what’s left of it. I am filled with anxiety at the thought that she may want to talk about it. We did agree - seven years ago – that we were done with it. That we would remain great friends for reasons not related to the terrorism that brought us together. But we haven’t seen each other since then – seven years ago. What if we have nothing else in common? What if conversation lags and the silence feels weird and she says “Hey, remember when he choked me?” and I panic and say “yeah, and remember when he hid in my basement?” ..then what?

Every time another piece of Then floats to the surface, I spear it – blurt it all out – talk about it – write about it – smash it to pieces – overcome it. I do fear that if I don’t, a tiny piece might fester. So what, universe, do I do with a whole person that floats to the top – hmm?