What I Don't Want to Share

So if you know who I am and you happen to read this, mum’s the word.

I am alone on my birthday.  Up until 5 p.m., I had plans. But then I lied and said I had to work late. My phone is turned off and my friend Jonathan has called me three times wanting to talk. He has no idea it's my birthday and no idea that I don't answer the phone even on regular days.

This is the first time I’ve ever been alone on my birthday, and I hope never to repeat it again because I don’t ever want to be in the same place as I’m in right now.

This is what mourning feels like.

To badly quote something I read in the New York Times, there is no emoticon that could convey what life has been like this year. It has been one loss after another. But I always come back to this.

During my somewhat miserable childhood, after one or two of those incidents that involved my crazy family, I remember striking deals with God (that seems like the wrong thing to say – I don’t think I ever believed in God) – “okay, I’ll do it, but no more after this” or telling myself that whatever the bad thing was had to be the absolute last bad thing that could happen because life wouldn’t be fair otherwise.

What I have learned is that life, with all the moments of happy and wretchedness, is quite indifferent to us humans.

My shrink asked me why I wanted to do be alone and I didn’t have an answer at the time.  Now I do – it is because I want to look at myself. No liquor, no friends, no exes, no family.

I’ll never know why I didn’t keep my baby. All the rational thoughts that led to that decision could be written down, but right next to that column, would be just as many reasons for keeping it.

I wanted that baby.  It’s hard for me to admit that even now because it makes me wonder how I could have done it. I do know that I want any child of mine to have better childhood than I did, and at the time, I didn’t think I could provide. I wanted to be fair.

I don’t know if I will ever have enough guts to decide on whether I was a brave girl or a scared girl or if there will ever be a time when making a judgement on myself won't be so important.

On very bad days, I find myself saying “sorry, baby” again and again as if I’m talking to a person.  It is all I have to say and it’s not enough and it’s too much at the same time.

What kind of girl am I now?

Book Love

One of the first books I ever stole was The Heather Blazing by Colm Toibin.  I still own that book (my old flame AL called it my trophy, this before I told him that I used to be a book thief which I think amused and then put him off). I still haven't read it. But just now I finished Toibin's newest novel Brooklyn and was fairly wowed.  I wonder if I will pick up the other book(s) now? I mean to buy since I don't steal anything anymore.

Towards the end of Brooklyn, there is a passage that is simply gorgeous.  I say this fully admitting that I am somewhat biased because it was a scene that could have been lifted from MY life, circa 2009 versus 1950s Brooklyn/Ireland.

The mother in Ireland avoids talking about the daughters life in Brooklyn.  The daughter wonders why her mother doesn't seem to have any interest in her new life.

The reading A.D.D. has passed I think.  Now I am on to compulsive book-buying and book-reading.  Purchases in the last month:

• The Museum of Innocence
• Lark and Termite
• Brooklyn*
• Love Begins in Winter*
• Generosity
• Gourmet Rhaphsody
• Prelude
• The opera reference book
  

*read so far

I'm missing a few more but this is what I can think off the top of my head.  This happens to me in the fall -- all the good books come out and I go a little nuts.

When I was insane, jobless, newly single and newly un-mothered, I started volunteering at a bookstore downtown to keep myself occupied. It was a bit of a pain in the ass, customer service is not my forte.  But now I realize that I love the time I spend at the store. I've found my niche -- I don't have to talk to anyone, the people who work there seem amused that I say very little but work faster than any volunteer needs to. I listen to old opera records in the sub-basement while I clean the old books. Sometimes some of the clients are there and we listen to the old music together. We don't talk to each other. The four hours go by quicker than I'd like and I'm always sorry I have to leave.

Beginning of this year when I was pregnant and A was in Upstate New York shooting a movie, I holed up in his apartment surrounded by his books.  I imagined myself reading to my baby or a child at a later age reading next to me. Then I would freak out and smoke to banish the image.

Then after the abortion, I would sit around and cry and stare at my books, wishing I could find any one of them compelling enough to read and lose myself in.  But those first few months were rough.  I did everything half asleep.  I read a lot of books and remember none of them.

It occurs to me that I expect my books to give me comfort.  Or maybe it's not books so much as words.  When I was 14, I wrote endless letters and I read shitty romance novels borrowed from the Los Angeles Public Library.  All those words made me less miserable. And when I was happy, the words keep me from being too happy.

Good deal for a few bucks.

This and That

A few weeks ago, lying on an examination table at the hospital, an oncologist brought in to read her lab results told CC that she was "not terminal."  Magic words to anyone in her position, as you can well imagine.  CC said she'd just been examined and was naked.  When the doctor told her this news, she sat up and hugged him.  The sheet covering her chest slipped off so she was hugging the stranger/doctor with her bare breasts pressed against him.  The doctor awkwardly extricated himself from her arms.  CC's mother laughed and cried.

Two days ago, she saw the doctor at the drugstore and they nodded curtly at each other.  I told her she should have said, "So doctor man, do you recognize me with my clothes on?" to break the ice.  I'm not sure if she found that amusing at all.

My friend Maya is pregnant again.  Ten weeks.  I imagine her agonizing over how to tell me and another friend of ours.  For Maya's first pregnancy, she debated on how to tell our friend June who'd had a miscarriage. And now there is me with the abortion.

Odd how I don't feel bad for myself.  I'm happy for Maya.  And for myself, I am -- I don't know.  The same.  I can't compare our lives.  June, the other friend, said she felt slightly jealous and then felt guilty about it. What will I say about Maya's new baby next week?

I put my picture up on the blog profile.  Not sure for what purpose.  Suddenly, I want someone to see my face -- this is me, the one who's been writing all this.  This is what I mean when I say that I vacillate between standing out and being lost.

This probably has a lot to do with being a writer.  Obviously there is a part of you that craves recognition.  And there is the part that is embarrassed for wanting that.  Any maybe a part that doesn't believe s/he deserves it.  And hubris -- I am not one of those fame whores!

We are all fame whores, in our way.  This is the conclusion I'm coming to.  Not in a bad way.

The last few days have been strange for me. Incredibly busy, sad in some ways, good in most ways.

I've been avoiding A.  I suppose it helps that I'm obsessing about the possibility of something actually happening with AL.  If that doesn't work out, what happens then?

So I'm not nuts but I still don't know what I'm doing.

I talked to my father this morning.  When we catch each other off-guard, I am amazed at how we get each other.  How much I absolutely love him.

My friend Lyna asked me about my dad the other night -- how could I forgive him for having the affair with my mother's sister all those years ago and how could my mother forgive him.  Why do I refuse to have any contact with my aunt but continue to be, for lack of a better description, devoted to my dad?

The only answer is that I won't trade my dad in.  I will not lose him for anyone.

I often think about my family and loyalty and realize that I am one of the most loyal people I know.  This is not a compliment, by the way.  Sometimes I think it's a wretched quality to have.  There are some people I will forgive anything.  I don't know what that says about me. That I have no self respect?  That I am a good person?  That I am stupid?

Love is crazy.  I am crazy when I love someone.  Is everyone like this?  I don't think so.  Even A -- who didn't want our baby, who didn't want to have a real life with me, who found someone else to fuck so quickly. I still love him.

Love is for suckers.

Morning Craziness

Every day, I have an hour of being crazy (sometimes more than a few hours). Did I ever mention that before? Nah, probably not.  I try too hard to be better so I tend to pretend the morning crazies don't happen.  Sometimes I even pretend it was something I dreamed up from the night before.

The morning crazies come in two forms -- helpless crying (that's abortion-related these days) and stalking (that is ex boyfriend-related, always). I don't know what I feel worse about. 

Well, since I vowed to be as honest as I could be with this blog, I will admit that it is the boyfriend who makes me feel worse.  I think less of myself for not being able to shake him, for responding to his ridiculously casual emails wherein we both pretend there is nothing left to say.  When you get down to it, the man really didn't love me all that much.  Forget about the pregnancy for a minute and I'd still say that he didn't love me much at all.  I was a pleasant diversion who had funny things to say and a compatible sex drive. So my pride is smashed to bits every time I miss him.

I went out on another blah date last night.  The man was short, shy and not into me.  And I didn't mind at all.  I had a nice time anyway.  Sometimes it's a great relief for me to talk to total strangers.  

Do other people understand their motives for bringing new people into their lives as well as I do mine? Some people have booze.  I turn to strangers. 

I want new people because it's the closest I can get to stop being myself. When I think of myself now this is what I see -- someone who willingly made a fool of herself for a man, who got rid of a baby she loved more than she can ever say because she could not bear the thought of the baby paying the price for her bad judgements. 

The thing about strangers is that if we become friends or lovers, I will go out of my way trying to get them to know me.  So first I want to be no one and then I will want to be myself again. Does that even makes sense?

Wow, if I keep posting these kinds of entries, I will never gain a wide readership. Ha.

There are a few funny things I can share about my life.  It's not been a completely shitty few months.  But whenever I sit down to post, the last thing I want to be is funny.  Go figure.

Somebody Else's Baby

Today I looked at a friend's sonogram.  She posted it on Facebook a few days ago and I, by some great feat, managed to avoid looking in great detail. I was tempted to write a comment to give her my best wishes.  She does have my best wishes, but it was too hard for me write it down.  

The baby has a face.  I would be that far along now. My baby would have a face too. It would be almost seven months. I would be huge!  Now I'm getting maudlin.

It's a good thing there a few things planned for the day. Otherwise, I don't know how I'd get through. I'm already tempted to cancel my lunch plans. But that would be unwise.

I'm keeping my lunch date.