VICTORY! and 25 years: a retrospective (part 6)

It’s an historic and exciting day in the United States! Obama’s victory is a joyful occasion, and I’m equally thrilled that Prop 2 overwhelmingly passed in California. Sure, in terms of Obama’s victory, my snarky side is snarling, “What the hell took you so long, America?” Like SomeEcards said in one of their most recent cards: “We’ve now learned that a decimated economy, a clusterfucked war, and the worst-run Republican campaign in history is all it takes for America to elect a black guy.” I mean, really, why did it take so long for a black person to be nominated president? And why hasn’t a woman, Hispanic, Jew, etc, etc, gotten there yet? Ah well, I’ll focus on the positive today—and there is a lot to be positive about!

I am, however, deeply worried that white supremacist nutcases will use Obama as their target practice. I worry that people are expecting miracles and if he doesn’t deliver them right away, they’ll start saying, “See? That’s why a black person shouldn’t be president” or “I knew the Democrats were talking shit when they said they could fix things.”

Still, at my core I believe we made the right decision in nominating him, and I really believe he’s going to bring energizing change to this country. It will undoubtedly be a long haul out of the quagmire we’re stuck in, but I honestly see light finally becoming visible at the end of the tunnel.

And now back to the past...

23 February 1987

Today something extremely awful happened to me. Fluffy died. Dad took her to the vet and when I came home from school, she wasn’t there. I cried to myself all night. I can’t believe it, I mean honestly can’t believe it. I’m so lonely and sad I could die.

17 March 1999

Last night was the worst. I was in the middle of my little, private memorial service for Benny when Dad called to tell me it was all over. He had just buried Benny, under the tree in our yard, like Mom requested. At the vet’s, Benny died quickly and painlessly. He was knocked out almost immediately, and his heart stopped maybe a minute later. My dear, sweet, beloved cuddly Benny. My little blond ragamuffin. My handsome golden man. He has been in my life since I was 13 ½ , and we watched each other grow up. Dad reminisced about the day we brought Benny home, which I don’t really remember. But I have so many good memories of him…when he was a puppy and would just race through the house on hyper binges, a tan streak whirling by…when we would take him up to the hockey field at LHS and just let him run and run…when he would wrestle with the end of my sleeve, teeth latched on, growling as I whipped him aback and forth by moving my sleeve…seems so long ago. Before I left on Sunday, I frantically pawed through Mom’s box of photos, looking for a picture of Benny and me that was taken shortly after I got him. I was a little eighth grader holding him in my arms. I wanted to frame that picture, and now I can’t find it. Oh god, my sweet, adorable boy. It will be so strange to go home at Easter and not have him be there. In honor of him, I bought a wood-burning kit at Wal-Mart on Saturday and I’m going to make him a tombstone this weekend. I also threw together the funeral mix I’ve been wanting to make for ages. It was originally planned for my own funeral, but I’ve been listening to it in my car for the past two days, and I listened to it during my memorial service last night, so it honors Benny’s death as well.

Leaving on Sunday was so incredibly difficult. I managed to fight back gulping tears until Mom walked me to my car, and then I started crying. She cried too. When I was saying goodbye to him, I told him that Nanny would be waiting for him on the other side, and he wouldn’t have any trouble breathing again, and his heart would no longer hurt, and he’d be able to run and play like he was a puppy again. It broke my heart. I couldn’t even look at him or touch him one last time before I headed out the door. I had to flee, because I was afraid I’d never be able to leave him if I held him again. I have an ache in my gut when I think about this. I hope he knows how much I love him—how much I always loved him.

29 June 2001

So, as you can see, everyone has been extremely wonderful. What matters most of all to me is that people recognize that this is a big loss. A lot of folks probably think that losing a pet is no big deal and they completely undermine how gun-wrenching the situation can be. I love that so many people took the time to let me know that they truly sympathize and understand that I have a right to be hurt.

It has been horrible in so many ways. It is horrible when I think about finding his lifeless body lying in the yard, ensnared in that dreadful chain-link fence. It is horrible when I think about how lonely and scared he must have been. It is horrible when I blame myself for not nailing shut the living room window screen and not hearing him escape because I sleep like death with my fan on full-blast at the foot of my bed. It is horrible when I see Plath standing alone when I bring out the treat jar. It is horrible when the litterbox is only half-full in the morning and the food bowl is only half-empty. It is horrible when I look at the corner—now empty—where Shoah’s blanket used to be, usually with him curled on top of it. It is horrible when I look at the purple catbed where he used to lie all the time. It is horrible when I see only one face at the window as I pull into the driveway, rather than two faces. It is horrible when I ache to pet Shoah under the chin, comb him … and spank him until he drops to the ground, rolling around and purring.

Did I remember to tell him that I love him the day before he died? I know I was cooing over him as he slept on his blanket, and I remember petting him on the chin at that time, too. Just the other day he was lying in the closet and I teased him about being gay, and then reached out my arm to lightly touch his outstretched arm, and he didn’t pull his paw away. So we lay there, facing each other, hand and paw outstretched, lightly touching. Did I remember to tell him that I love him after I put him in the ground?

I feel numb and lost. I feel even more listless than usual when it comes to doing anything and thinking about anything. Sometimes I feel like there is a barb of sorrow lodged in my heart; other times it feels more like I “took a knife, edgy and dull, and cut a six-inch valley through the middle of my soul.”

I want this to be okay for both Plath and me. I want Shoah to be okay, and at peace. Oh, my sweet, beautiful, squeaky, soft, wonderful little boy!!

4 July 1988

I’m home alone now, but in a few minutes Dad is picking me up to eat at Rachel’s. I’m pissed at him and Mom. They’re enough to drive a depressed kid to suicide. They know how “sensitive” I am, and how easily I can be brought down, yet Dad goes ahead and asks me why I’m such a loner. Yes! Can you imagine? Worse yet, besides always picking on me and telling me also what a “loner” I am, Mom gives me a lecture about how rude I was Friday night for not staying in the kitchen and talking to Louise and company. She says her and Louise were discussing it on Saturday. Well, I’m so-o-o-r-r-r-y socialites, but maybe that’s how I want to live my fucking life!!! God, they get me so #!9!* MAD at them I could die.

10 June 1997

My world just keeps collapsing further and further. There is scarcely anything left to fall down upon me. I would not be exaggerating if I said that I am exhausted from the enormity of the weight of my life bearing down on me, and that I am a nervous wreck from it all. I am a tightly-packed bundle of nerves. I feel nauseous and my hands won’t stop shaking. I feel like bawling, but I can’t. I feel like a caged animal.

7 November 1993

After I got up this morning and did my morning routine, plus the dishes, I went for a long walk down the tracks, all the way to my dreaded tunnel. It’s cloudy and getting increasingly colder outside, so I bundled up and listened to Tori on my walkman. They replaced the rotting, extremely dangerous footbridge that spanned the stream alongside the tracks with a rusty, solid one. I was thankful, and sat there for a while, letting my feet dangle high over the rushing water, resting my cold face in my thick, warm gloves, and immersing myself in thought. I stood at the mouth of the tunnel with clenched fists and a furrowed brow, mesmerized by its dark deceit. It started to briefly flurry while I stood there, which I thought was an odd sort of symbolic justice. I glanced into the decrepit tunnel that is parallel to it, but I got away from it as quickly as possible, because it was even more terrifying than the original. I kept expecting a murderous bum to emerge from one of the tunnels and attack me, or a mirror image of me to appear at the opposite end of the tunnel, doing everything that I did, beckoning me to cross over to the other side, where everything is extremely right (my grades are perfect, I’m dating D., etc.) or extremely wrong, like in the beginning of Tales from the Darkside, where the scenery gets flipped to negative and everything becomes menacing, malignant.

25 February 1985

Remember when I went to the hospital to see Dr. Vanucci? Well, on March 1st I have to go again. Yucckkkk! Ma and I have to get up at 1:30 in the morning so that I fall asleep while they’re taking tests for two hours. (To see how my brain works.) Well, I WON’T fall asleep. Ma told me that I can’t go to bed early because I’ll be sleeping on the sofa bed with her, and they won’t want me to. I don’t go to school that day! Wish me luck!!!

5 October 1989

Sometimes I really do think I’m crazy. If I’m home alone, I hear movements below me, voices that don’t exist. Tonight I had an itch on my leg, so I scratched and scratched. It got all puffy and the skin got raw and peeled; I’d almost think it was diseased, ready to fall off. I can’t wait to get out of here, but I’m so frightened to. I’m going to go out there someday, conquer London, and create a vast empire of wealth for myself. Then I can come back and show them all! But first I need to learn to survive, before learning to fly.

But meanwhile…Mr. Webb liked my friendship essay! He actually said I had talent, something I had lost all faith in. I wish I could get back to the basics, to reality, to firm ground, to where things are safe…

4 May 2000

In the end, it boils down to this: I smell a depression coming. A few minutes ago I finally emailed Angela, Dave, and Mark, for the first time today, and told them I can smell those puppies coming from a mile away—I know them like the back of my hand. And it’s like when a storm is coming and the hairs on your arms might stand up and the static of expectation shivers through you. Not all menacing, encroaching storms amount to anything. Some of them are false alarms, but until the time hits, you don’t know for sure how big it will be, or how completely it will fizzle out without a trace. So right now, I see one coming…I smell it, I feel it, but I don’t know if it will amount to anything or not.

… I’ll just muddle through as always, until it gets easier or I get stronger and stop longing to disappear into a black hole that exists separately from death.

17 May 2004

Oh my god! I had a gorgeously wonderful surprise 30th birthday party thrown for me on Saturday!!!!! I haven’t had one of those since my 16th birthday! (My study abroad farewell party was supposed to be a surprise, but unfortunately, Joel let the secret slip beforehand. Bastard). I am so glad it stayed a secret. Elizabeth came really close to revealing the secret, and I’m so glad Heather stopped her!

My reflexes were so unbelievably slow yesterday! It must have been the heat and tiredness … When we walked into the restaurant, I noticed a 30 centerpiece on a table and I said, “Oh look, someone is celebrating their 30th birthday.” Then I saw Gates. I dimly thought, “Hey, there’s Gates” and for some reason it didn’t strike me as odd that Gates was sitting in a Chuck E. Cheese in Silver Spring. Then everyone yelled “Surprise!” and it was only then that I realized that I knew everybody sitting at the long table at which Gates was sitting. And yet, at the same time, I didn’t register the fact that they were there for me. Honest to god, I stared at them incomprehensively and blankly and it didn’t sink in that they were there for a surprise party for me. It must have taken me a good 5-10 seconds to realize what was happening!!! It was utterly surreal to see—for the first time—people from different areas of my life sitting all together at one table. Skevy caught the whole thing on video (via her digital camera); she said my reaction was priceless!

July 1984

Do you know what? I bought a portfolio to turn into a PRIVATE poem book. The best I ever made. And Barb thinks it’s for both of us! Yes, how I hate her! She says she’s getting a new haircut. But she won’t tell me what it’s going to be like. It’s probably gonna be a crewcut!

Why I hate Barbara slam book

person – Barbara
body – flat chested
clothes – Ugg! Out of style, way out!!!
family – grody
hair – ugly, icky, and plain
face – deranged
personality – brags, bossy, I think I’ll make a book, 101 reasons to hate Barb!

22 December 1985

Today Steve broke up with me. I’m not heartbroken or anything like that though.

22 May 1990

I hate Bob.

He says I’m a fruitloop who thinks I’m from London. He says I played with his dead…ha ha, no HEAD. I played with his head and he doesn’t know how he ever liked me. I wonder why all’s he ever does is talk constantly about people, but never to their face. I told Tami to tell him to go to hell. I wish I could dye my hair black and paint my eyes red and “dance in torn sheets in the rain.”

I wish I could go crazy and die.

1 October 1991

I wonder what it is that kills me slowly. I wonder what it is that creeps inside of me and steals my mind…

I have never felt so uncertain, so unfulfilled, so…restless before. What is missing from me? This has been going on for some time now. Is it because my position in school is so unsettled this year? I’ve always been so proud of my non-conformist ways, but now, being surrounded by scathing jocks, preppies, and cheerleaders, it has become my weakness. **I** am weak. I cannot face them anymore. This is all just too painful…this hatred of myself, this sudden doubting of my ways. Shut up Jen! I’m too scared to continue with that.

8 May 1992

In exactly one week, it will be Prom. I haven’t really thought much about it yet. I guess I’m nervous, and not real eager to go. Maybe the Grantville Holiday Inn will mysteriously explode soon. I hope.

21 June 1993

Yesterday, Gatesy, Missy, Foster, Heather, and I spent the afternoon swimming in Gatesy’s dad’s pool. It felt wonderful in the midst of this eternal, disgusting heat wave we’ve been having. Foster had a nervous breakdown when Heather kiddingly dunked her. Both Foster and Missy aren’t real water-friendly. Missy (who’s also developed an odd fear of going to bed while nobody else is awake) is terrified to go under water at all, and Foster will only go down if her nose is firmly clamped shut, because she “can’t breathe” underwater. Who can? Jeez. I love being underwater with my eyes open; it’s like a strange, distorted, intense new world. Many of my friends have such irrational fears: water, fire, sleeping, being buried alive. And what are my fears? Um, let’s see…love, sex, living, getting touched…just your typical 19-year-old fears. Yeah, right. Why do I always get things backwards?

10 February 1994

If I don’t somehow release this crushing blackness, it will kill me. Suicide hangs over me like a heavy, empty, moist grey sky. The thought of performing it consumes me.

10 January 2005

Afterwards we went secondhand shopping in Takoma Park, and since I had a Christmas gift certificate to Polly Sue’s, I spent some of it on a fabulous ’50s-style A-line tweed skirt, a bluish-silver 1960s party dress, and an atomic symbol ring. Deborah was gushing on and on to Virginia about how much she loves my sense of style. People at work are really hot for my clothing. They’ve got this idea that I’m very stylish, which seems really silly to me, because I’m like, “Did you ever see me in high school? Frump to the max.” Deborah said to Virginia, “one time she came to work in this vintage cocktail dress and silver heels and…” It made me giggle, because it sounded so ridiculous. I mean, it’s true, I did wear those things, but who in this day and age shows up to work—at a nonprofit, no less?—wearing a vintage cocktail dress and silver heels? Sometimes I wonder about myself.



song heard most recently before posting:
It’s Only Love—Heather Nova