The Safe Place

Sunset from my bedroom window, January, 2010.

It’s about 65 degrees outside. The sun is shining, the palms are making swishy noises in the breeze and the squirrels are up in the trees chattering like apes. I am off a sleepless night after IMing my goose farmer friend. She is one of two friends on this planet I trust enough to tell anything.

I will start at the beginning. That's usually the best place.

I was with my singles group before New Year’s. I am lonely. I never meet anyone. And if I do, there is no click, no spark. Not since … well, he knows who he is and he will read this.

Someone was talking to a blonde member of my group that night. I was lonely in the crowd, trying to hide my despair by forcing myself to flit from person to person, working at being social and involved. It was a stretch.

I heard a voice high above me say “don’t you ever LAND? You are a social butterfly.” And I thought “well, I have one person fooled.” And I looked up from a geeky plaid elbow and I got that open-mouthed, OMIGOD HE’S SO CUTE ball of discomfort in the pit of my stomach. It doesn’t matter whether you’re 15 or 59, that feeling never changes.

To make a long story short - every remark was a direct hit, like it was scripted. Brilliant, writer, been here three years, dabbling in Buddhism … well, the writer thing concerned me because we are all weird as hell. And then came the name. “Randy.” The discomfort in my stomach became sick queasiness. The name always does that. I shrugged it off.

We exchanged cards and agreed we would both love to go out. I had company coming for five days, we would meet after my company left.

I emailed The Goose Lady later that night and said “and worst of all his name is Randy.” Because Randy is the one man on this planet who tore me up and made me question everything about myself. He nearly destroyed me. And I have trouble getting past it. The surgery is complete but the wounds have not healed fully.

I heard from New Randy the next day. No big deal, an excuse to get in touch right away. Which I love, which is so thoughtful, so NOT game playing. And the next day I get an email from the member of my group, the blonde he was talking to before we connected.

She has “Randy” in the subject line of the email. My heart stops.

She writes that she knows I was talking to him, but he had invited her to listen to guitar music somewhere and did I mind. I was instantly jealous and immediately ashamed of myself. I wrote back that he was a sweetheart and that she should go. That I had no hold on him but if/when he asked, I WOULD go out with him! What refreshing honesty, I was so proud of myself. Acting like a grown-up, dontcha know.

The morning my company left, I got a call from New Randy. We would be going out the next evening to a nice dinner. I was beyond excited. The date was awkward but fun, he spoke in multiple syllables (so refreshing) and the attraction in the parking lot afterwards was … wow.

I am ashamed to say, when I got home the first thing I did was go upstairs to my bedroom, slip into something comfortable and - yeah, google him. To my dismay, he has more google references than me! Then, on a whim, I decided to google myself. Which feels dirty and nasty somehow.

And what turns up? Me on the Yahoo “End Verbal Abuse board” from April 10, 2007. The night after Old Randy threw me out of his house lock stock and Shih Tzu. The night I was afraid he was going to hurt me. I had never seen him like that. It was one of the darkest 24 hour periods in my life and reading my posts - especially this one - brings it back.

http://health.dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/End_Verbal_Abuse/message/43934

So I think to myself “if New Randy reads this, he won’t be interested in me because I’m damaged.” Then I tell myself "who am I kidding - we're all damanged." And I am more than a little upset that part of being a writer is being an emotional exhibitionist. And I wonder if it serves any purpose beyond just making you look like a fool.

I wonder if there’s any way I can go back in there and delete those posts, but … well, everything happens for a reason I guess. Even stuff we feel stupid about.

And it turns out I needn’t have worried about New Randy because we are strictly buddy material. His demons are bigger than mine. In a shared space, we'd probably make a whole 'nother dimension explode.

That was weeks ago. I emailed New Randy yesterday because I needed to learn more about a specific type of writing. He recommended a book. I wrote the name on a sticky, put it in my jeans - and, naturally, changed jeans before I went to Barnes & Noble. Well, whatever, I found an alternate book, met a friend, drank the good Starbucks and came home.

I turned the light off around midnight. The dogs were curled up on the bed snug as a bug in a rug. It’s weird to need three quilts here, but it feels wonderful. And damned if I don’t pick up my Blackberry to see if I missed any emails.

And there in the subject line is “Randy.” My heart stopped. Only it wasn’t about NEW Randy.

“Hi there,

It matters not how I found you. What matters is what you shared almost 3 years ago about your experience with verbal abuse.

Well put my sister. I will consider your words every time I'm tempted to call. And the man you speak of is the man I've been in a relationship with for, well, I guess, more or less since you.

Thank you. It would seem that the Universe has intervened on my behalf. But, then again, it always does....

Kathy “

Shocked speechless, I forwarded her email to TGL, the one person who would understand my extreme emotions.  TGL IM’d within moments of my sending the response. She asked "did you notice he chose another woman who's as smart and sensitive as you?"

We IMd until 3:30 in the morning. By the end of it I was crying. For both of us.

She helped me sort out my pain. She is now caring for the mother who beat her as a child. We both agreed that somewhere somehow we want to be to blame for the shitty things the people we loved and trusted did to us. Because we’d rather believe it was something we did than believe they were ever that bad.

She thinks that’s weakness on our part. I don’t know. I think it may be extreme compassion.

We talked about when we were children. I don’t remember people because I was always painfully shy. She remembers watching them like a hawk because she was in constant danger of physical attack.

TGL is snowed in in her valley. Her life is sheer hell, from a dying mother and management of a farm with dogs and geese and ducks to her own poor health and what the cold weather is doing to her 20th century luxuries like mobility, heat, water and toilet. (All four have failed her and her mother in the past week. Her despair is palpable.)

We talked about feeling safe. I said “at least you know where you’ll be a year from now. I’ve started telling people I’m on vacation with my furniture because I never know when I'll run out of ways to pay for life here."

Where is the safe place? Chances are good we are either in that place where the big scary decisions sent us or that purgatory of not having the balls to leave something we KNOW is awful and face the unknown.

Sometimes when we let the world see our naked pain, we help other people.

TGL and I went to the darkest places in our souls until about 3:30 a.m. Then I turned on Celebrity Rehab so I could have one shot at feeling fortunate before I went to sleep. Yes God - Jumala - The Universe - I do thank you for my roof and my heat and my functioning toilets and healthy family and furry friends. Yeah, blessed. In a safe place right now and now is all there is.

The REAL safe place is that place in the soul that trusts a higher power or karma to prevent life from becoming unbearable. What is it they say in AA? Sometimes you have to Let Go and Let God.

Friday the Thirteenth & Lyme Disease

"You've become a luxury we can no longer afford." This from my boss on Friday the thirteenth.

I hate cliches.

I'm a person who cringes when gay friends lisp, when lesbians wear sensible shoes, when my dogs stop to pee at fire hydrants and when I go completely blonde; like today when I popped a piece of gum in my mouth with the wrapper still on.

Yes, laid off on Friday the Thirteenth. I think that was three years from the day my cousin Robin (a nurse) found her boyfriend Kenny dead in bed, resplendent in his tropical fish panties.

Kenny was a gorgeous guy, absolutely gorgeous, with prematurely white hair. Kenny Rogers wishes he looked as good as this guy. They'd been together five or six years.

They'd had their gazillionth fight. Her last words to him were "fuck you."

Then the traditional three days passed and it was about time for him to call and admit what a worthless piece of shit he was and lie that he would never do that (whatever heinous act it was) again so long as he lived.

He didn't call - but friends did, asking if she'd seen him. Nobody had. Not for three days.

Robin - like me and my granddaughter - is a sensitive. She knew something was wrong and took her mother with her. The morning Robin found him, he was on his side, in the fetal position. At first they thought Kenny was asleep, then she saw the pooled blood on the lower side of his body. There was a melted popcicle on the sheets and half a glass of red wine on the nightstand.

And she would find later, an appointment book filled with notations of various doctors around town who were prescribing the Vicodin that he mixed with the alcohol that killed him. Newly retired from Ford, staying high was Kenny's new Job One.

He had lied to her, cheated on her with total whores and utterly humiliated her around town. I'd read his tarot cards. I remember looking him in the eye with both of us knowing without a doubt that he was all about Kenny and nobody else; he just was who he was.

And you know what? Despite all that, I loved him too.

I spent about four days with Robin, up to the funeral. We talked a lot. We cried, we laughed. I told her "you didn't have the strength to dump him, so God offed him."

She nodded. She knew. I didn't say it to be mean. I said it because Robin is the finest, kindest person I know and she deserves better. (At the funeral, Kenny's parents gave her the respect she'd never received in all her time with their son. The respect of a true partner. )

Friday the Thirteenth. Note to self - find a way to avoid those.

It has been a rocky ride since my thirteenth. I have highs where I know I'll be fine and lows where I wonder if I'll have to hook up with some moonstruck old boobophile and look at ear hair every night for the rest of my (or his) life.

Someone asked how I was doing and I said "well, I'm not reduced to giving blow jobs in the parking lot yet." If I can't manage a simple stick of gum ....

Yes, I already have freelance work. Yes I have feelers out there, more every day; but I am having the worst time focusing on the work at hand.

One nice thing did happen today. There are no accidents in life. At least for those of us who are paying attention.

Some months back I met a guy online who had a friend who was sick. And somehow we got to talking about it and I said "sounds like she has Lyme Disease." It seemed like a stretch ... she was bad off, in a wheelchair. There were other symptoms, all horrendous, life altering and confusing. Like mine, only far worse.

And my mother had already decided where my remains would be interred.

The sick woman called me and we talked. It sounded like Lyme to me.

I got this email today. Things like this make my two years of undiagnosed hell almost seem like they were worth it. At least I got to spare someone else years of misery:

Hi. Carolynn B here. We corresponded a couple months ago about lyme? Well I have seen Dr. Markowitz, gone through two 24 hour urine collections for analysis, supplied 18 vials of bloodwork (I don't think I have any more to spare!) and perhaps it isn't surprising, but BINGO! They've determined a lyme situation here. So next Thursday I go up to St. Joe's Pontiac to have an I.V. needle inserted, get back to Keego Harbor to an associate of Dr. Markowitz to show me how to give myself the weekly treatments.

I just can't thank you enough for having directed me. I'm indebted to Dan for connecting me to you FOR that direction. I'm getting decidedly emotional about this because FINALLY there's hope for reversal. I mean I'm looking at regaining my mobility! So if one looks at this "cosmically'', I was meant to have to wait a certain length of time for certain individuals to come into my life, you being among them.

And I suppose there have been certain lessons for me to learn too, like patience, perserverence, keeping a cheeky attitude and not having too many pity parties, and also seeing first hand the plight of many disabled and senior citizens. If I could figure out how to become an advocate for that issue I would.

But I just wanted to contact you and let you know the update and how instrumental you were. Thank you so much. I am so jazzed about this. 4-5 weeks is nothing compared to the results. And funny thing is, is that between conventional and alternative approaches, a common link/conclusion was found. Something in the brain, unaddressed previous virus causing havoc with mobility. And this will ultimately be like a birthday present for my son, as he's always been such a help and "Next time I see you I want to see you walking....". I can imagine going to visit him in the air force and NOT using a wheelchair! I can see in my mind's eye climbing the Akropolis in Greece, without using a wheelchair and the cage built for disabled. It was my one focus to do that, so I suppose I'd better follow through!

Thanks, Mick! I hope I'll be able to pass on the 'baton' of hope and encouragement to someone else.

Sincerely,
Carolynn B

I will go to bed tonight feeling blessed to have had a role in Carolynn's recovery. There's nothing more important than a life that has meaning for others.