At this moment, everything hurts. Some skin came off my ankle yesterday and it smarts when I touch it, which is all the time because feet get a lot of use, I'm tired because I'm not sleeping and I'm depressed but at least I'm rebelling by not taking that damn Prozac - none of it - it fucked me up more than most things that have actually happened to me.(I should mention I have this now too. The label list gets longer. My status declines.) Also, my throat is feels blocked and raw because I've made myself throw up for the last 6 days (Saturday could be excluded...this post will expose the truth later. OOH.) after most of my meals. Even Dad is starting to move past the inexplicable veil of Denial:
"Betty, why are you throwing up everyday? You never eat that much either."
"What do you mean Dad? I didn't throw up yesterday. Or the day before that - the only day I threw up last week was from the party, remember?"
"Oh yes...of course. How silly of me. I must be getting old."
"Well, you are 47."
"I'm 21 actually!" (We laugh. It's an old routine, whether we're talking about Syphilis, family deaths, films or eating disorders.)
This is how it works. We talk about something obvious, like me avoiding meals, or the sound of me retching, or stuff I forget to clean up etc. Dad asks what's going on and I point blank lie, I say there is no problem - I say that I am fine, "perfect", even. Dad takes it in, however slyly, or snarky as he wants to I don't care because then we have a joke and there's no tension and I don't have to talk about icky things like shoving sick down the sink and choking on bits of spaghetti and spewing out cold water and ice cream and talk about how much easier its getting and how much harder it is to keep things down and not have a panic attack about it, or how I have a new fear of blocking up the sink and the bath and the toilet and the shower and not just getting caught with a plunger but not being able to get rid of the food either. Things I don't want anyone to care about because they'll get hurt, if not grossed out.
At the moment I'm submerged in some other strange kind of sorrow. I feel a shivery kind of numb, then I feel so warm, all over except for some invisible place inside which stays so cold. My right ear is numb, hehe. And its miseries with pleasantries, on a trip to that bloody Motel where I end up every year. This year I see to be taking an exeedingly long amount of time. But I wouldn't mind staying in the real world for the next couple of months just so I can remember something properly in the month of June. One of those gorgeous snapshot memories - you remember the weather, the wet sand between your toes, smell the sea and the fruit and the cocktails. You remember the layout of the hotel you were staying in. And most of all you remember why you remember it so well - it was the last time you went swimming, were in Jamaica, you were happy. You remember who told you to remember it and your Aunty's life flashes past your eyes...
Isn't that how autobiographies are made, what each blog is - a skilled chapter of ones' life? For it is true that everyone has a novel inside of them, even if it is a 12 page dictation of their own life, as even if it is a dull life - and most are - and it turns out you didn't actually believe in anything at all contrary to popular belief and it was really just sanity, survival and sanctity (where you're told what to believe and you never really discover it for yourself) because autobiographies are so important. In the only memorable, palpable form of expression and recycled examples of life imitated onto art, our stories may be the only thing we have.
Where did this thought come from? Rich sent me a text asking how I was, and when I realised how grim things were, I almost didn't text him. Might be why I'm slow to be emailing Nik. I just want them to do justice to my friends and be happy...
I give up. I'm going to bed.
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