Ten.

Dad handed down to me one of his FDNY pins this year. I bought the boots myself.

Last year I told my story for the first time. You can still find it here: http://lonelygenius102.wordpress.com/nine/ 

Since history is something uneditable through time, there’s no need my rewriting it. This is more of a postscript.

This year, my dad is spending this weekend in a big way, the way I wished he always would have and hopefully always will: around his family and friends. I’m endlessly proud of this accomplishment of his, and makes me reflect on what I should be doing, too. I’m not alone this year as I was last year, my mom is around, so that helps. I can’t promise I won’t sleep the day away as I have done the majority of the last 3 years, but I will be limiting what I watch, and maybe even try to leave the house. (I’ll save explaining my current mental state for a later, more appropriate post.) Hopefully I can build myself up into spending this day in the future, and everyday, doing what my dad did- simply helping people.

That’s what we’re all here for, right?

Misery’s Company

I had to write a fictional short story for my English class, and I learned something: It’s only fiction if you tell someone it is. The piece I lay before you is not fiction at all. Maybe, about 10 percent of it is. (I got an A!) Hopefully you will enjoy.

—

Misery’s Company

It wasn’t the first time, nor did she think it would be the last time, she’d be escorted behind doors she would not be able to unlock. She wanted nothing of this place she accused of having a Jewish high class aura; whiffs of pretentious entitlement skewed with streams of taboo and stigma. These people were going through the same problems as her, despite her denial of this fact.
“I need your arm, hun” a soft English voice said nearby.
This voice shuffled gently towards the wheelchair, bringing with her a shower of pity dripping off of her face and onto the floor for everyone to slip on. Apparently she felt it would ease the tensions of her new patient if she showed how sorry she was, even if she hadn’t know what she were sorry for. No one could deny that she was usually right to assume such an emotion, even if it were fake.
An arm was raised from the wheelchair’s side to be met by another’s palm and tactical glance. A wrist became wrapped by a plastic band and and directed into the fluorescent lighting that seemed to shine a tint of blue.
“Anna, is it?” the woman asked.
The wheelchair nudged and squeaked in response, but a voice did not come from it.
“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you Anna. My name is Estelle and I’ll be your one-to-one for the next few days. Have you ever had a one-to-one before?”
The wheelchair nudged and squeaked again.
“Well then, I don’t have to explain my job to you. We’ll be spending a lot of time together. I assume then you understand why I’m here, but with good behavior you won’t need me for very long.”
Anna rolled her head around in defeat, staring blankly into the portable equipment bays, trying desperately not to make eye contact with anyone, especially not with her new nurse. It was the only thing keeping her from flooding her own face with tears she could never understand. Anna not-so-politely tuned out Estelle’s small talk, opting instead to focus and unfocus her eyes upon the green led numbers blinking on the equipment bays besides her. This was the routine. An “ah” allowed a thermometer respite beneath her tongue while tight Velcro straps cut off what little blood she felt she had left in her arms. A few seconds in, she would be able to feel her heart beat, just as deep and clear as those moments she found herself outside of herself, not in control of what her limbs decided to do, rationality no where to be found. Those trances are what got her here, she knows. She also knows that her quickest ticket out of there was standing right besides her, a fellow colored girl, likely also questioned often about her own level of coloredness, thus she thought it ideal to tune her small talk back into her ears.
“The rest of the patients are eating dinner in the cafeteria now, would you like to go meet them? If not we can have you eat in your room, just for tonight. Yes – let’s go settle you into your room first.”
Estelle pushed Anna and her wheelchair down the hallway with a tall window at the end, passing rooms with varying levels of cleanliness, some wide open with sheets and pillows tossed about the floor, others pinned tightly in place underneath skinny mattresses. The wheelchair stopped for a moment before turning into room 709, giving Anna a chance to glance at the two empty nameplates besides the room number.
Estelle caught Anna’s glance, answering “You don’t have a roommate yet, but perhaps in a few days, once you’re feeling a bit more stable.”
The room looked like every other room Anna had ever stayed in – two beds, two desks, two chairs and two bureaux. As usual, there are no curtains strung up around the beds, nor equipment set up against the walls, especially not a television. The beds did not roll or mechanically adjust; just a mattress sat atop the wooden box spring, waiting to be made. It reminded Anna of a dorm room the day before it’s students are scheduled to arrive, a picture she wasn’t pleased with being reminded of. They were nothing like the rooms on other floors, she assumed. Anna rose from her wheelchair and stumbled over to the bathroom door.
“I’m sorry hun, but your going to have to keep the door open. Cracked, at least. I don’t have to watch you, but I have to stay here by the side.”
Anna could never understand this rule, none of the doors could lock anyway. Not for a moment would she be able to get a moment alone, so she tried to make good use of the little time she would have now. A new set of toiletries sat next to the sink faucet – a small capsule of toothpaste and a toothbrush, roll-on deodorant and a flimsy plastic comb and brush. On the wall of the shower sat a dispenser of amber gold fluid that doubled as shower gel and shampoo. Anna hated the idea of being forced to wash her hair here. She’d be devoid of any personal products or heating elements, and especially not the simplest hair scarf to cover the wild mess her hair was likely to become. “Frued must’ve thought it fun to see us colored girls walking around crazy with our nappy hair all out.” Anna thought to herself. It wasn’t until Estelle asked if everything was ok that Anna came back to her previous excuse of having to use the bathroom. She shuffled out and hoped she wouldn’t have to actually use the bathroom any time soon. She exited the bathroom to find Estelle with a questionable look upon her face – not of anything specific, but perhaps only striking her once Anna was standing idly away from her.
“What a pretty girl you are, so tall, and so young! What’s gotten you here?” Estelle asked.
Anna didn’t really focus on answering Estelle’s question – she’d barely said a word to the woman thus far – but instead on the T’s missing out of Estelle’s pronunciation of “gotten.” Anna strolled over to the doorway, looking out into the hallway with the large window at the end of it. She walked to the window, finding her height attractive in relation to the city below her, continuing business as usual. Across the avenue stood a young woman dressed casually well in the window of an apartment. She intricately wiped the window from ceiling to floor, totally unassuming of Anna’s stare, or anyone else’s, for that matter. She did this task with such precision that Anna assumed her to be a maid. This young white girl too beautiful for the job she was doing complexed Anna’s assumption. She was too skillful to be the the owner of the abode, too young to be putting so much emphasis into washing a window, and too pretty to be a maid at all. “Them white folks who own that place must be loaded, and pay her well enough.” And with that simple thought, Anna concluded her stalking and was already off to find something else happening in the street below. Streams of yellow taxis started and stopped down the avenue, as if all rushing to get to the same place at once but no one making significant progress. By now Estelle had caught up with Anna, if not in footsteps, in eyesight. Anna met Estelle back in the doorway of her room.
“Anything good?” Estelle asked of Anna’s journey to the window.
Anna nodded in dissent, then turned her head to find the textbooks she apparently gained repossession of while she was away at the window.
“MCAT’s, eh? You must be very smart.” Estelle complemented, looking at the books in unison. “You’ll be back at it soon enough.”
At this statement, Anna realized the rarity that just came over her. She thought back to her time at the window, void of the urge to jump out of it for the first time in ages. Perhaps she subconsciously knew she wouldn’t be able to escape out of it anyway – she once laughed at an acquaintance’s attempt to unbolt a window at a previous ward. She wondered what interesting characters she would meet this time, or whether they wanted to meet her at all.
Early stragglers began to return to their rooms from dinner as Anna watched through her doorway, sitting at the edge of her bed. A boy, perhaps slightly younger than herself, stretched his arms down in strict tension while making his way down the hallway without stepping on any lines from the tiles on the floor, focusing and balancing with great precision, as if one wrong step would drown him in the bubbling lava only he could see around him.
“OCD.” Anna slowly whispered to herself.
A Jewish man in his traditional orthodox getup also came past, holding a prayer book and rambling to himself in Hebrew and nodding incessantly. He had a lost and fearful look upon his face.
“Looks as if dinner’s over.” Estelle says.
Anna knew that she was covertly signaling that her shift would be coming to an end soon. Before long it would be 7:30, the universal time in which Anna would be forced to take some new pill the doctors had prescribed but not adequately explained to her, and a new stranger would be watching her sleep in the dark for the next 12 hours. Anna rolled her head in defeat again, turning once to find Estelle rummaging through her purse. Anna didn’t think much of it, directing her glance away again until she heard the patter of playing cards being shuffled.
“Care for a game?” Estelle asked. “My game is Gin-Rummy.”
A smile sneaked its way across Anna’s face; no one-to-one had ever engaged in such an informal matter around her. She assumed Estelle was just trying to make her last hour pass a little quicker, as opposed to an attempt to butter Anna up to speak. Even if the latter were the case, it had worked.
“Sure. How do I play?”

Borderline

It’s not that I have nothing to say. I just have no motivation to say it. My mom and I found that word this week- motivation. I knew I was lacking something, but couldn’t find a word for it. I stare at blank pages in the journal I’m suppose to have ready for class and this anger comes over me. “I don’t have writer’s block” I jot down, “I have life block.” I know there are more precious subjects, but I can’t adequately write about what I care so little about. And I can’t write about that either, since apparently writing about yourself and your life are the lowest form of writing, right there next to comedy. I have to pretend I care and that’s all I’ve done lately, pretending. Pretending I have a life and am not lonely and am doing absolutely fine on my own, thank you. I try switching over to my reading assignment and I don’t get three sentences down the page before I feel the urge of throwing the book at the wall. The projection aimed to hit a lamp I bought just before my stay at Duke so many years ago. Ironically, it was summer writer’s workshop. I felt so much smarter then. I may have not understood music as well, I may not have been as emotional, fist pumping at a song that rightfully shouldn’t be fist pumped to, the tempo doesn’t warrant it. I didn’t feel music back then, just listened to it. And maybe not even listened. Now I listen to music and I feel like yelling. Yelling with the classical orchestral behind me. Then again, conductors do a sort of fist pumping, so perhaps it wouldn’t look as odd. My writing has always been a freewrite, but now nothing comes together. Just strings of sentences that may seem nice and have some meaning in their own right, but together have not much to do with each other, often contradicting my own inconceivable ideas, flipping from one subject to the next like channel surfing as fast as my fingers can click the broken buttons on this cable remote. It get thrown on the couch, barely missing the wall, and off I go to school, that place I’m always late for. Even if I’m early, I sit on the train and can’t think of anywhere else I want to be than under said train. It’s not that I hate the class, it’s probably one of the easiest I’ve ever been in. 101 English, c’mon, it’s a joke to be stressed out by this. Yet I feel as if I really don;t belong there. I have to sit through these classes where although I know the professor isn’t talking about me or directly to me but I’ll be damned if I get psychoanalyzed in a 101 English class. I sat up night after night, crying for reasons I wish I knew, tapping the box belonging to this Thursday on my calendar and wondering what if. What if I drop the one and only class I’m taking? The only thing keeping me here is the 500 bucks left over for my books, supplies and transportation that I refuse to give back to financial aid. It wouldn’t be such a hassle if I didn’t feel this way. If only I could shake the impending panic attack arising within me, ‘Just keep staring into your binder for another hour and a half and make as little eye contact as possible,” I tell myself. Can they tell I’m freaking out? What if they think it’s related to anything going on at the moment in the class? Because it isn’t, if they’re wondering. I realized this last night. I came home, angry about my existence as usual, and all those images went through my sight. Staring into my empty word processor, standing on the yellow edge ignoring the sounds of approaching trains, sitting next to strangers and wondering where to go, even though my body is taking me exactly where I need to be and thus exactly where I don’t want to be. The professor trying to lighten up the room and me trying to hold back tears that find the perfect time at which to find their own freedom. All of this was not new. I’d been through this before. Twice before. I don’t want to make this the third. I know it doesn’t have to be. I can’t decide to fancy the edge of the subway platform every time I question my performance in an academic setting. But it’s never just that. I understood depression. It was straight forward to me. I did a lot of research about it and had come to terms with it. Same thing goes for my ADHD. I even understand illnesses that don’t pervade me, the small amount that are left on that list… But this borderline thing is beyond me. There are no well-known movie references, or songs about it, or famous people who overdosed because of it. And if there are, they must not be that popular because I haven’t heard of it. Borderline where? Of what? I read somewhere that it once meant borderline of psychotic. Well that doesn’t help because I’m pretty sure I’ve passed that line a long time ago. The more I try to figure out what’s wrong with me, the more confuse myself. If they don’t understand me, how can I understand me? It’s quite a hopeless feeling. All I can do is make educated guesses. I’m borderline. On the borderline of dropping out of school again, on the borderline of fancying yellow edges, on the borderline of checking myself in. The end.

 

I found a Keith Olbermann reference there in the introduction of "Borderline Personality Disorder for Dummies." I miss him so much.

Sleep.

My Sleeping Teddy

It’s my biggest enemy, yet my best friend. Next to my teddy, that is. (I don’t get out much. So I still sleep with my teddy, so what? Deal with it.) If you’ve ever called me or came to my house, you probably thought you’ve just woken me up. About 80% of the time, that’s true. (Like now.) The other 20% means I’ve been up for a few hours and would really like to go back to sleep now thank you and goodbye. My bed is the safest place I know. When it’s cold, my blanket warms me up tight. When it’s warm, the cool side of the pillow keeps me just right. Not to mention, I can always find my best friend there. Unless I left him in a different room I slept in, or left him in the dryer. He prefers the dryer to the washer.

Although it’s nearly perfect, even my bed has it’s flaws. There’s those nightmare things, and cold sweats, neither of which I’ve EVER had until I started my last medicine. Thankfully the nightmares have ceased for now, except for when I miss a dose. (You reeeally don’t want to be around me then.) I hated the sense of feeling myself (that’s what she said) screaming at the top of my lungs while realizing I’m asleep but unable to wake up. Then of course I wake up, still screaming at the top of my lungs, waking up people around me as they ask “what’s wrong???” and I answer “uuh… I dunno.” Unfortunately I can’t say the same about the cold sweats- those seem to be getting worse. I can’t sleep under anything, sometimes only a very light sheet if I’m lucky. This has made my sleeping experience pretty meaningless lately. The blanket is the most important part of my bed. I can’t sleep without something covering me. It’s very much alike my inability to go outside without a bag and jacket of some type- otherwise I feel absolutely naked.

Right now I’d be in a much different, possibly better, place in life if I hadn’t of slept so much. That story is so long I could probably write a book on it. (I’ve actually been thinking about writing a snapshot memoir…) When people ask me about what I’ve been doing for the past 3 years, I always feel like saying “Oh, me? I’ve been studying abroad at the University of Aydongivashiet in Egypt, working on a double major in Sleep and Failure with a minor in Procrastination. I’m an intern at the local psych ward and will do my residency at the asylum, hopefully winning a permanent position! And you?”

Speaking of self-reflective comedy, I once caught a stand-up performance on Comedy Central from a guy I can’t remember the name of. He solemnly joked about his depression, starting off with his overly-emotional connection with his bed, much like I explained above. He said the words that all of us depressed folk know but never really say (I’ll try to quote his joke as much as I can remember, it was a while ago):

“I sleep all the time, I love it. You know why? Because sleep is like death. It’s the closest you’ll ever get to dying without actually taking yourself out. I get to say ‘Fuck You, World!’ and run away from all my problems, but then have the chance to come back later! I get to have dreams and go somewhere else! But then I wake up and I realize I’m back and I never actually left and everything is exactly the same. Fuck! So then I roll over again.” (Laughter ensues.)

He seemed to make the most inexplicable, unendurable topics seem so clear, and exact, and understandable to the average person. Topics that they just don’t understand because they honestly can’t, and because we don’t really know how else to explain it to them. His jokes were, simply, weightlessly hilarious. It was refreshing to hear jokes about “crazy people” from a person who actually considers himself one of them. Well, one of us. It reminded me of how black people love a self-stereotypical joke from another black person, but see the same joke totally racist coming from anyone of another race. (Slurs, of course, are the exception here, as they shouldn’t be tolerated by or from ANYONE.) Honestly, I’m glad that Americans are slowly letting go of such comical segregation. This is an official invite for all comedians of Indian background to make a joke about how he always misses out on the fried chicken at a barbecue.

Wait… Do Indians go to barbecues?

I know I shouldn’t randomly end my post here, but I’m going back to sleep now. This was a lot of freaking typing and I’m damn tired. Good day to you, sir. or sir-ette.

Nine.

I’m not a numbers person, nor regularly superstitious, but I’ve been having very odd occurrences lately. Yesterday was 9/11. It also happened to be the 9th anniversary. Anniversary… That doesn’t seem like the right word to use in this case. Anyhow, for the past 3 weeks, I happened to exactly catch 9:11pm on various digital clocks, usually for several days in a row. Now, to be clear, I wasn’t looking for or expecting it to happen, nor did I sit there waiting. My ADHD refrains me from remembering little things that happened the day before, moreover even seconds ago. (Damn. I just finished writing this post- what time is it? 9:11pm.) Next year’s anniversary happens to be the tenth, 9/11/11. On 9/11/01, I happened to be 10 years, 9 months and 29 days old. These thoughts just make me feel… uneasy. Perhaps because numbers were a part of 9/11 to begin with. I won’t speculate, but I will knock on wood in my head for what I’m not trying to speculate in my head because my mother would force me to anyway. Apparently she’s in my head. My therapist and I are still trying to work with that one…

Me in my dad's FDNY uniform, c. 1996/1997.

Years prior I’ve usually been in school. Teachers would either ignore the importance of the day or say a few words. I’d come home, watch a bit of the news, hug my dad and go off to do homework. I’ve never written about my experience on 9/11, nor sat down to collect my thoughts, nor set a specific time for remembrance, so this will be a first. Last year (admittedly one of my hermit years), I was up all night. Watching those endless images in those endless documentaries that seem to be in the lineup one, after another, after another. For the first time in my life, on that anniversary, I finally felt… pain? I’m not sure if I can call it that. It was a combination of all the feelings I should have felt all along. Pity? Was that it? Fear? Anger? Shock? I agree that remembrance is important, but I didn’t want to feel like that again. Not today, anyhow.

I tried to sleep the day away as much as possible this year. At one point, I managed to go online for my usual rounds- gmail, facebook, news blog updates, crossword, sleep, repeat. I really could’ve skipped reading the news, it only made me angry that the planned protest at Ground Zero went on despite obvious insensitivity. Why now though? Why not last year, or the year after, or 9/12/2001? What is so special about 9/11/10 that these evil and/or ignorant people feel they need to finally come out of their dark holes and spread their disease onto simple, peaceful, solemn mourners? How dare they do such a thing. I suppose they’re just adding more noise to the uproar over the plans to build the “Park51″ community center. It was originally named “The Cordoba House,” but had to be renamed because of these vile protesters, who will only call it by one name: “the ground zero mosque.” (By the way, I don’t capitalize things that don’t deserve capitalization.) Why they are so against a 13 floor community center, something that this area of the city could very much benefit from, that happens to be 2 blocks away from the site and cannot even be seen from Ground Zero and happens to house a culinary school, along with separate prayer rooms for ALL of the major religions, is beyond me. Then again, people like this are hard to reckon with. I wonder why there was never an uproar over the hole-in-the-wall basement mosque only 4 blocks away that’s been there all along?

Every year, we seem to always talk about where we were on that day. Everyone seems to remember so clearly, unless they were very young, of course. The day just slurs together in my mind, alike so many other memories I have. One thing I will never forget (and for some background here, this was during a short, ironic stint at a private Lutheran school in Astoria) is my teacher, Ms. S (I wonder why Greek teachers always seem to have the longest, hard to say names…) finally slow down from running in and out of the classroom to finally ask “Does anyone have parents who work in the World Trade Center towers?” I remember one girl raising her hand… I think it might have been my academic rival at the time. She began crying a bit. “Does anyone’s parents work near the World Trade Center or in Lower Manhattan?” I believe one or two more hands were raised- one happened to be the only African American boy in my class, a tall athletic kid who happened to be one of the class clowns. That’s a bit harsh though. He wasn’t really a clown as much as he was an intermittent funny distraction that didn’t do much harm. I was the only African American girl. At least that’s how I remember it. Lastly, “Is anyone’s parent a firefighter, EMT or police officer?” For some reason the word “firefighter” in that sentence didn’t enter my ears, not initially anyhow. I sat there no different than I did minutes ago, looking around the classroom, waiting patiently. I stared out the window a lot as I thought, “What a bright day, too great a day to be practicing cursive in our basement classroom.” I didn’t understand why this school still taught cursive in the 6th grade. Then again, this was the most academically lenient school I’ve ever seen. A few minutes later, her last question crossed my mind again. I think someone might have said “FDNY” which set off a trigger in my head. “FDNY = Daddy. But Daddy’s not a firefighter… well I mean, he was, but that was a long time ago. He goes around teaching fire safety to schools and senior/community centers and such. He’d let me play in the fire safety house between gigs and he’d save me the free coloring books and crayons. He doesn’t run into burning buildings anymore. And he’s all the way in Fort Totten,  that’s got to be hours away from Lower Manhattan.” It felt like ten to fifteen minutes had passed since her initial inquiry. I finally raised my hand. No- I didn’t raise it, my hand raised itself. “My dad…” I said quietly. “Is he a firefighter?” she asked. “Um. Yes?” This look of worried pity came across her face. I don’t know why I said it. I had already convinced myself he had nothing to do with what was happening, but it popped into my mind that everyone addressed him as “Firefighter McCoy.” The morning was followed by more idle sitting, a trip through the basement to the attached Lutheran church for some praying, then an early bus ride home. I saw the cloud of smoke billowing across Steinway street. When I got off the bus, there it was again, billowing across Roosevelt Island. When I entered my apartment, I rushed to the TV- my grandmother had already had it on. We didn’t have cable, but there was one station still intact for viewing. “Ma! Ma! Did you see? What happened? Whats going on? Did you hear from anybody? Ma! Ma! Ma???” My grandma, in her mid 70′s then, seemed so apathetic. It surprised me, but it shouldn’t have. That’s sort of how she is. I’ve never seen her react to anything in great emotion. She just answered with her usual mmmhm’s.

I got my own cell phone only a couple of months prior. My parents found it necessary, as I was soon to be traveling alone. Also, my grandmother (who honestly hated my mother and tried to brainwash me to believe this in every way possible) began monopolizing my phone time with my mother. They hadn’t owned their cellphones for too long, either. Maybe a year or two? I think everyone remembers their first cellphone. Mine happened to be the Nokia 3390: interchangeable gold plates, green led back light and the best thing ever: Aim. We joined T-mobile waaaay back when it was called Omnipoint here in NYC, which was then bought out by Voicestream, which was bought out by T-Mobile. (We get awesome customer service.)

Nine.

Nine one seven…

Nine one seven…

Nine one seven…

I dialed that area code so many times that the phone keys started sticking. Why wasn’t he picking up? Why does it keep going to voice-mail? Is his phone off? Is he in a meeting?

Perhaps I just wanted to create every excuse possible in order to confirm to myself that he was absolutely safe and had nothing to do with what was going on. He couldn’t be there. He wasn’t suppose to.

He wasn’t suppose to.

He wasn’t suppose to.

All Hands In. My dad says this is a FDNY dispatching term that calls every available firehouse, citywide, to an emergency. I’m not sure if he’s exactly right (of course I just looked it up), but he’s been a firefighter for longer than I’ve been alive, so I’m not going to question him. I just read the official report called “FDNY Fire Operations response on September 11.” A “recall” for all off-duty firemen was  issued that day. At first, I thought a “recall” would be an announcement to send them back home. No. It means to “recall” them from their day or shift off, when they’re resting and likely spending that much needed time with their families and children. …Children.

My dad resting at the WTC site. "Still Doesn't Seem Real" Copyright © 2001 FDNY

I never got through to him. When I finally called my mom, she said she had got through to him earlier that day, but hadn’t spoken to him since. She lived in downtown Brooklyn at the time, standing on her roof, watching  that smoke billow right towards her.

So I sat. I watched the TV. I watched all of those images over and over again, for the next few days, actually. I can remember a clip in my head of a friend and I walking out of our building, not necessarily seeing that cloud, but smelling it. Burning. For days. Maybe weeks. Going to school, day after day…that was the routine. I remember us walking right back inside our building- you couldn’t have fun playing in air like that.

Most of the day, I don’t remember feeling sad. I don’t remember feeling worried, or angry, or anything… Maybe I was emotionless. Just like my grandma. Then again, My grandma was 70+ years old… she’d probably seen a lot over her life. I just remember being chased by her belt a lot, although I thought I was a pretty good kid. I just did dumb stuff at times that you should expect a kid to do. I especially liked peeling the cheap, oily paint off the walls, and melting crayons on the radiator. Well, I guess I did talk back though. Only because I felt like I had to set people straight when they’re dead wrong. I still feel that way. Very much so.

Later that afternoon, I asked her “Aren’t you worried about daddy?” She just sat there in the chair, looking just as grumpy as usual. She said something along the lines of “No sense in worrying about it.” She never cried. Never tried to console me. She either really didn’t give a shit, or tried to hide any emotion she had in order to keep me sane. At the time, I thought it was the former, of course. We bickered quite a bit, but her apathy was just beyond anything I could respond to. So I didn’t.

Evening. It was time for daddy to get home. Always by seven, unless he worked overtime.

Seven:

Nine one seven…

Nine one seven…

Nine one seven…

No answer.

Nine:

Nine one seven…

Nine one seven…

Nine one seven…

No answer.

This time, I …I guess I began to give up. Nine. He should have been here by now. There’s no reason…

I don’t usually leave messages on people’s phones. This time, I did.

Nine one seven…

Beeeep.

“Hi Daddy. I was just wondering where you are, I’ve tried calling all day and…”

I wasn’t even expecting what happened next. It came upon me like a bullet to my heart. I stopped mid-sentence, and whatever word I said next was way too many octaves higher than the word before it. Piercing, choking words trying to find their way out of unstoppable sobbing. At that infinitesimally small moment, I was now sure that the worse had happened. He was dead. I remember the end of my message… “please come home.” over… and over… and over…

A day later, he did come home.

He told me some of what happened. I don’t remember much of it though. He kept going back, day after day, to help the recovery effort. He told me that there was no cellphone service down there. He told me that even though he was saving people, and watching his friends die around him, it was my voice message that got him home. “I couldn’t give up. No matter how much I wanted to, I had to get home to you.”

Every time that day haunts me, it puts my imagination into his shoes that day. Those tall, shiny, black boots. Army-like lace ups. I liked to tie them up, pulling those black ropes around the little metal hooks. Except then, in my mind, they’re not shiny at all. I look down and I can’t even see my feet. I can’t even see my hands. I’m just in a cloud of dust.

That day, he came home. We had no idea how sick that cloud of dust would make him become, but he kept coming home. And he still comes home. And that’s all that matters in the end.

Late last night, I ended this post right here.

Today, 9/12, was much like yesterday. I was awake now and then, although most of it consisted of lying on my couch emotionless, and at times, guilty. I kept staring into the air, knowing that I needed to call my dad, but lacking the words to say. Apparently I slept through the phone ringing, causing me to miss his call yesterday evening. I was able to get back to him this afternoon, even if a day late. The conversation was bitterly hollow. I’m used to our usual shallow communication, but this one was hard to bear. I struggled through my mind, thinking of things to say… phrases, words, anything. We usually toss around the weather, or our meals, or our schedule for that day, or something my mom pissed him off about, or housework and gardening he had done… and on a good day, rag on the GOP… but none of that seemed appropriate. He sounded so tired, maybe even sad. I’ve rarely seen my dad sad, but I think that’s just a hidden rule among fathers. This was a lot harder than being there in front of him. How do you hug someone through a phone? You can’t. I assume he had been doing exactly what he does ever year… watching those images over, and over, and over. We’re news junkies.

This is why I couldn’t end this post where I had planned. Coming home is important. Anyone who has a relative or friend in a career that puts them in harm’s way knows this. Yet somehow, it seems like we’re never prepared for what happens afterward. I don’t think many people know about PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). We’re forever thankful for our loved one’s return, but we will never know what they’ve been through, what is going on in their minds. How do we help them? What do we say? I will tell you how a soldier recently turned veteran answered this: “Don’t fear us, especially our injured- we are one of you. Be there for us. Let us know you care. We aren’t looking for anything special, we just want you to remember us. Remember what we’ve done. That’s it.”

These are the things that matter. There shouldn’t be an end.

A priest consoling my dad attending a 9/11 funeral. Copyright © 2001 Time Inc.

To learn more about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as explained by The National Institute of Mental Health, click here.

Conceited.

I constantly come up with new ideas. Sitcoms write their scripts in my head. Songs are written and music is played and beats are formed. Inventions and theories and guesses and answers- they all roll around up there, untouched. I never write any of it down, and even when I tried to do so, it’s all forgotten. The slips of paper are lost in the jumble that’s called my desk. Nothing really gets completed there. Too many things grow there, but are never tended to. Like staring at growing flowers everyday, saying to yourself, “hey. look at those. i should water them before those weeds kill em all.” Then the weeds grow, and you keep staring at it, until there are no petals left and you have no idea how you got into this situation. “staring? what do you mean i was staring? i wasn’t staring… was i? maybe. i dont remember. oh well.” Maybe this is all ADHD at it’s best. I’ve already forgotten why I started this post. I came up with so many ideas to write about today, but I can’t remember any of them. So I’ll just keep writing for the hell of it. It takes a lot to even get me here, so I might as well finish what I started. HAH. I should keep a sticker chart of everything I accomplish. No, wait- finish. Why the specificity? Accomplishment alludes to  the finishing of something great in an excellent way. Let’s not stretch to far on this one- I’ll just aim for completion.

I hate writing posts about myself. It makes me feel like I’m just writing to myself. I rather bring up questions, and opinions, and… well, any topic not having to deal with me directly. I can’t think of anything tonight, so I’ll just keep writing.

This reminds me- I have finally figured out that I am very conceited, and I had no idea. When uncomfortably thrown into conversation, I resort to any topic that personally relates to me. “oh thats cool, i think blah blah blah,  i did blah blah blah, i’d like to do blah blah blah, i’ve never done blah blah blah!” I realize now that I don’t ask the other person much questions. They ask, I answer.  A one way street at best. I’ve tried to work at this, for I fear that people actually think I AM conceited. I hope I’m not. I’m just shy. (In certain situations, of course.)

This really not a post worth posting. I’m just stringing along separate topics I’ve had in the back of my head recently. What’s the point of personal blogs anyway? The completion gives you a little sticker on your brain chart, I suppose. But isn’t it just a bit conceited? You expect people to read what you write. It doesn’t matter whether they positively comment, or negatively comment, or don’t leave one at all- you know they were there. You know they clicked on the link. Wow, site stats must be the largest source of conceitedness, as far as blogs are concerned. I’ll add a “duh” to the end of that one. And what about status updates? You know they’re not about actually letting people know about your status, they’re about seeing how many likes you can get. I’m not saying these feelings are wrong- hell, we as humans need them. Especially if you don’t get out enough.

Tonight I tried to get a bunch of errands done in 1 hour. It took 2. (fail.) And I’m 100% sure this exact situation will happen again. That’s just how I work and I’ve gotten used to it. Anyhow, in an effort to mentally bitch slap the cashier and manager who refused to take back my broken-capped bottle of jam because I had forgotten my receipt (not to mention I bought it at the same time yesterday and the manager must have remembered me because he shooed me out at 8:58pm …sigh), I wasted precious time running back home and returning to the store with my receipt angrily in hand. The need to mentally bitch slap these people screwed up my priorities. With 5 minutes to go, I had to run to the pharmacy before it also closed at 9pm. I arrived at 9:02pm, the gates were already down and I was now without medicine for my 10pm dose. (failx2) The rest of the story, although probably interesting (there’s a part about crying to my mom on the phone…) is unnecessary. My need for an ego boost caused my misfortune. I just had to prove that I was force to be reckoned with. (Perhaps that’s a bit much… I think the actual phrase I used was “wait till i get back there, they dont know who they messing with.”) Well, I won. If you consider running out of medicine “winning.”

Sobbing around in the somewhat bustling nightlife of the east side 90′s, I began to get… ugh, whats the word… something between annoyed, jealous and awkward. I passed an outside chalkboard sign for a bar that read “White Trash Wednesdays”, probably followed by some sort of financial promo on alcohol. Perhaps that was the awkward part. I don’t usually feel such a way (depending on the place, of course), but tonight felt odd. Uncomfortable, as if there was no place to escape to. Now that I’m home, I realize that the feeling wasn’t based in drowning lack of diversity, but in the oil and water mixture that was wealthy young socialites and I. Not to say that I was sticking out exactly- instead of how I usually feel (as if everyone is judging and staring at me), I felt like a bit of oil quietly slithering through the water. (If only that were the case in the Gulf.)  Was I annoyed by the slow walking girls in front of me perfecting their city-style valley accents? Maybe. Was I jealous of their outside dining experience and annoyed by the fact they could be just sitting there people watching as I assume they were? Maybe. I honestly felt like disappearing. I wanted to go somewhere absolutely secluded, away from anything and anyone I know. And I’m not talking small deserted island with a palm tree, I’m talking small empty white room, no door, no window and padded if necessary. I needed to get rid of the involuntary need to compare myself to these people. At the same time, I wanted to rid myself of the feeling of being better off than another. Apparently, I’ve now concluded that the best way to cure guilt and envy is in a padded cell. Interesting.

I really shouldn’t have waited until the very last-minute to pick up my medicine.

Hopeful.

The last four months were… Hopeful.

Hopeful?

hoooooe… puuuuuh… fuuuuuh… uhl.

I glance at this word on the screen and I’m sure I’ve spelled it wrong.
Perhaps it’s “Hope-full”?
The state of being full of hope?
I don’t think I’m full of anything right now.

What is the meaning of that “Hope” part?
There’s a long O in there.
Is that just the word used to describe a long hop?
I already know that a hop is a short elevated movement from one place to another which starts and ends on the ground.
Has my 4 months been full of long hops?

Perhaps.

Time.
I have not moved in the physical sense, but the dates have progressed, so I assume that’s a long hop.

Love.
I began in reality, floated in the mist of the clouds for a while, realized they were actually fog, and fell back into reality.

Emotion.
I was dead. Something brought me back to life. I’m not sure if it was a new person or a new medicine, but I welcomed both. Something is different now. Something is wearing off, but I’m not sure which. It’s probably both. I’m expecting to see hypothetical death again soon, but I was quite happy where I was.

See, that’s the thing about hops.

You’re safe on the ground.
You prepare for something new.
Bending your knees,
Taking a breath.
With all your might,
you push the ground,
the ground pushes you back,
back and up into the air.
You’re flying.
For a split second,
you’re floating.
Nothing is pulling you up.
Nothing is pushing you down.
You’re free.
There are no strings.
You’re free.
Weightless.
Nowhere.
Then faster than neuron,
you’re gone
and on
the ground.
You lost control
and can’t even remember when.
Or where.
Or how.
Or why.
Why did this have to happen
to you.
The ground welcomes you back with a hard
return.
Everything prior no longer
matters.
Those dreams
have shattered.
You’re back on the ground.
You’re safe.

We’ll see what the next long hop has in store for us.
Details to come soon.

Goodbye, Unless We Meet Again.

I am taking a hiatus from blogging in the online sphere and possibly ending this specific blog. Not that anyone reads this anyway. I used this blog as an outlet for my need to sound sane and generally concerned during my time of being out of school. It was half for me and half for the world, and the latter might be the reason why I haven’t been able to keep it up. Trying to refrain from writing about my life has been the hardest learning curve in the production of this blog. That was ridiculously stressful. So that’s what I’ve been doing, except I’ve gone old school and back to a journal. Watching my friend Bryan grow through his amazingly personal and explicitly riveting blog (Not Lost Just Wandering) has made me proudly jealous, for he has an amount of courage I have never seen in a human being, and I can’t see myself being content by censoring myself in simple fear of being ridiculed. I don’t yet have the guts to enlighten the world with my less than excellent experiences, but perhaps I will one day. With that said, goodbye random viewers, unless we meet again.

Today I am also saying goodbye, but to person very special to me. My former Chinese Language teacher lost her battle to metastatic advanced stage IV breast cancer on Friday night, peacefully and in her sleep around family and friends. She leaves behind a husband, Steven, and a 4 month old daughter, Helen. Below is the message I’ve sent to her family.

For those interested in reading the blog she’s written about her journey, you can find it here:

wenren.wordpress.com

Goodbye Mrs. Wu, unless we meet again.

———————
Hi Steven. I have not met you personally, but I wanted to share with you the post I’ve written to my friends and classmates today. I am a BHSEC alumna and one of Mrs. Wu’s former students, perhaps not the best, but she was an important person in my growth as a perserverant individual because that was exactly who she was. As soon as I heard the news this morning, over the phone from a best friend in a fragile state, I felt compelled to write. That’s all I’ve been doing today. Cycles of releasing such feelings, either through words or through tears. I know first hand that time does not heal all, but hope truly does. Her pictures and her blog, which I’ve just found today, has been my source of hope. Reading her honest words and learning of beautiful Helen’s birth gave me hope. After her marriage to you, it was so easy to see that it drastically changed her life- she became one of the happiest people I knew. That’s given me hope. I am just one of so many of the alumni, current students and acquaintances that are coming together from all parts of the world to share their grief and warm wishes to you and your family. I have so much hope for you guys because Mrs. Wu has strengthened everyone she’s met, and those she doesn’t even know. Two examples of this is a blog post written by my friend Bryan, and a quickly growing facebook group, both linked to below.

——————–
Thank You, Mrs. Wu; 吴老师. (Professor Wu)

1 hour. 4 days. 3 years. I’ve never lost a person I’ve spent that much time with. After thinking she was always out to get me, that was never the case, and indirectly, she let me know that. She gave me a chance to experience, likely, my greatest life-changing event thus far. She stood up for me then when no one else would, when everyone else had doubts. She was the only teacher to both know in excruciating detail what I’d been going through medically, AND truly understand and treat me accordingly. All while going through a far greater illness than my own. If only I had know that then. Through it all, she continued spending everyday no different than the last, not letting her situation effect her career of teaching Chinese, nor the greater way she lived her life. She married, had a beautiful child, while always expecting the best out of the future. She taught the same way she fought her illness- fiercely. I greatly admire her for that. Perhaps that is why she always expected better out of me. She single-handedly foreshadowed my much later diagnosis of learning disabilities and ADHD. She felt that with a little more time, a little more help, I could really measure up to everyone else. She knew that if I could just shake off how I physically felt, I could really succeed. She knew that first hand. I can’t stop crying because this is all threading together now. To think that as recently as Thursday, I’d brought her up in conversation with a close friend. My mother says that was her saying goodbye. I wish her family my deepest condolences. Although her lost is unimaginably difficult, I hope they find peace with the idea that she is in a better place, finally apart from all of her pain.

-Jovanna McCoy; 莫 育人; Mò YùRén

http://askthenightingale.wordpress.com/2010/04/25/my-condolences/

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=116861295004982

(Picture provided by Steven)

The Guest List: “My (and Everyone Elses’) Tardiness with Haiti” & “A Word on Emo BS”

“A Word on Emo BS”

Look forward to reading this quickssertation in the coming days, with a complete post hopefully deadlined for next monday. Unless you actually know me, my readers wouldn’t know that I’m a huge supporter of To Write Love On Her Arms, so much so I consider myself part of the team. (They make it extremely easy to feel such a way, so don’t give me that egoistical look.) I participate on their street team  (more like virtual friendly spammers, which I have no problem being) and did a facebook fundraiser through the Causes app for my 19th birthday. Not to mention the whole mental health awareness thing really strikes home for me, despite those hours of the day where I become totally hypocritical. (It’s usually around the time I have to take my meds, I swear they’re not helping and making me worse.) With that said, I take the organization very seriously and try to voice my opinion when needed. Well, recently they expanded their main donation pathway -T-shirt selling- to Hot Topic stores nationwide, and after reading supporters’ comments on the deal, I noticed there was something striking that no one else seemed to be bringing up.

“I just can’t sit here and watch the depression deniers find another reason to aggressively discredit us all as ‘emo bs’ers’”.

That’s a snippet of the emotional comment I left on the article. I don’t know if anyone will read it or even respond to it, but get prepared for me to go on an overly emotional tangent with this one.

“My (and Everyone Elses’) Tardiness with Haiti”

This post, which I hope to publish within the next two weeks, has been one long coming. The very hour I heard of the earthquake in Haiti, I started writing. Hour by hour passed as i struggled to keep up with the numbers, the facts, the edits… To sit in front of the screen for hours as the bodies started piling upon the curb- upon me cloaked a new level of hopeless depression I’d not felt in a while, if ever. I began to learn about Haiti’s pre-earthquake related troubles, shamefully realizing my tardiness to the issue. I always grouped Haiti along with the rest of the Caribbean, what I foolishly pictured as only what I knew through travel commercials. Haiti is NOT you’re Atlantis or your Sandals Resort commercial. Haiti needed my help long before the crisis and I just frankly did not know. No one in my life had ever knocked on my door asking for donations for the majority of the population in Haiti that is malnourished. The bones I’d see protruding out of one boy’s torso were never of a Haitian. I quickly learned that I was not the only one who’d put on blinders to Haiti’s despair… The whole world did. Nations did.

I’m relieved to hear that the Hot Topic deal has finally come to fruition, but I can’t help but feel a bit empty. I know this accomplishment will do so much for the cause, but I’m saddened at the thought that it may -well, will- generate a negative response from people who are possibly more dangerous than fashion-forward consumers. I’m speaking of the people who, willingly or unwillingly, word associate the Hot Topic brand with various societal labels such as “scene/emo/punk/goth/etc” and will thus only see TWLOHA as a “scene/emo/punk/goth/etc” organization. That, of course, is not a bad thing if you classify yourself under one of those labels, but hurts the chances of TWLOHA (and its cause) ever becoming more than its stereotype in the public eye. I know this problem is bigger than all of us, and yes, we can’t but only correct those who live in ignorance, but I just can’t sit here and watch the depression deniers find another reason to aggressively discredit us all as “emo bs’ers”. That line above comes to mind… “to hold onto this love and keep it for ourselves”… that’s what I feel like we’re doing, in a paradoxical way. Getting the word out while passively pushing others away. My dream is to see this organization and it’s cause to automatically associate with every person, every stereotypical label, every race, and age, and music purveyor. What are we doing to further that? What does TWLOHA have hidden up our sleeves, granted we’re wearing any? (of course not, silly me.) In closing, one person can only do so much. Let’s get the street team rolling on this one. *Love is the Movement*

Ladies and Gentlemen, I Present “The Guest List” and “Quickssertations”.

First, an updates I must share with you on the changes to the system of this blog.

I’m adding two new features that should fix my need of commiting to future posts while being brief in nature, and in turn enlighten you with the musings of my mind while I am unable to delve into detail because of … oh, well, I don’t know, life beyond <_> and </_> ?  Not that I don’t love hanging out there, but… it does lack of proper nutrients.

…Good Morning, But I Digress.

The first update is a feature which I like to call “The Guest List”. This is just a fancy way for me to categorize posts that are just logistical and informally written. I hope to notify you of future guests that might be appearing on our extremely low budget show here. In essence, it’s a run down of my very possible near and future posts, whether they’re brand spanking new ideas (a testing ground for possible subjects?) or posts I’ve been numbingly drafting and re-editing for the past few weeks (see: Tardiness with Haiti). Of course, emergencies (and lack of initial enthusiasm) happens, and guests are known to reschedule or completely cancel. I will try to keep the list to serious committals, though.  It’ll also list any trivial new notables from my interactions with the real world, which will usually be my posts that I find to be underrecognized in “likes” over on Facebook or “retweets” over on Twitter. Yes, I have a malnourished ego, and it is just fine with playing into my denial that more than spam bots and lost googlers read my Titleless Entity.

The second edition to our system will be named “Quickssertations”, a post format that will balance between guest lists and full posts that I will pressure myself into keeping under 500 words per topic. I’ll save this designation for topics which I don’t have enough energy, time or knowledge to delve deeply into, but that also bring up questions or feelings that are too important to leave unchallenged or completely ignored. These will most likely always be mentioned on a previous Guest List and be full of more questions than answers. (Then again, when do I ever give answers?)

…

*sigh*

“Must I say it? Was it not obvious that Quickssertations is a combination of the words ‘Quick’ and ‘Dissertations’”?