F'ing February

February has been the darkest, most loathsome month of my life, ever since I can remember. It's an era in which the tentacles of hatred, frigidity, sheer indifference to the world, to myself and to life in general, have always threatened to obliterate whatever narrow shards of my heart I was foolish enough to leave vulnerable from the previous months' holiday revelry. February contains my least favorite holiday on earth. The wretched month takes on a power, a possession so intense that I fail miserably to explain the effect it has on my to anyone, especially myself.

Even in the best of times, in the rare, "less than dastardly" days of February, it is difficult for me to exist, never mind to try and thrive.

This past February, 2010, I gave up all pretenses of trying to exist. I stayed in bed until just before my lover would come home. I wouldn't shower for days. I ignored everything that existed outside of my bellybutton. I pulled so tightly into myself that my old bindings which had cloistered me together for so long began to wither and crumble under the additional burden. I was light years beyond the usual Seasonal Affective Disorder that usually impales me at this time of year.

I pulled away from all that I used to enjoy, which really wasn't that difficult since sex was already taken away from me and chocolate was becoming less appealing since one of my meds had caused me to gain nearly 40 pounds in TWO FUCKING MONTHS!!!!!

About the only things I continued to do regularly were feed the cats, attend my doctors' appointments (so no one would suspect there was anything wrong with me)-I showered on these days and berate myself for being such a sexless, jobless, useless, unattractive, worthless, taking up too much space on the planet, good for nothing loser.

I was falling apart all over the place-inside myself, outside of myself, in my spiritual self, in my quasi-relationships with the few people I even bothered to make a pathetic attempt at maintaining a relationship with; and yet no one seemed to notice. Not my family-most of whom don't seem to believe there is anything wrong with me in the first place. Not my friends who are consumed with babies, careers and planning a wedding and most of all, not my lover who sometimes goes with me to my appointments and sees me fall to the floor in random spasms of uncontrolled pain.

All of the pretending, all of the trying and the lying to myself came to a crashing halt at the very end of February. My lover had just bought a "new" used car and we were at the dealership getting ready to sign the paperwork, of which I had made it perfectly clear, in advance, that I wanted no part of, because I had already applied for some government programs to help me get health care and food assistance and I was afraid that this car purchase would jeopardize all the work I had done, and besides, like me buying my car, it was supposed to be something he was doing all on his own. He assured me he took care of everything ahead of time, which should have been an enormous red flag that he took care of everything but the obvious stuff, and what ensued was a disaster!

When it came time to sign the papers, it very quickly became clear that my beloved had not taken care of much of anything and I, already a mess from whatever new concoction of meds I was on, was very quickly becoming livid. The dealer was probably never so uncomfortable in his life as I started first just yelling at Luke (we were the only customers in the dealership on a Saturday afternoon-weird right?).

Then, as I began to realize the depth of what he did not take care of, I started yelling a stream of expletives I will not repeat here. When I do that (which isn't terribly often) Luke grows calmer and calmer, which turns me into Mount St. Helen and I erupt, red face, spit and curse words flying, until I collapse from exhaustion.

It was fucking wonderful! If anyone had recorded it and put it on YouTube, we'd probably be mini-stars.

When I finally stopped screaming at him and he had a chance to speak, he said, with tears in his eyes, that the car wasn't worth all this and we could just wait until....but I stopped listening. I knew by the look in his eyes and the wounded way he was holding himself that I had hurt him very badly-never mind the fact that I had humiliated him in the dealership, I had done something much deeper than that, something that in my own hurt and rage I couldn't comprehend yet.

I knew I was wrong to have done what I did and I knew that he was wrong to say that he took care of everything when he didn't. I also knew that there were so many other options for how to handle this situation, but something inside me literally snapped.

That's the only way I can describe it. There was a complete break-down inside of me and I didn't care about a goddamn fucking thing anymore except lashing out. I wanted to hurt everything in my path-probably even my nephews too if they were there. I didn't care about hurting myself-I wanted to hurt myself! For a fucking change I wanted to know where the pain was coming from and why. I wanted to hurt my lover because I was tired of him living a presumably pain free life. I wanted to hurt the bloated car sales person who kept staring at my tits. I wanted to hurt the whole world. I wanted the whole world to feel February.

In the end I gave in, as I so often do, and screamed something at Luke along the lines of "Well FUCK YOU! You pay for all the groceries now any way! If you can't try and respect all the goddamn fucking work I've put into helping us try and save some money, what the fuck do I care if you fall farther into debt by buying this car and paying for all the groceries? It's not like we're fucking married or anything!"

I ended up scribbling something that could never pass for my signature on an endless ream of papers I never read and finally the Ford Focus was all his. Or was it our? I'm still unclear about that one.

I stormed out of the dealership after helping myself to one or two of their pens and Luke and I left in separate cars-no congratulations on your first financed car or anything and headed to a mutual friends house where we did out best to ignore each other all night. It was grand!

I bet the car dealer couldn't wait to see us go!

Where Oh, Where Has Elizabeth Been?

If anyone out there has been paying attention (and I know at least one dear soul who suffered a similar catheter fate read my blog recently! And Nurse Ratchet sister of mine, neither of us enjoyed the experience as much as you seem to enjoy inserting them. There's something wrong with you girl!) it has been almost 5 months since I last posted anything on my blog. I hope that some people have missed me...I know at least Nurse Ratchet's husband would read it during his down time at work (oh the luck of having a job) but I don't know if I've missed me these past five months.

See, when I was first diagnosed with everything, I made a vow to write it all down, even the painful details-ha!, as if there would be much else to write about! But before too long, I was back into my old ways.

Even though I am no longer physically capable of running, I have been running, terror stricken, from the realities of my life for at least these past five months (and much, much longer...it's just that here, with this blog, I was trying to address some of them for a change).

I don't even know how far back I can go and accurately recount what has gone on in the months since I've failed to write. I only know that part of the reason I am here now, writing once again, is because my lover is away on a too short business trip.

As usual, I spent the entire day struggling to figure out what I wanted to do with the day, with MY DAY. And, as usual, the day was over before I came up with an answer and fell gratefully into a long, uninterrupted nap. It wasn't until I was brave enough to lay naked outside on our deck (don't worry prudes, it was well past 10 pm and not a soul could see me-how sad actually), on the uncomfortable wicker love seat, watching the fireflies sparkle through the sultry night air, that I realized what I needed to do was to clean my mind out and not the living room like I had planned on doing.

So now I sit, still sans clothing, on my trusty seat cushion and try and recount how it all went awry and why I haven't written in so long. And I try to keep my thoughts on this serious business of writing and purging my feelings while trying to ignore the sweat coagulating between my breasts because it is too fucking hot out, even at nearly 2 am and the air conditioner is too loud and makes me need my inhaler, which I am completely inept at using, having just recently been diagnosed with asthma.

I'm also simultaneously trying to ignore my stomach's craving for Vienna Fingers and milk because we ran out of milk before I dropped Luke off and I didn't feel like fighting the righteous Sunday shoppers for a quart of organic milk. And hell, I've already gained a bunch of medication related weight and had vanilla ice cream (with a fresh peach) for dinner, so why have a healthy dessert? And I'm somewhat happily alone, so who the hell will know what I eat anyway?

Mostly though, I'm procrastinating. Like all good writers, I'm procrastinating telling you how it all went wrong. How I really feel. How angry I am. How doubtful of everything and scared of nearly everything, I am. I am trying to avoid the ugly and draw upon the pretty, which is something that would probably surprise most people who know me, but then again, most people who know me only know a me they want to see. I am trying to avoid reliving the pain because no matter how many years of therapy I've had, and continue to have, I never quite believe them when they tell me it never hurts as much the second time around.... Is that because you can't re-amputate a lost arm or because you can't re-shatter an obliterated heart? I've yet to figure that one out.

At any rate, February was when the worst of it all happened.