untitled in Chapter 47

i remember us fucking so hard and long and slow and breathless that afterward - i was ravenous. while you drifted off to sleep i would tiptoe down the hall to the kitchen and make myself a peanut butter sandwich and then, tiptoe back and sit down on the corner of the bed and eat it in the dark. when the sandwich was gone, i would get under the covers and fall asleep - hard and fast.

beyond myself
somewhere
i wait for my arrival

from “The Balcony” by Octavio Paz

“you hang on to your pain like it means something. but let me tell you, it doesn’t mean shit.”

from Six Feet Under, Nathaniel speaking to David

“it’s true, l’m sentimental about my fuckups.”

Lester from House of Sand and Fog

these words surge through me… recognition. and it opens up the way for:

for the last five years my life has been an excruciating terrifying painful bewildering lonely and full of grief hellscape. not sure how i’m still here. not sure why either. if i believed in god, i’d believe this was “a lesson” and i was “exactly where i was supposed to be” and there was “a plan for me”. but i dont believe any of that anymore. they are meaningless platitudes that ring hollow. what i do believe: that the biological urge to live is pure instinct and you cant stop instinct. it just pushes forward and doesnt give a shit about you or your problems. it is life’s striving for itself. that makes more sense to me.

i have worried so much over these stones they are turning to dust. have i come to the end finally? not the end of my life - even though i thought about it every single day. no. the end of trying to stand in the rideau river rapids at carleton university and stop it rushing past my feet as i command it - with my sheer force of will - to stop that rushing, to go back, to somehow make it still and silent, to not bash me on the rocks and drown me. that ridiculous illusion of control. that ridiculous delusion that if i just try hard enough, i can find the chink in the armour, the vast mistake i’ve overlooked, the thing that caused the harm - because its all my fault, my negligence that caused the harm and how once i find this elusive piece of the puzzle, i can go back in time and stop it from happening somehow - through sheer force of will.

it’s time. i’m calling off the search. i only have so many days left. i want to enjoy what i can, as best i can. it’s time to shore myself up with good memories - like all that sultry summer fucking.
but also the things i did right for the little family i accidentally built with peter - OUR family and not the family i was born into. it’s time to stop squandering time. it’s time to count up my strengths and show some compassion to my faults - my not-unique human foibles. it’s time to be grateful that everyone survived in one piece - or in my case, pieces - but i’m still here. it’s time to stop chastising myself for not controlling the uncontrollable. it’s time to make peace with the harm caused and take my actual part of the blame but not all of it - because not all of it was my fault.

i am no longer the person i was before. i would like to spend my remaining time getting to know this version of myself, this much-different me. i want to be friends with her, treat her with kindness and respect. she’s been through a lot.

peter says to me: “it’s okay, suzy.”
and instead of saying: “no, it’s not okay at all.” i just stay silent and mull it over and then, i don’t exactly agree but i keep it on the table as a possibility.

Last updated January 04, 2018