sitting in my peruvian chompa in a cozy new england home, this is probably what most "real" thanksgivings feel like.
the holidays are not that much harder than every other day. they are hard, of course, but every second is a struggle. i don't think one goes by i don't remember. yet, somehow, i am still functioning and remembering at once. i am multitasking. i don't know how my brain has this capacity, not to move on but even to go on, but it just does...
i ate a lot today. it is thanksgiving after all, and i let go of my rigid diet plan for the day. i feel bad about it, but not too bad. i just wish there were something i could control, or at least, something i wouldn't lose control of on the rare occasion i had it in my grasp.
but maybe i never have. maybe every time i create a strict diet plan for myself it's because i'm actually NOT in control...of what i put into my mouth, of how i look, who i love, the family i was born into, of life and death and of my father's death. it's as unchangeable as DNA, every last bit of fate, it seems, is woven into a changeless coil like my green eyes and brown hair and pale combination skin with discolored spots that are still fading. control is floating somewhere, intangible, visible only to those who do not seek it. when i am most in control, i am also least in control. i control what i eat to prove i own my fate, but the truth is, i am just its co-captain. i don't believe in god, just sick coincidence, and something larger than me, holding me back even as i sweat and grit my teeth and cry and bite down on ropes until they break. even as i try to change everything, it is really only prudent to try for some of those things, most of which won't do a darn bit of changing for all of my trying.
i cried for three days last week. i never cry, but there it was.
it's almost as though i lost my memory for those days. something took over my body. an animal. an alter-ego. something made me shake from the outside in as i remembered hoisting daddy up and dabbing his lips with water when he was too weak to drink. i sobbed as i remembered the strength it took to hold him, everything i had...the strength it took to watch the blood gushing from his mouth as he took his last breaths. it all came back. it comes again and again and this is what i was afraid of: that once i started, i wouldn't stop. i wouldn't be able to. i wouldn't have the strength, the resolve, or the control.
i filtered our email correspondences and spent an hour looking through them. most emails were mundane, but it didn't matter. they were beautiful and painful because they exist, because they mean he existed and was well enough to send me an email on october second, less than 2 months ago.
alone.
this was all alone. this pain is alone. it is thanksgiving and i want to be thankful and gracious for all that i have, but it hardly seems to matter when one of two people in the world who loved me unconditionally is gone. there is other love, and other love is beautiful in its way, but there is no such love as this one.
my dad and i were never really close because we didn't usually have much to say to each other, but we were close in our way. we took comfort in each other's company. we watched a lot of movies because we could be together without talking, and afterwards, we'd have something to talk about. who will i talk to about movies now? who will talk to me about movies the way my dad talked to me in his sing-song i-know-more-than-you gentle lecture voice? good god, who will even watch the sort of awful nazi movies the two of us watched together? who will force me to sit through films about hitler and wwII?
am i really going on? or am i just going? am i even doing that? what am i doing? who am i without my daddy? i've never known life without him.
he's been visiting me in dreams. and nightmares, but nothing...nothing is the same. my subconscious knew this before i did. i was still trying to micromanage every aspect of my life when my phantom father tried to kill me in my sleep.
***
when i have everything under control, that's when everything is falling apart. i am.
seriously, when does the world around you crumble and leave you intact?
when things seem alright, i am just gritting my teeth and faking. nothing is under control. i am not.
until last week, i hadn't smoked in a year and a half. i bought pack and smoked 4 cigarettes in a row. i went out, came back, and smoked another two. i just sat on the ground in a corner, felt the heat in my lungs, breathed and watched people coming and going. the next day i stood on the roof of hunter college and smoked another 3. i was alone on the roof, appropriately. and it was night and cold and i watched cars and people chugging along below me. an hour later, i was doubled over in pain from cramps on a couch in school. people asked if i was ok. yes, i told them, thanks, i'm fine. truth is overrated, anyway.
i tell myself i'm not becoming an addict. i tell myself i have this new habit is under control. i tell myself i can't afford to buy another pack so this one will be my first and my last. truth is overrated, anyway. if i'm being truthful, i don't care about any of those things. i just want to self-destruct. i want to be disease-ridden so i can suffer like my father and go where he went.
i am weak. every bit of strength has been drained from me, and i suppose i am ready to give in and let badness take over...at least for a while. i need to feel.
these are the most powerful feelings i've ever felt, but fuck, i can no longer run from myself.
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