It’s October, 2006. The time before we must have my mother’s house empty has dwindled to hours. There is no longer time to sort through the boxes and repack them. I have started merely dumping the old boxes into new ones, taping them shut and scribbling misc. on them. The only reason I am bothering to place the stuff in new boxes is because these boxes have been sitting for decades and the bottoms have deteriorated to dust. There are mice in several, awakened from their nests as their shit rains into a new box. There is no more time to care. My heart is racing; the weight of all of this is on my shoulders. My mom is ill and hasn’t slept for days. She is starting to speak in nonsensical fragments not even close to coherent sentences.

There are people around now. Two years have passed since I began preparing this house for sale and the people have arrived at the last minute, offering their help, their cars and trucks, their backs and arms. My mom doesn’t want them there. She whispers to me to get rid of them, but I can no longer do this alone and so I ignore her wish. Why is my mom sitting in the kitchen with her computer on a cutting board emailing Tokyo? People are asking what is wrong with her. I ignore them and try to come up with a system. Only I will deal with the boxes in their raw, dust covered state. After they are repacked and labeled (an absurd term for what I am doing) I will allow people to begin to load them into a waiting vehicle.

My mom is a hoarder, a packrat. It is her secret shame. I am trying to protect her from anyone else finding out, but family members and her best friend are witnessing what can no longer hide in a basement larger than most people’s homes. Some whisper about how things ever managed to get this bad. Fewer look to me. Is that blame in their eyes? So many dumpsters, trips to goodwill, yard sales, items on craigslist, trips to the dump and yet somehow, so much left is here.

I am dumping boxes as fast as I can when I see it, an envelope. It is a letter addressed to my brother in my father’s handwriting. I look around to see if anyone is watching me and quickly shove it deep into the pockets of my jeans. I say nothing to anyone.

Later that night at my house I pull it out and stare at it. It is thick. I knew about this letter before, but it hasn’t been mentioned in years. In 1983 my mom put my brother Matthew into a foster home. She did this for his safety, as he and my dad were coming to blows now that Matthew had started fighting back when beaten. My mother feared for his life. He went to live with a wealthy family with several kids who were grown by that time. My father wasn’t notified of his whereabouts. I was jealous. I wanted to be sent to live with a different family too. I missed my brother. Sometimes we would meet him at secret places (usually fast food restaurants) for a quick visit. He would hug us all before he walked out the door first and I would blink back tears as he headed in a different direction than our home. Walking, he was always walking, no matter how far he had to go, no matter the miles wearing out his shoes or the fact that he had bus fair in his pocket. It might have cleared his head. I’m guessing, of course. Years later I started walking to clear my own.

During that time when my brother lived in another house, in another city, my father begged, pleaded and cried for his son’s return. When that didn’t work he punched us. No one ever divulged the secret of his whereabouts. We were good secret keepers. My dad wrote this letter to my brother and asked my mom to deliver it to him. My brother refused to even glance at it. After a year my brother came back home to live with us. Another year or so and my dad was dead, having walked down the basement stairs to make a noose and end his life. There was no suicide note. My mom and I tore apart the whole house looking for one. It was weeks before she would allow anyone to take the garbage out for fear that it might be thrown away.

A few more times over the years my mom tried to deliver the letter to my brother, but he always refused to accept it. My mom said that she had read it and she felt he should too. I said nothing. I was jealous. This letter was not mine to read.

When I found the letter in a box filled with junk: twist ties, expired coupons, disposable napkins, photos that had gotten wet at some time and were stuck together, ruined, old magazines long since molded, I said to myself that I was just going to keep it safe.

Of course I read it. It is nine pages long and filled with details about my father I was never aware of. He explained his decent into mental illness and alcoholism, his feelings of failure for having ended up being an abusive drunken husband and father. He wrote of his time spent in church praying for the lord to save him. He asked my brother to relay messages to my sisters and me; messages of love and apology that no doubt would have fallen on deaf ears in the early 80s, but now, now they make me weep. I never got those messages. Would they have helped? I don’t know anymore.

I hid the letter in my locked file cabinet and pretended that I wasn’t doing anything but waiting for the right opportunity, maybe after my mom was settled in her new house.

I pretended that I wasn’t mad, not at my mom for not taking better care of the letter and for choosing not to tell me the words that were written to me, but most of all I tried not to be mad at my dad for not writing me a letter like that one. I tried not to be mad at him for not trying harder to make it through his illness.

Finally I admitted to my mom that I had found the letter during the move and held onto it for her. She has demanded it back and I shall return it because it’s not mine to keep. I am glad that I had an opportunity to read it now as an adult. I was ten when it was written. I never would have understood the words then. Now I do.

My dad would have turned eighty over this past weekend. It’s hard to imagine. In my mind he hasn’t aged a day so he still has a full head of hair and a strong build. I remember the way I felt when he hugged me tightly, and whispered in my ear that we were the last two members of the family who were blond and we needed to stick together. His hair was gray, but he never tired of that little joke between us.

My Mom asked me last Friday to go with her to place flowers on his grave and I said no. I only want to go alone. It is three buses and a walk and I still want to do it alone. There is no one in my life that I can talk to about the conflicting feelings I have about loving someone so much and losing him, someone who also had a side where he hit me and said horrible things to me.

Grief. It never goes away fully for me, it changes. I am now 35; my father is forever stuck at 57. I couldn’t have saved him from his fate then anymore than he can save me from myself now. But I am glad that I found that letter and that my dad took the time to write it. Even if it never ends up in the hands of your only son dad, it helped your youngest daughter. Thank you.

I have been sick again. Not the kind of sickness that comes from a virus, but the kind that comes from not having the medication I swallow to make it possible for me to face life. There was some misunderstanding between my doctor’s office and my pharmacy regarding the refill of my Klonopin. I have been on this medication for over a decade. It enables me to risk daring feats such as leaving my house. My doctor’s office blamed my pharmacy and they in turn blamed the office. It was all a jumble of miscommunication through fax and phone calls that eventually led to me calling the doctor on call for my doctor and begging him to help me out by calling me in a refill. He coldly refused, stating that he didn’t “deal in controlled substances over the phone.” It was all that I could do to keep it together, to not explode and tell him off. Being treated like a junkie is something that happens to me from time to time. I know that when I pick up my prescriptions sometimes the people behind the counter glare at me and ask me for two pieces of picture ID and insist that I have a consult with the pharmacist (who happens to be busy right now but won’t you have a seat?) even though this medication and I go way back, to the 90s even.

I know that this will be the case if I switch doctors. I have finally realized that the doctors work for me and if they won’t give me the pills to help me function I will find another doctor who will, and don’t you tell me about yoga and exercising and breathing and cognitive behavioral therapy because I have tried all of those things. Exercising while having a panic attack? Good one.

My doctor was out of town for a week and now she’s back. She apologized for the confusion, refilled my Klonopin immediately and I scribbled a swirl on the signature line when I picked it up; I flashed my ID and nodded to the pharmacist when he asked me if I’d had this before because I was sick and I was tired of trying to explain it to everyone so I just grabbed the bottle and walked away to take it. I feel better now.

Once, years ago, I ended up in the ER because my refill wasn’t ready and after waiting for 11 days I checked myself into the hospital because it was the only thing I could think of to stop the panic attacks that kept coming. This time I didn’t want to do that so I tried other things, like Tylenol PM to help me sleep and alcohol to help me calm down. I tried breathing exercises and placing a rubber band around my wrist and snapping it. I tried. My Mom says that I should be proud of myself and I can’t imagine why. I can’t help but think that this wasn’t the dream my parents had for me as they whispered in bed about what I would be like when I grew up. It wasn’t the grandiose idea I had for myself either.

My mind has been positively racing as of late, but I’ve felt unable to write it down because my brain moves too fast. At times like these I wonder if maybe I am bipolar but I don’t say anything because this drug thing? It’s getting so old. I honestly don’t feel that I can have a journal all about me and my depression and anxiety. It’s boring even for me, the subject matter. I could go on about the cold I can’t shake and how I feel dead inside right now. I suppose the Paxil has kicked in. I feel empty. Is it normal to have the reaction that you’re somehow dying inside? I resisted the doctor’s orders to put me on medication in 1986. I thought that it was important to feel, but it was all so overwhelming. I caved in 1993, and it’s been on and off since then.

I imagine that you, my reader, have to have a shelf life of how long you can pay attention to listening to some woman on the internet drone on about a depression that can’t be cured. I have been looking for other subject matter.

My Mom asked me recently what I loved to do; what I wanted to do with my life. I told her that I’d never been as happy as when I worked as a volunteer feeding the homeless.

“How are you going to make money at that?” was her reply. But that wasn’t her original question. She asked me what I loved to do. I like to feed the hungry. It might sound silly but it is such a simple and complex thing, removing hunger from someone’s life, even temporarily. I have been on both sides of it; having dealt with a severe lack of food both as a child and as an adult and it’s amazing what a meal can do to really fill someone.

“Hold tight. We’re in for nasty weather”

Yesterday I was grumpy. Polly was being her usual chatterbox self and I felt as if I needed some quiet. She doesn’t understand. She can’t understand. I ended up getting snappy with her and I feel guilty about that. The dog doesn’t like to go outside when it’s raining. That has been a struggle, this being Portland, Oregon and all. So yesterday I was doing the dishes and she shit all over the carpet. Diarrhea. It was my fault, because she should have been in her crate, but I wanted to let her out to roam the house a bit. I took her out and then came in to clean the mess. The whole house smelled and I couldn’t find any incense and I wanted to crawl into bed and hide. I was uncertain as to whether I needed to make a cup of coffee to perk me up, or perhaps have a nice relaxing cup of herbal tea? I considered taking a walk to the store to buy a bottle of wine. Maybe that would relax me?

I remembered how when I was a kid my Mom used to put a pot on the stove with water in it, and cinnamon sticks and cloves. She would simmer it and the whole house would smell wonderful. I grabbed a pot, filled it with water, dropped in some spices and then threw in some vanilla and a good dash of the lemon oil that I bought last year for some cookie recipe. I put it on the stovetop and went back to the dishes. I heard a sound, turned my head, and Woosh! The whole thing was on fire. I stared at it in disbelief for a second. The top of the pot was covered in flames, under the burner was on fire and flames were licking the wall. I put it out as quickly as I could. The kids came out of their rooms.

All that feng shui crap about not having fire across from water suddenly made sense. While you’re doing the dishes the whole house could burn down. After the fire was out Nathan looked at me and said, “Well, at least it smells better in here” and went back into his room.

The smoke detectors went off as I was wiping the black marks off of the wall above the burner. Alex came from upstairs where he had been sleeping, looked at me, turned around and walked back upstairs without asking me what I had done.

I grabbed my coat and walked to the store in the rain. Once there I decided that I wanted to have a beer. I looked in the cooler and they had Budweiser, Corona, and Heinekin. “Heinekin! Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!” I remembered. I smiled and bought the Heinekin, forgetting that it loses its good flavor on the ship over from Holland and always tastes nasty to me.

On the walk back home the rain stopped and I saw a double rainbow and I felt better. Not great, but better.

Just as we had hoped, Maggie and Itty Bitty have become very close. Especially when they are not chasing each other around the house biting and scratching one another. They even curl up and nap together and it’s so cute I want to squeeze them but not really, because then they would be racing around the house again.

I was all scheduled to have my surgery this week. Tomorrow, actually. I have been depressed about it and thinking that it was the wrong decision, but I felt so much pressure from everyone around me (excluding my husband, who said it was my body and my choice.) I especially appreciate the phone calls from family members who said, “Get that thing ripped out!” I stopped answering my phone for a few days. They can go have their own reproductive organs removed if they so choose. So I actually canceled the surgery and I am going to look into alternative treatment options with another doctor. Yes, a third opinion.
I really appreciate the women who left comments of support and the women who emailed me to offer to lend an ear. Having agoraphobia/ anxiety/ depression can be very isolating and it meant so much to me that others were willing to share their stories, or to just listen. Thank you all. I have wished for a long time that I could develop a circle of friends around me. Maybe one day I will be brave enough to try.
I’ll be back soon with a longer entry. I have to help Polly with her Spanish homework (?!) and the laundry is piling up.

I had my appointment yesterday with a highly recommended surgeon/OB/GYN. I asked a lot of questions and she sat and talked with me for a long time. I wanted to just flat out ask her what I should do. Instead she got out a piece of paper and wrote out the problems that I have been having, the treatment options available, and the pros and cons of each. Everything points to my having a hysterectomy. She told me to take some time to think and she would have someone call and check on me soon to see if I had made my decision. If I decide to do it they schedule it ASAP.

When I arrived home I gave Alex the brochures she had given me and he set them aside without looking at them. I felt mad all of the sudden. I started thinking about how he hadn’t thought to call me to see how my appointment went even though he knew I was scared about it. I took Maggie into the backyard and sat in the corner of the yard near the shed where I hoped no one in the world could see me and I cried for awhile. Polly came out back and I dried my eyes quickly. She asked me what was wrong and I just told her that I was feeling stressed because I had a big decision to make. I went back inside and tried to do normal things like dishes but I kept feeling these waves of sadness come over me. Alex approached me and told me not to be so “mopey” because apparently I had scared Polly and she had gone to him to ask what was wrong with me. I tried to tell Alex that I was scared and confused and he patted me and told me that everything would be OK. He ordered pizza so I wouldn’t have to cook and I got into the shower and wept until I could cry no more. This is the worst possible time for me to be weaning myself off of Effexor as I was weepy before my appointment.

Later I was reading some article about Britney Spears’ performance and how she looked “fat” and I started to cry again. I’ve never even been a fan of her music but I had this idea of this young woman who had just had two children and a divorce in a very short period of time and of how nervous she must have been about this “comeback” performance and the whole thing seemed so horrible to me, that people would come right out and mock her body like that when she has obviously been going through a hard time and who hasn’t felt like shaving all of their fucking hair off? Hell, I’ve done it!

Then I realized that I was crying over Britney Spears. Alex suggested that I have a drink of the alcoholic variety and lie down on the bed. He came in and stretched out beside me and I reached for him and he held me while I cried (AGAIN!) until my head ached. Then I went to sleep and dreamed that I opened up my own bakery and it was a huge success. This morning he let me sleep in and he took Polly to school so I could stay in bed as long as I wanted to.

Today I feel better. Polly took the photo of me I put up, by the way. She has decided that she wants to be a professional photographer as she feels she has “an eye” for it. I love it when my kids display confidence, even though I let her borrow my camera and she returned it with 379 photos on it and only three of them weren’t blurry. I told her that they were wonderful and she beamed. She told me that after taking photos of me she noticed that I had an “unusual” chin and I noticed that hey, my hair probably would look a lot better if I did take the hour to use a flatiron but Nah.

My uterus is still negotiable. I have arranged for a second doctor to give me an exam and also to look at the images I have in my medical history. I don’t want to have any body parts removed unless I absolutely have to, thank you very much. My sister Monica helped me come up with a list of questions to ask this doctor. Last time I just dropped my mouth open and stared in disbelief. My sister Maria called with suggestions of herbal remedies and vitamin solutions. I do believe in some natural remedies, sometimes. I wish more of them worked for me. At one time I gave St. John’s Wort a good long try, just in case. I am not opposed to the idea; I am just not going to eschew western medicine entirely. My appointment is next Monday.

My kids are doing well. School starts up again Thursday. They are spending these last moments being as lazy as they possibly can. I told them to enjoy it while they can. Polly is going back to the same middle school she loved last year, and Nathan is attending a new program designed for special needs kids. It became clear that I wasn’t able to home school him very well last year, but I was hard at work trying to find another solution. I don’t think I have ever typed both “special needs” and my son in the same sentence together. It’s sort of the elephant in the living room here. Everyone knows it, but we don’t talk about it much. I told Nathan last night that I would never give up on him, no matter what. Fifteen is a fun age. He knows everything and I know nothing. It’s OK though, because I got to know everything when I was fifteen so it somehow evens out.

Polly asked me last night what I wanted my kids to be when they grew up. I told her that I wanted them to be good people, and that I wanted them to be happy. Of course I have big dreams for them both but I want them to decide their future. I will just sit here and hope for the best and try to help them along the way.

Maggie the puppy is doing wonderfully. She has gained eleven pounds since we got her, and I have lost eight. She wakes me every morning around 6:30 to go potty and although I hate getting up early she is good for me, forcing me to get up and to go outside. She has mastered “sit” and “lie down” and “Maggie come”. I really do hate saying that to her as we take walks and she has to stop at every single leaf, rock, and blade of grass. It makes me sound like one of those sex partners who yell out “COME! COME! COME!” Not that I know anything about that. I think I saw it in a movie somewhere.

Itty Bitty the kitty has resigned himself to the fact that we have a puppy. They play together each day, sometimes a bit roughly, and then they pass out together and take a nap. They share each others toys and eat each others food if they can get away with it. Polly is constantly yelling out, “Quick, get me the camera, they are doing something cute!” I’ll look at them and they will be doing a slightly modified version of what they were doing ten seconds ago. I now have hundreds of pictures of these animals, thanks to Polly. I think we’ll get her a camera of her own for Christmas.

I have been weaning myself off of the Effexor. I was doing wonderfully until yesterday. I was pushing my cart around the grocery store and I burst into tears, right in front of the Tylenol section. I didn’t feel sad as much as I just felt tired of it all. I wanted to abandon my cart and just walk out of the store. I took a deep breath and kept going. My doctor is supposed to be adding in Paxil at some point, but I am still waiting. I called today and left a message for the doctor after Alex approached me and asked me what was wrong. I wasn’t really aware that anything was wrong, on the outside at least, but he said I was acting “weird”, which is always great to hear when you think that you’re keeping it all together and that no one knows. Truth is, Effexor withdrawals are the worst antidepressant withdrawals I have ever been through. Remember kids, I kicked coke and meth and heroin. And pot, because it made me panic in the end, god damn it. I liked smoking pot. That is how I kicked cocaine, meth and heroin. Anyway, if someone has reached my site doing a search about Effexor my thoughts after years of experience are this: Effexor is a good drug. It gave me a lot more energy to go about my daily tasks, something that none of the other SSRIs did. Somewhere in that capsule must be some speed. But, the withdrawal is very hard. I would recommend doing it slowly, under the advice of a skilled doctor. My doctor had to up my dose of Klonopin considerably.

I hope that you are all doing wonderfully. Does anyone have any exciting news to leave in my comments? Questions? Answers? It gets lonely here inside my head.

There are times, like when I am scrubbing dog shit out of the carpet, when I wonder how in the hell I expected this puppy to help me with my depression. Then there are other times when she is cuddling me, or chewing on her squeaky squirrel, or running along beside me on her leash, when I think, YES! this is what I wanted.

Maggie is doing well. Housetraining is about as fun as I expected. Sometimes she does very well using the yard to go potty and other times when Alex and I can’t figure out how we could have taken her outside for an hour only to have her come inside and crap on the floor. In the beginning, when we were doing research about caring for a puppy, Alex would mention crate training. I didn’t want to do it because I thought it was mean. By Tuesday, I was asking Alex, so what about this crate training? To my surprise, Maggie actually likes sleeping in her crate. And I like being able to sleep through the night. Except for last night when she cried so hard at 3 in the morning that I had to take her bleary eyed to the yard to pee. But that was only one time. The first few nights we were in and out of the door so many times that I was getting loopy from lack of sleep. I am happy that Alex has some time off work right now because oh my god this is wearing me out. At least with my babies I didn’t have to do much besides change their diapers and fling a breast in their faces. Well. Nathan’s face. With Polly I could nurse because I had to go on medication for the crazy as soon as she was born, and yes, I still have guilt about not having been able to breastfeed her.

Today I have to go to work and Alex will be caring for Maggie. I should be in the shower right now, in fact. One more day of work and then I get the weekend off. I am so tired. My doctor has decided to wean me off the Effexor and onto Paxil. I know she’s doing the right thing, because although the depression is manageable most days my anxiety level is so high I want to eat my Klonopin like Pez. I am just tired of this whole thing. Tired of having these illnesses, tired of swallowing pills that don’t work, tired of talking to psychiatrists. Tired in general. I just want to be better. Even me, a nonbeliever, if I saw Jesus walking by I might make a grab for the hem of his robe, just in case.

The conclusion to my search for answers regarding Brett Reider can be found at Brett Reider Is Alive and Doing Well.

I had an entry all planned out for today, complete with photos that I took on Alex’s camera, but he was too tired when he got home from work and I don’t know how to upload them, so this will have to suffice for now. Speaking of cameras, I called the shop that’s had mine since May and the woman who answered the phone acted all shocked when I said, “Uh, yeah, I am calling to check the status of my camera that I dropped off a long time ago”

“Oh my God!” she responded, after typing my name into the computer, “You should have had your camera back a long time ago!” No shit. Apparently the part they need is on backorder and it should be ready by next week. I am so excited, because I will actually be able to take pictures and put them up by myself without asking my husband to do it for me.

As I’ve mentioned, I have two older sisters, Monica and Maria. I have detailed the closeness of my relationship with Maria here, but I don’t think I’ve talked much about Monica. When we were growing up we didn’t get along. Even as adults we have had huge arguments that have involved yelling and then not speaking to each other for months. Today though, she did me a huge favor and took Polly to see the new Harry Potter movie. She has two daughters, ages 13 and 12, and they get along well with my daughter, so for the sake of the girls I have tried not to fight with their mother. I really do appreciate her taking them to the movies because me, I wasn’t looking forward to it so much. I wanted to wait until the hoopla died down a bit before we went. Monica bought tickets online in advance. So today has been quiet, with Alex sleeping and Nathan just hanging out and talking on the phone or watching TV.

My medication has been upped even more than it was, so I am now taking three times the amount. Every doctor I’ve seen has tried this with my antidepressants to see if they can eliminate the panic attacks and anxiety and reduce my reliance on benzodiazepines. The side effect is more panic, a constant state of anxiety and insomnia. Last night I was up until 6:30 this morning. I had a quick nap on the couch and then woke at ten. These side effects do go away in time; you just have to ride them out.

When dealing with insomnia I usually try very hard to go to sleep before I just say fuck it and either get up or watch TV or something. This morning I was flipping through the channels and I came across a documentary on HBO titled “Brett Killed Mom”. I was totally sucked in. The lives that my siblings, my mom and I lived in the years before my father’s suicide are not ones that I have ever been able to convey to anyone. A psychiatrist once asked me how bad the abuse was, and I told her that it was bad. Really bad. She asked me if my father had ever broken any bones. I said yes, and she explained that the abuse scale put physical abuse into two categories; one with broken bones and a less severe form with no broken bones. I never knew there was a scale, and I personally think that the emotional abuse has left the most crippling scars. I have spent many years in therapy and I am frankly tired of trying to make sense of my past. I want to deal with now. I know, I know, I can’t move on until I deal with what happened.

One aspect of being an abused child that I’ve had trouble coming to grips with is the fact that as the years moved on and the abuse grew worse and my self esteem was nonexistent I used to spend a lot of time thinking about killing my father. I honestly felt that someone was going to have to do it or we would never be safe. I imagined how I would do it and I knew that I would go to prison for it. I felt that it would be a fair exchange; my freedom gone, my father’s life taken and my mom and siblings would be free. I never acted on those plans because I physically was not strong enough to fight back in self defense and I knew on some level that if I did I would only manage to make things much worse. After my dad died it was years before I admitted this dark secret of mine. When I told my psychiatrist she said that it was a normal reaction, a matter of self-preservation. She said that it wasn’t uncommon for the abused to contemplate killing their abusers. On different occasions I spoke with my mom, my brother, and both of my sisters about it. They admitted that they too had thought about killing him. My mom went so far as to say that she felt that it was her duty to protect her children by any means necessary. She too felt as if she would one day have to kill or watch her children die. Somehow none of this makes it any easier, or maybe it does, I don’t know.

When I was watching “Brett Killed Mom: A Sister’ Story” I literally felt as if it could have been me there on the screen being interviewed from prison. I wanted to hug him; to tell him that I understand how it had happened. Brett Reider’s story is one that I feel everyone involved in the system should see; whether it is police officers, social workers, teachers or just people who can’t understand the results of a life where the one who should love and nurture you becomes the one who you have to get away from to save you.

Tomorrow: A deep longing that I have had for years will be fulfilled by my husband. I’ll have to get pictures of tomorrow to share with you. Hopefully I’ll be able to sleep tonight.

I received my first hate email from this site two days ago. I guess it is to be expected; I have been doing this for about a year now without any. This particular email made me very angry, and I logged out of my email account without responding. I wanted more time to think it over first and to decide if I should respond. This particular person didn’t attack my writing, they attacked my character. When Alex woke up and began to get ready for work I told him about this woman and what she had said about me. Hey broke into a huge grin and said, “Your first hate mail! That’s great. You should create a page on your site just for hate mail and post it there.” His idea was intriguing; I have seen other journals with hate mail and responses that have been quite humorous. It wasn’t the course of action I really wanted to take though. Instead I waited until I had calmed down enough to respond, and I did so with kindness. I did not hear back from her. This got me to thinking about email. My former best friend used to tell me that email gave people false muscles, like alcohol. He was of course commenting on the fact that there were things that I would never have said to him in person that I confided via email. An even more dangerous combination is email or the phone with the addition of alcohol. Obviously I am not the only one who has used a computer screen to hide behind while communicating. I do try, however, to ask myself if I would feel comfortable saying whatever it is I am trying to convey via email directly to the person’s face.

My Mother recently sent me an email with the subject line “Your Cousin”. I currently have a cousin who is in the Army stationed in Afghanistan. One might think that he would have popped into my head first, but before I opened the email I already knew who the subject matter would be.

Back in 1983 my mom took her four children to her homeland of Australia. There I spent an idyllic summer surrounded by aunts and uncles, grandparents and countless cousins. It was the first time in my life that I felt free. My father stayed here in America; without him nearby I blossomed. I wasn’t so afraid. I didn’t feel the need to constantly walk on eggshells. I felt a sense of belonging, a feeling of being home for the first time, and more than anything I was surrounded by so much love that my heart threatened to burst.

During that time I met my cousin Steve. We hit it off immediately and spent hours together talking, walking around the abandoned railroad tracks of the sleepy little town my mom had grown up in, sneaking cigarettes and making plans for the future. We were both dreamers, you could say. We made plans to be famous musicians (him) and highly successful writers (me). We built each other up. Youth gave us the belief that anything was within our grasp. When I left that summer I ended up crying my eyes out at the airport, begging my mom not to take us back to America, back to a place where daily beatings at the hands of my father were the norm for us all, back to the place where we slept with one foot on the floor always ready to jump up and run at the first noise in the night.

The next trip to Australia took place under very different circumstances in 1985. My father had died. I had decided to take my inner rebel and run with her. I was shaving parts of my head, wearing tons of makeup and smoking a pack a day. I was nervous about seeing Steve again, afraid that the connection would be lost. We ended up discovering that although we had had zero contact since our last visit we were now wearing our hair the same, dressing in a similar way, and listening to the same bands. He had fulfilled his promise of learning to play the guitar, and was now quite good at it. We picked up where we had left off. When it was time for us to leave the country this time I tried to beg my mom to let us stay there. I felt that there was no life for me in America. My mom informed me that Steve and his mom and sister would be returning to America to live with us. I was so excited.

We spent the next several months spending all of our spare time together. He knew that at times I would gab on like a maniac and at other times I would sit in silence. Sometimes I would cry for seemingly no reason and he made it clear that was O.K. too. He tried to teach me to play guitar and we practiced together. We wrote music together, me working on the lyrics mostly, him carefully jotting down the notes. We agreed to meet in NYC when I turned 18. There we would start our own band, become famous, and live happily ever after, rich and free. Ah, to be young again.

When the time came for him to leave we considered running away. It seemed like the only solution until the reality of us having less than two dollars in coins and a half pack of smokes between us kicked in. We promised to keep in touch through letters. That promise lasted about 18 months, not bad considering our ages at the time.

My 18^th birthday came and went. I remembered the young woman who had been so naive to have thought that everything would be O.K. if only I could make it to NYC on this date. I had children; he had children. He married; I didn’t, until later. In 1993 I flew with Nathan to see my family once again. I saw Steve twice during that trip. I met his wife and kids. I had heard from family members that he had become successful as a guitarist; I wasn’t surprised. We didn’t have much time to talk during our visits, but he did ask me if I was still writing. I said no. He told me that I had a good head on my shoulders and a story to tell. “You should do it, kid” and he smiled. He asked me if I was still practicing the guitar chords he had taught me. I had to tell him that I had tried to, for a long time I tried, but without him there to guide me as to the finger placement I had given up. “It’s O.K. I can teach you again!” I laughed. It was too late. It was ridiculous. We parted, promising to write, although I think we both knew we wouldn’t.

Three years later a letter arrived in my mailbox from him. He was congratulating me on the birth of my daughter. We wrote back and forth for a while and then moved on to phone calls from time to time. Sometimes long stretches of time would go by without a word and then one of us would reach out. The time never seemed to matter; we picked up right where we had left off. During the period of time when his father was terminally ill and his marriage was headed for divorce we spoke frequently. When he met and fell in love with his second wife I didn’t hear from him often. I was admittedly the same with him. We were the opposite of fair weather friends in many ways. When I was in the darkest hour of depression it was him I called late one night, collect, no less. He accepted the charges and chatted with me until he had me laughing. He once calmed me down from a severe panic attack over the phone by going through his cupboards and fridge and naming everything he had that I, a vegetarian, could eat at his house. It worked for some strange reason.

More time passed with no contact. Last year his name popped up in my email inbox. I was surprised and pleased. We had never done the email thing. We started out with daily emails. In time they became weekly, and then monthly, then they stopped. I wasn’t sad or confused or surprised. I understood now that this was the way it had been since 1983 and that was O.K.

My mom’s email titled “Your Cousin” was about him, just as I had known it would be. While on vacation in Thailand he was riding a motorbike and was hit by a truck, which ran over his body and then fled the scene. He survived. He is now in the hospital in Thailand with too many broken bones to fly home. I ran through a whole series of emotions and ideas after I read the news. I went from wondering if I should call him at the hospital, wondering if I should send a card to him in Thailand or have one waiting for him when he returns home to Australia, to one crazy moment where I felt as if I should fly there and sit by his bedside to make sure he is O.K.

Right now I realize that no matter what I do, even if I decided to skip even the simplest gesture of a get well card, it would be alright. He would understand. Some relationships can transcend the restrictions of whatever means of communication are available to us at any given time. In a nutshell, I know it in my heart that I don’t have to say or do anything at all. He knows. He already knows what I would say.

When the blackness descends I have to remind myself that I will pull out of this; that this is, in fact, the reason why I wake up each day and swallow a handful of pills. I am feeling way down and dragging through the motions. Feed the cats. Feed the kids. Load the dishwasher. Fold the clothes. Notice that we are low on milk. Walk to the store. I almost got hit by a car on the way. The driver puts his head out the car window and yells, “Nice tits.” I raise my hand to flip him off, but it’s too much effort, so I drop my arm back by my side. This whole right turn on red thing here drives me mad. The cars don’t even stop; they just speed around the turn. I used to think I would surely die in this fashion and I made an effort to make eye contact with every driver who came thisclose to hitting me. I don’t know what good it would do but I had an idea that at least if they looked into my eyes… Maybe I was planning to haunt them.

At times like this Alex asks me what’s wrong; tells me that I am acting weird. I shrug, say nothing. There’s no way to describe it, really, unless someone’s lived it. I once heard it (depression) described as trying to run in jello. My Mom had given me some article she had saved from Reader’s Digest. I couldn’t finish it. I liken it more to sinking in quicksand. I had a phobia of quicksand when I was a little girl. My brother and I saw some movie; I can’t remember the name of it, where someone drowned in quicksand while helpful people on the edge tried to hold out sticks and ropes to pull him out. After I asked my older, all knowing brother if quicksand was real, I asked him where it was. “Oh, it’s everywhere. You just never know when you’re going to fall in.”

“Does it suck you down fast?” I asked trembling. “Very fast”, he said, “once you fall in there’s zero chance you’ll get out.” I think he was right. While other kids were joyfully splashing in puddles I was walking all the way around them, just in case. Because you never know. It’s everywhere.

My Mom and I went out to lunch on Thursday. I really love her for coming to get me out of this house sometimes. We went to a restaurant my brother loves and eats at frequently. Everything on the menu is vegetarian or vegan so he recommended that I go there, certain that I would love it. I didn’t realize that my Mom was going to create a big scene when we walked in the door, announcing that I was Matthew’s sister! The staff told me that I had to sit at the table my brother ate at. They joked that they were considering putting his name on it. It was right in front of the window. I would have chosen the one way in the back, in the corner, but no matter. It was all worth it listening to my Mom try to pronounce hummus, tempeh, tabouli, and tofu. Poor lady, she had no idea what to order. I had to talk her through it. I ended up getting a vegetarian Reuben. It had the most delicious dressing on it that kept running down my hands and tempting me to lick my fingers, but I resisted the urge and used my napkin. My brother was right. The food there is great, affordable, and the portions are huge.

Afterwards my Mom went to some camera shop she had heard printed photos from very old black and white negatives and I sat on a park bench and smoked a cigarette, watching the people walk by. I know very little about North Portland. When I was younger it was a predominantly black neighborhood with a lot of beautiful old houses, most of them very run down. It was considered dangerous for whites to venture that far north. I went over there on the bus with an ex-boyfriend who happened to be sporting blue hair at the time. It was the 80s. A group of guys tried to pick a fight with him as soon as we got off the bus. Realizing it was hopeless to try and talk his way out of the fight he ended up grabbing my hand and we ran. We ran until we came upon another bus and after we jumped up the stairs the driver looked at us and said, “What the hell are you two doing in this neighborhood?” Truthfully, we had been using the bus as a place to make out and we didn’t realize how far into what was then referred to as the ghetto we had gotten until the bus screeched to a halt and it was the end of the line.
My brother bought his house over there before it became trendy. Now I don’t even recognize North Portland.

I wandered into a bookstore. Every so often I’ll say something to Alex like, “I saw the funniest thing today. I wished that I’d had a camera so I could have taken a picture of it.” He will sigh and remind me that I always have a camera on me. It’s called a cell phone. I always forget about its picture taking ability. My Mom joined me in the bookstore, stating that she knew I would end up in there. “Leave Tammy alone somewhere and she’ll always find her way to the nearest bookstore.” I didn’t tell her that the first place I had considered walking into had been the dark looking little dive bar across the street, followed by the coffee shop, before I settled on the bookstore.
As I walked around I saw so many books that I wanted to read. Just about everything was full price and I like to buy my books used or get them from the library, so remembering my cell phone at long last I pulled it out and snapped photos of the titles that interested me so that I could add them to the list of books to read I have at home. I was proud of myself for thinking of it until my Mom started following me around and offering to buy me every book I took a picture of. I realized she was embarrassed by my behavior. I found an Anne Tyler book I haven’t read in the dollar bin and bought that.

My camera is in the shop being fixed so ya’ll are stuck looking at headshots of me taken on the same day. Only the expressions change, but I managed to not smile for any of them. Before I took my camera in I asked Alex what I should say was wrong with it. “You’re paying them to tell you what’s wrong with it.” He replied. So off I went to the shop, set in down on the counter, and told the woman I wanted to have my camera fixed. “What’s wrong with it?” she asked. I knew it! Arghhhh. When I got home I told Alex in that “I told you so” tone of voice and he said didn’t you tell them about the whatchimacallit and the whosit and the whatsit? I didn’t understand a word he was talking about. I just nodded yes. Of course I had told them. I can’t wait until it’s done.

I feel better having typed this out. I feel good enough to curl up on the couch and to take a little nap for maybe an hour or so.