But it went out.. Came back on.. Taunted us. In and out. It was really gracious (the electricity I'm talking about) when it decided to let the lights stay on long enough for us to eat. Rose and Kelly headed out after a long evening of laughter.
I curled up with a book and bam! Big crash of ice falling all over outside and then pitch black. We don't even haaave an emergency kit. And this is the beginning. :)
We stayed that night because it was still really warm from the broiler in the house. We curled up under fifty pounds of blankets, each in our bed cocoons and made it through the night, at least mom did, she ended up on the couch near the kitchen.
I woke up and could see my breath, it was dark everywhere and usual glow and gloom of the city lights were absolutely moot. It must have been about six or seven AM and I decided no matter how long the storm won, I was not staying in this condition. I was so cold I thought I'd never thaw out. I found all my blankets on the floor, hot flashes, estrogen, what can I say, it's the change... Bah hah I'm only 21..
SO I relinquished my thoughts and crawled back to dream land under my cocoon and got pissed in my dreams because my cat kept turning into the blankets and not sharing herself.
The day started to warm up and eventually, I slept really late, I think until 1 or 2 pm and woke up pissed because my kitty cat was rolling herself in my blankets like a damned burrito and messing with my cocoon.
I had had enough of this. The cat was going somewhere and me and mom were traveling to where there was heat, running water and light.
I made arrangements, it just so happens my Abi came over that day with her Fiance Jeremy and took the cat for me to her house, where she had the works because her parents weirdly are kind of normal as far as responsibilities and her dad has a generator.. Spoiled. So that worked out well.
Then I made plans to go up to Manchester to my Lisha's house with Jay so me and mom could stay and relax and my main concern was that mom needed electricity for her oxygen machine and running water and to take care of herself. (she doesn't handle infections or colds very well, they are near fatal, so she's very brittle)
Lish was excited. I rang her up and asked if she had heat, her dad was Dale, a good friend of my mom's who passed from the diabetes epidemic so she understands more than any of my friends what it's like to watch her disintegrate so she was more than welcoming to the idea and had concerns the same.
After many errands and trying to boot around town with my mum and her Personal Care Assistant Karen attempting to find any damned stores open for things we needed last minute, bad luck. All we found was Market Basket, the Post Office and Burger King, rather that's all we visited.
It was more like a trip to get warm actually.
None the less, we barrel-assed around town chatting, singing, frolicking and yupping (gaaag) as the tunes of Christmas pooped in my head. I mean popped.... haha
We make it home and in less than 10 minutes, Karen and I had managed to pack mum a full suitcase of everything she could need except her bed if she could.
We loaded the car with oxygen tanks. Karen helped her get dressed as I ran around almost forgetting I exist myself. We doddled and organized and yupped some more.
I called Lish up north and asked her if it were definitely OK we come. I hate putting people out. And she said, "Oh my God your mother's actually coming to my house to stay the night? Well she can have my bed but I have to go clean. You'll be here very soon. I have a cahburatah sittin' on my kitchen table for God's sake.(She's trying to fix her truck. She got smashed up but maybe that's another blog. She's always elbow deep in some kind of vehicle or out driving one.)
She figured I might come but in my mother's oh so altruistic stubbornness she genuinely didn't think she'd come. I guess this was a shock. She called back ten minutes later telling me to stall and take my pleasant time on the highway so she could haul ass cleaning. (As images of cleaning products danced in my head)
We took a detour to my boyfriends house on the way. Stopped in so I could kiss him. I hadn't seen his lovely face in six days and my God was I craving his.. lips.
So I convinced my mum to come in and meet his mum. They talked. It was good. Mum asked her to come for Christmas Day and have dinner. She accepted right away. They hit it off well as I disappeared outside with the lips. I mean.. The boy. :) (Man I like him)
And we finally headed to Lisha's for the night. (Did I mention I liked him? I had to leave? I really wish we had our own place) We ordered Chinese delivery, talked shit about the economy and cahburatah's as I daydreamed of the lips boy.
Mom snuck a cup of cheer, she had some of that yummy Khalua Eggnog on ice and a candy cane, I really love it. I do. She got a little tipped, went to lay down and pass out in Alicia's room and so I laid down, still dreaming and fell asleep watching Lish play her D&D XBOX games and kill little snake things.
And Just as I get to the really great part in my dream. No explanations.
Mom's voice comes ringing through my head full speed.
"Heidi. Get up! I'm having chest pain. Wake up!"
I looked, it was 3:40 AM. Lish was still playing her game, what the fuck?
And Mom was dramatically draped over her other couch holding her left shoulder.
"Mom. Did you take your meds? Are you sure it's not just Angina?"
"No Heidi. My sugars are above 600. Get up."
I felt an evil pit rise in my stomach. Another one of these nights.
I have this awful guilt. I have no sympathy sometimes when she makes her own bed of nails. She drank, smoked, ate and giggled her way to near coma and I'm going to rush and love her and bring her to the hospital at 4 am in the freezing storms just so she can get a little bit of that special drip, Morphine. I don't fucking think so.
I'm done sounding so bad. She's me mum. I shouldn't be such an asshole, really. I'd be depressed too if I had everything she does and I really do love her. I just get angry. When will my life retain not having to babysit my 5o some odd year old parents? It's better than her banging on my bedroom wall with the remote and yelling like she does at night for some water or something foolish.\
I should really stop being such a bitch. I've just had too much pressure. No on understands the torment when you walk into a lousy hospital with your mom, over and over again, you're entire life.
It's heart wrenching, sad and life changing to watch someone you love so much, your mother who gave you birth, just fall apart all the time. It's even more frustrating needing a parent and having to be one all the time. I'm not sure anyone in my shoes wouldn't be pissed off a little at the world after a certain amount of emotion numbing events. After a certain level, you loose your ability to let it bring you down, you build a force feild of the roll-your-eyes little boy who cried wolf because if I let it bring me down every time, I'd just roll over and die from how often I see her loosing it all.
I'm ranting. I'm done.
It was awful.
I stayed at the hospital with her from 4 am to 830 a or so. Luckily the hospital was in Lish's town and I didn't have to drive far home. There were teeny little pretty dancing snowflakes escaping God's breath above as I drove. The sight reminded me of the season but the trip to the emergency room, however funny and charming and strong I may pretend to be, made me a little mushy inside. It never fails every time.
The lump in my throat once again traveled like it always does to my tear ducts and I tried to block it out but the more I ignored the anger inside, the more it came flooding into my senses until I was sobbin in the car outside of Jay's house. I smoked a cigarette and sat there, trying so hard to compose myself. I feel like a five year old and even though it's been since I was that age I've been seeing mom like this, it never seems to fail at touching my heart even through all my stubborn, cold hearted bitchyness.
All I kept thinking to myself was how whenever my mom was sick, the one mommy I would run to to hug me, to pick me up from school, to feed me, to love me like my mom did and would, was Connie and man, oh man do I miss her.
She was Stephanie's mother. I've known her nearly my whole life, short a year or two. Connie was my other mommy. She passed away in her sleep to a heart attack. Steph found her. We weren't talking at the time for really dumb reasons but I've never loved Stephanie as much as I learned to that morning and perhaps I've never been so grateful of everyone around me either. Is it weird to say I hugged her even though she was gone? I held on.
Here my mom is, the one that's always been sick, laying there with possible Congestive Heart Failure, and all the while I wanted to run and crawl into Connie's water bed. There was a sad amount of time where we didn't speak, Connie and I, right before she died and I wish that had never happened. I never said anything. I always wonder if she knew how much I loved her too and if she understands how grateful I really am.
I unlocked Lish's front door (She gave me the key to get back in. She was sure she would most likely not get out of bed. haha)
I cried so hard and quiet wrapped up in a pile of blankets on the couch until I passed out from a headache. I'm still crying writing this part. haha I'm such a girl.
They call this kind of writing stream of conciousness. I'm not sure I've learned any other kind. lol I feel like I have to get this stuff out so bare with me. If you are bored, go play mouse trap or monopoly. haha
I woke up to Jay bouncing around the house around noon. I smelled the sweet aroma of skunk and followed into his room. I crawled up onto the bed and we got so fucked up smoking and Vikes that I went on a tangent with a bunch of markers on the art wall in his room.
We blared the music even though Lish was sleeping. At first I danced around to Eminem, there was a horrible storm outside and in my soul, I had no where to go or do at the moment, so what? Then after two hours of coloring and flailing and laughing and swirling and smoking and talking about life, I completed the art work below. As I was making it, I had no idea what I was making in the beginning but eventually, this dude's face popped out of my peace sign.
I thought of life and all my anger. How even though I must find peace inside, there is some truth to the blues and the way of drugs and how it's visible no matter how much we try and be a happy peace sign. And on the outside, it's a blur, I shaded it with my fingers, the angrier and more free I got, the more blurry he became and the more he had the same look on my face as many of the visitors in the cardiac ward, exhausted and angry inside, some have been in the eye of the storm so long, they loose expression, even concern.
Jay opened up a lot and told me so much about his life. It was comforting to listen to his wisdom behind his own pain. His mother passed away a long time ago. He's 28 now and still understands the neediness of your mom in the pit of your stomach.
We talked about way more than that though and it felt good. I felt like I was in the eye of the storm. Like I was getting to the beautiful place of passion which is derived from this anger, this settle in my stomach.
When I finally began to sober up, Lish woke up and we continued our crazy sherades. I was desperately trying to loose track of time and push out the next hospital visit or emotion as long as I could. I knew I couldn't drive until I sobered up again so I just layed and we all talked and laughed and had a really good afternoon.
I'm not sure what I would do without my friends sometimes.People might not think they are my friends, depending on how prudy you are, because we smoke, but they are my angels here on earth, with or without the recreations. I haven't got much else. Well, I've got Jarrett and he's beautifully my best friend but that doesn't even count on the same scale. He beats everyone in that game. It's so inaudibly comfortable and stable for once in my life. Besides, he has nice...lips..remember? haha And I have a good job, and we all have good morals and hearts. So what?
I went to see mom again. This time I was just in time for her morphine dose. She was sloopy slurpy drunk to the point where her eyeballs kept falling backward, rolling into her head every time her chin would drop and she'd drool a little. Now for the record, I've never seen Canibas do that to anyone before.
What an image, really. Makes me want to show all the cigarette smokers in the world.
Kind of hypocritical though huh?
I'm talking so much but I have a point. haha And maybe I'm being too honest, I'll get arrested now, you watch. Well, my point was to show you the picture I drew but I could'nt explain what it meant, I didn't even know what the art I made really was portraying until I saw it again later that night. It looks like a
5th grader could have drawn it. You should see the other shit on the wall. It's maybe a hippie thing.
So within the white walls, with all the white lights, and all the white sheets and all the white faces, I sat. I watched TV. Mom's hand twitched and she said something funny about how she was glad to be in the hospital with all the storm outside.
I laughed but inside I thought that was ironic. Could you guess why?
So a snobby, white doctor came walking in and sat down with a white clipboard. I imagine they were going to take advantage of her vulnerable honesty in the condition she was in to give her a mini psych evaluation. He asked her foolish questions like the date and time. He continued to ask her really personal, almost accusing questions about her thoughts and how she was feeling in general. It was really hard to sit there. Mom acts like she doesn't want me to know she is really sick, mentally and physically and so she kept not answering the doctor in the straight through the bush way and went around it like an ass.
I stood up, grabbed my hoodie and headed to the cafe.
I probably looked like hell. I felt like I had visited recently for sure. And as I walked into the cafe, I noticed a comment about my hat and how much I looked like a dyke. I looked around for anyone standing near me as these eyes gawked in my direction. I smiled right at her from across the tables. The voice was a young, skinny, prissy girl sitting in the cafe surrounded by her colleagues.
She looked like a secret freak, like the school teacher kind. She was wearing all black and silver, her hair up, a tattoo on her neck I couldn't make out with out my glasses. She was a rocker bitch by night I could tell by the seemingly-priss-could-walk-into-a-fancy-club-resort-or-be-an-evil-dominatrix-bitch boots she was wearing, which creased at her thigh, leading me to believe they were high enough under her designer jeans to know, she was more the latter of a freak and could probably be found in the janitor's closet at the golf clubs of America.
How dare she throw a stone smaller than mine?
She had an evil, jealous snare as I walked past high and mighty dyke with my hippie salad greens and my Bob Marley rainbow hat on. (Lost it in the house the other day and I should probably look for it.) I had a Red Sox T on and some really baggy jeans, I've been dropping weight from stress. (No I haven't been doing a lot of drugs, just smoking, really it's stress...well, except for this day I did take other things but I've already come to terms with I didn't pop and drive haha)I was also wearing a maroon hoodie full in the pockets like a trucker. I have a tattoo on my neck, behind my right ear of three stars, and no, I won't tell you what it means to me. But she was gawking and talking on her cell and looking at my tattoo as I ate. I could feel the burn from her eyes, her friends all eating and ignoring me.
Straight people. ahah Don't get it.
Her voice was still ranting about my awful boots from far away. If she was comfortable about herself, and secretly didn't think I was mysterious, she wouldn't be so obsessive over how different I was and she'd just know she was better, she wouldn't have to point it out to a crowd that I’m not. Never mind that her inner most fears of inadequacy are because she has to convince herself, or someone did, that it's wrong, very wrong. She has to settle with very dark, insecure, mean thoughts the rest of her life until she realizes her hands are dirty liars and her eyes are blind.
I was wearing worker boots, the orange-yellow kind that ghetto kids wear to look cool but I just thought they were comfortable, warm and water proof for winter and I have big feet, big everything. I don't mind looking a little casual. I do say I'm half butch after all. I can't believe I'm rambling like this and going to post it on the net for the world. Oh well. Fuck you. I’m comfortable.
One girl she was sitting with rolled her eyes. She was beautiful and had some sort of Spanish dialect, with long curly hair and a warm smile, a nice chunky butt, and said: "Hey, So did you know those boots are actually really comfortable? I totally have a pair. Besides, at least she's smart. It is cold outside."
I really wanted to turn around and ask the priss girl out. You see. It's these girls, these people who have to comment on someone that's comfortable with themselves, like how some guys pick on gay guys all the time, it's them that are hiding. I walk tall. Why would I leave the house otherwise if I wasn't comfortable in what I was wearing? I love the animosity. I didn’t pick on her for being skinny because I’m afraid to be fat for all’s sake.
Does that make sense?
I'm almost at the end. This is turning into a big blog isn't it?
I left the hospital when mom's meds wore off and she started getting a little bitchy.
I went back to Alicia's house. There were a lot of people. It was a blur of some girls birthday. A lot of people smoking and drinking beers and loud music and laughter and things my soul was incapable of at the moment. How dare I stay and be a damper when I just can't keep running the eye of the storm. I have to let it pass somehow.
Lish helped me out to the car with mom's oxygen tanks and our belongings. I glanced around checking for last minute things and took one more 10 second stare at my peace sign that looked stupid. I told her I was too bummed and exausted to stay and party but I would be back soon. I thanked her and Jay numerous times for their generosity and the great morning I had. It was healing.
I bombarded to Jarrett's as quickly as I could hurry down RT 3. I got out of the car so fast my heart raced and the lump haunted and lingered in the back of my throat. I think I smoked too many butts on the way there. I was light headed. I chain smoke when I'm nervous and I felt like a tipping volcano of emotion.
I knocked and there was no answer. I knocked again and got nervous he was out.
I took two steps back and looked at the door trying not to loose it on his porch.
Why was it building up like this all of a sudden? I lit another cigarette and noticed the light on bright in the living room. I walked around the porch and tapped on the window. I could see his face tinkering on Shaun's laptop. A wave of warmth hit me when he shut the system, peaked and smiled.
I met him at the door, still pretending I was a chimney. He stepped out, unexpected to see me, and immediately said that I didn't look so good or happy. He took my cigarette, I think he knew I was a little crazy, and then I just fell into his shoulder. There it went. That fucking lump of specially reserved tears all over his nice sweater. haha... I let it out. The storm began to pass. It's not like I'm weak but there is no one out there who can't agree how comfortable it is to have a lover you can talk to, embrace, let go, hold and feel safe even for one moment when it feels the sky is falling. I took a hot shower and he made coffee and gave me some beef stew his mom made from scratch. We sat and chatted and laughed and talked with his mom until late.
We made amazing love that night. He made me breakfast the next morning. We went to see my mom again. The heat came back on at home. The house was empty. I went to work and came back, told his mom some of my friends were coming over for heat and board games, he's 23 for Goodness sake but still, respect. What momma don't know won't hurt her. Parents act like their kids, now if I were 15 I'd be concerned, but they act like when you become young adults, really into serious relationship and such, that you aren't allowed to ever be sexually active. Same as far as I'm concerned, my parents have never done it. It WAS immaculate conception.
He spent the night. We had the most amazing night than ever before and slept in all day, wrapped naked in each other. I felt at peace. The storm was over for now.
I sat up thinking while smoking a butt, six am. Thinking of 24 hours before. Looking at Jarrett's face.
Then the peace sign came to me. I knew what it all was.
Like I said, just because we have the capability to be benevolent and do well, doesn't mean that there isn't something to be said about the blues. Just because the semblance of someone is strong, happy and courageous, doesn't mean that they aren't breaking inside. Just because they look like a typical stereotype, you can label it whatever people choose to define in our four white walled society, and you can make bad judgments based on reflection itself, but that doesn't mean your accusations are accurate or concise. It doesn't mean that it's easy to get out of bed, straighten my hair, pack on the foundation, eyeliner and conceit, iron my dress clothes, wear heels and act like I'm not falling apart watching my mother wither to a vegetable just so I can look good for a cute doctor walking by and conform to the definition of normal.
Conforming with, adhering to, or constituting a norm, standard, pattern, level, or type; typical: in any given system, average, society, culture, science; to be without disease;Set standards, rules, obligations and natural occurance with any society, group, average and surroundings
Normal is whatever you people choose to define and conform to and act like and be.
I rolled out of bed trying to find my heart somewhere in the sheets and my soul somewhere in the sky. It seems they've both escaped me and the more I trudge through, trying to save my mom, my family, my life, my faith, the more I fail when I try alone and I've never needed God's strength as much as now. It's ironic how I push him away to avoid the pain of finding one more disappointment. Maybe I have trust issues.
Maybe he's been there all along but I'll figure it out.
I'm just tired of these stones we cast. I'm tired of no one knowing each other and their stories and trying to write a book ahead of time. I'd like to know how the world keeps walking asleep. How they convince themselves to push until they break everyday so they can get that great job or car, salary or pair of jeans.
I wrote Harmony and Love in both eyes. I didn't know why but I suppose I was seeing my reflection, or because it was my creation, I was seeing what I wished my reflection was or wasn't. Perhaps it was the most accurate portrait of myself.
The blue, dreary peace sign, carrying the weight of love, forever relaxed and at peace inside, but forever changing colors with each lesson of life. The eyes, obviously, most people would say the inflence of drugs, the tired, red eyed, large pupil affect I had splattered there, almost cartoonish in character, devouring the true reflection of self. However, it also means the tare and dryness and irritation of pain, and I couldn't fit the word harmony in a small pupil with the markers Jay had for his six year old so my brain doesn't revolve arond just getting fucked up.
The more I thought while sitting there, the more I could see that everyone is a peace sign, some people have just been covered with dirt and blues and you can't see any marks of peace.
I thought about my weekend, and irrelevant to how wonderful it ended, even without that little peice of heaven on earth I had for too short of hours, that it will never be easy, it will never make sense, it will never be fair, and it will never ever ever be clean no matter where I go and it will remain dry unless I find a way within myself, to appreciate the beautiful storm that creates me, and my life experiences and maybe let it rain once in a while.
