the things we carry...

yeah, yeah, i know it hasn't been all sunshine and baby farts around here, lately. cut me some slack, please. i'm one month off my anti-depressants, and after seven months of having the edges medically blunted, i'm back to feeling all my feelings at full strength. it's been interesting. and i have to say that i have missed the edges, hard and sharp though they are. they are my edges, and i don't want them blunted, because i would hate to miss anything.

in the spirit of feeling my feelings, and trying like hell to be the girl i so want to be when i grow up, i'm really going to try and not self-edit so much. even here. even though huge chunks of my family read this. i'm going to tell the truth, all of it, even when it's ugly. i figure if someone gets sick of it, they don't have to follow the links, right? right.

so my little friend mary died this afternoon. and i can't stir up a single reason to be sad about that. not a single one. i spent four hours with her yesterday. i read her some sonnets, because she used to be an english teacher, and we spent a big chunk of the early evening just talking. i knew we were getting close to what i can only affectionately refer to as mary's departure time because she was talking a lot about stairs, and bright lights, and beautiful round blue rooms. she said she was just too tired to climb those stairs, right then. and then, that sweet old lady began to make her confession. like a real one. like the kind you see on tv or read about in a novel. a real confession. to me...not a clergy person. this is the part where i just started thinking "holy shit, man. this is big. don't screw this up..." and put on what my kindergarten teacher used to refer to as my "listening ears".

she told me a story that i will not repeat. not here, not on the phone, and not to anyone. it was mary's story, and she told it with candor and no expectations, and since she can't retell it, the story is closed, for better or worse. for better, is what i hope. i comforted her the best i could. i absolved her, even though canon law says i'm not allowed to do that. and i promised her that everything was going to be ok. two rules i try never to break...and i broke them both in the span of 45 seconds, with zero regret and zero thought. and they aren't small rules in my world, either. i'm heavy into rules, at least for myself, but you already know that. and now, less than 24 hours later, she is gone to someplace else, where ever it is that we go when we leave this place. i'd like to think that breaking some rules made the load she had to carry up those stairs she saw at the foot of her bed a little lighter. i hope so, anyway.

when i was little, i used to want to be a baby doctor. in fact, until i was 16, i don't ever remember even thinking about being anything else. and then i took chemistry, and had my ass and my dreams handed to me. i mean, i suppose i could have become a doctor, but that would have necessitated becoming a total hermit and costing mom and dad about a million dollars in tutoring fees. now, i kind of have the total opposite end of that job. sometimes it feels so opposite that it almost comes all the way back around and is the same thing, sort of. that makes sense inside my head, anyway.

confession is good for the soul. and this is a story i'm sick of carrying...and i have been listening to this bruce springsteen song on repeat for a week. indulge me, ok?

***

"Well now, evrything dies, baby, thats a fact

But maybe evrything that dies someday comes back

Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty

And meet me tonight in atlantic city" -atlantic city, bruce springsteen



we haven't talked in years. truth be told, i don't really have anything to say to you. i could have made nice and bit my tongue til it bled and said hello to you in the park. but pride, or the devil, or God, or the fact that at a relatively late age, i finally learned my own self-worth kept me from even meeting you eye to eye.

remember that night we drove to atlantic city because you were appalled that i had never seen the atlantic ocean? it was freezing cold, and i remember standing on the board walk on atlantic avenue, and climbing the fence to see out to see. all i could see were the waves breaking, but i could smell the salt in the air. we had spent all day on I95, and on the gettysburg battlefield, and i was so tired i could barely hold my head up straight. i didn't want to go anywhere that weekend, but as always, i bowed to your will. we ended up in ceasar's, and i won $60 on a dime slot machine. we ended up in some sketchy motel in white horse. when i called my mother to tell her where i was, she immediately asked if we had gotten married. i was glad you were in the bathroom and didn't hear the conversation. i was also glad our beds were at least a foot apart. i didn't sleep a wink that night.

if i had the chance to talk to that 22 year old girl with the blue eyes and the brow hair, so quick to believe everything that anyone told her, i think i would have just patted her on the head, and told her that everything was going to be just fine. because it is, and it was, and it will be.

mil besos--rmg