Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

Hi guys.

Been a while, huh? I'm sorry. Life happened, and this blog became one of the things I would think of and then flinch under the weight of my guilt. I liked doing it, and felt productive when I did so. I thought I was contributing something, maybe even helping people.

Who knows? Maybe I did. EDBBSO (wow) isn't... dead. Not really. It just became less than what I had hoped. But I'm still going to tell the truth. Not the whole truth--but nothing but.

So, um. To catch you up on things. My trip went well. I got a boyfriend out of it! That October I worked in a costume shop and became a sound tech for another, amazing play. Seriously, everything I've done and that was my favorite. Woman In Black. That is some scary stuff right there, man. And I got to make about a third of it happen. I'm still so proud of that show. Just before Halloween, my long-distance boyfriend of five months called, and we mutually broke up with each other. Then we didn't talk for almost two years.

That doesn't matter though.

Not really.

Umm, what else happened? I worked for an in-home daycare for awhile Spring 2012. That sort of gave me a wonderful opportunity--I spent just over a year working for an Indian family, which was a wonderfully enriching experience. I didn't really do much else. But my mom lost her job around the same time, so that was scary. I ended up going more than a year without my Concerta, which was even scarier. There were times when I didn't even know what I was thinking. I would be having a thought and suddenly realize I didn't know where it came from. Which was unpleasant to say the least.

I got a lot of ideas, though. For writing.

There was awhile somewhere in there that I had to live out of my sister's room, because mine was infested with ants. Considering my crippling fear of insects, that was... kind of a problem. Eventually things got better. I didn't realize my mother was steadily draining her retirement fund to pay our rent. At this point, there's pretty much nothing left of it at all. Illogically, I feel like it's my fault. I should have tried harder I shoulder have worked more. I should have gotten a day job. I should have grown the hell up, faced my demons, and spit in their faces.

I didn't.

I carry a lot of guilt over that, I guess.

I carry a lot of guilt for a lot of things.

It's stupid.

I ignore it whenever I can.

(To me, by the way, guilt feels like the prickle of gooseflesh across the backs of my shoulders, the itching sting that follows the planes of my nose down to my cheeks, and the sickening hollow-heavy feeling you sometimes get in your stomach. Yeah. That one.)

I've... been working to improve myself.

I got a watch.

I got my meds back.

I kept my job with that family.

I went to therapy.

Didn't do much else. (What a waste of time. I wonder--in seven, ten, twenty years will I look back at this time in my life and remember how awful it feels to do nothing for daysweeksmonthsyears on end? Or will I envy my younger self for having so much time?)

Pottermore came out! I joined. Got through the entire first book in one sitting. Before you ask: Hufflepuff. (I always identified with them. It wasn't a surprise.)

I was able to get 'my' kids presents. That was nice. I won't be able to do it this year.

I haven't even seen four of them in months. My fault, all my fault--I haven't contacted them since they moved away, I keep telling myself to, I keep composing the message I want to send and just... never... writing it. I've missed two birthdays. I felt awful on each of them. I should call, I would think. I should send them a message. But because I didn't on the first, I was afraid to do so on the second. They're siblings--what if the former thinks I like the latter better? I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, I don't want to interrupt their life, so I just keep to myself and hurt like hell over it.

I ignore it whenever I can.

I got a wicked cool new laptop for Xmas. It's a life saver and now I'm just putting off sending it in for repairs--which it needs, the power cord keeps slipping loose which is BAD. I really love my little computer.

The last thing I needed was a way to spend every day in my room.

I tried dieting--lost some weight. Gained it back when when my Grandmother died this last February. The eighth. Feels like that should be in caps now. The Eighth. My dad's mom, who lives... lived... In Maine. (I spoke to her while she was in the hospital. Just once. Why didn't I say anything? I couldn't think of what to say. Her last memory--if in fact she remembered my, at the end, would be of me essentially speechless. Stumbling and awkward and uncomfortable. I should have said something. Something meaningful. I thought I knew what regret was. I thought I was familiar with that bitter, coppery, bloody emotion that creeps up my throat and tries to fight its way past my tongue, my teeth, my lips. At least I saw her on my trip. At least she got to know me, the real me, the me who is a person not a child... But I was invited to stay with her a few days. I didn't, I didn't because I enjoyed my aunt't house and company more--it didn't smell bad there, like piss and disease. Not like Grammy's.)

I found out my favorite uncle has cancer eleven days later. Stage 4, incurable, no-doubts-about-it-he's-going-to-die-soon cancer. I didn't even know he was my favorite uncle. I hadn't realized it, hadn't examined my feelings or our relationship. Not until I called that ex-boyfriend of mine, whose younger brother has had cancer. Twice. He asked if we were close and I started crying at the sudden, club-like realization. My employer told me to believe in miracles and his strength. I secretly wrestled with the fact that if I saved enough money to visit Maine like I had wanted, to see my aunt to see my cousins to see my uncle to visit my dead grandmother, God, I would be too late anyway, she is dead... that I would have to give the money to my mom. Because getting to see her baby brother is more important then me getting to see my uncle. (At least I saw him on my trip. At least we had a chance to talk, for him to see how I've grown, into me, the person who is not a child. We didn't get enough time, he was going to work every day, he had the cancer while I was there I should have known, done something, changed things somehow. Damn. It was like I'd swallowed a serrated penny.)

Plans were concocted. Of visitations, of trips to Florida, or him here. Wonderful! I would get to see him before he died! (Three months, they said. Three months to five years. With treatment, and only if he took to the chemo. Then they found more, all over his body. Going towards his brain? I didn't ask. I don't like details.

I'm a writer.

I have a very vivid imagination. So I don't want to know, I don't, I don't, I don't. But I do, because this is what's taking my uncle. My uncle. It can't have him, no, he's Superman. He was my Superman. And this was his Kryptonite.)

This hurts. Writing this hurts. That was in February.

My employers told me they were moving to India. They didn't want to, but her father's health was failing and his were getting older every year, ha ha, and they felt the very strong need to be with family. I could relate, so I smiled for them. Helped them pack. Watched the kids. Cleaned their house. The normal stuff. We promised to stay in touch. They said to call them if I ever go to India. But my god, they had become such an integral part of my live. I was devastated when they left. (Their two year old wouldn't hug me. He didn't understand what was happening. Didn't know he'd never see me again. I miss him, the annoying little shit.) And I didn't hug either of them good-bye, because we'd never hugged. We were friends by that point, but we never hugged. I should have done it. I should have. I should have messaged her on facebook. I should have done it. I should have. They said I could call. I should have done it. I should have. I still should. Bitter, coppery, bloody.

I got another job at the same daycare. Under the table, below minimum wage, but still work. Still money, when my family was in such need. I should have quit there and interviewed other places. I had done it once and nearly gotten the job. I was one of two people they seriously considered. The other won out because of experience. But as my Indian friend regularly said, "How can I get experience if I do not get this job?". I suppose that's too logical though. Still, at least I tried. I tried. The job I did end up working wasn't what I had been told to expect. I did not get the hours I was told I would. More children came. One of my favorites left. I was devastated. Again.Why do I keep losing people? Our oldest dog collapsed and couldn't stand up; she was dying. Bitter.

My uncle did manage to visit. He brought my cousin, his eldest son, who is older than me by a few weeks and never lets me forget it. I spent some time with them. But I had to work. I hadn't known they were coming with any advanced warning, and besides, with that many kids at the daycare she needed somebody else to be there. Legally. (For some reason her husband didn't count?) The time I spent with them was.. minimized. Diluted, I guess. I didn't get to talk to my uncle alone. They went to the beach without me, I remember that clearly. I made me start sobbing: I got home from work to find them and my grandmother in the car, and my mom walking towards it. She said they were going to the beach, and they just left. They just left me standing there in the yard without a second's thought for how that might effect me because Mom was too distracted by her brother being there to remember her kids. Or at least me. Copper.

She didn't say goodbye to my dad either. All I could think was how hurt I was, how much I would have wanted to go with them, how I hadn't gotten so much as fifteen minutes with my dying uncle when they'd spent days and days and days together already by that point. And if they got in a car wreck or something and all died... But they didn't, and it didn't matter, and my mother apologized, and I forgave her. (That doesn't mean I've forgotten how much it hurt. I have abandonment issues, okay?) Apparently, a plan had been made for my uncle and cousin to spend time with my sister and I--together--that Friday. I worked Fridays. I didn't know my mother being emotional also meant her being stupidly cruel. Because, you know, it never had before. I took the day off.

(While they were here--or rather while they and my grandmother were visiting Seattle when they were supposed to be here visiting us--I finally got the second piercings in my ears I'd planned to get before leaving for my trip. Hurt like a mofo, but worth it. I've had a few scares with them though. Like having to be held in place by my father while I screamed and sobbed as my mother pushed the piercing earrings back through closing holes. Apparently I have a metahuman healing factor? And wow, can you tell I'm a DC girl, not Marvel? Metahuman. Not mutant. Ha. Funny, the things that occur to you. The way little things come up in the oddest of circumstances. I went with my dad, and we ran a few errands, and he held my hand because I hate quick pain. I hate stabbings, I hate splinters, I hate water running over a bloody cut when I shave).

My sister, cousin, uncle, and I went to Multnomah Falls. I got an overwhelming sense of deja vu as I'm pretty sure we went there the last time he'd visited with his younger son my sophomore year. (Bad memories, bad memories, go away, go away!) The three younger of us started to climb up. Please note that my cousin attends a military academy and has for several years, and I... have asthma, weak ankles, and am 200+ pounds. I don't look it, thankfully, but I am--which is, hahahanotfunnystoplaughing--a heavy weight for me to carry because I decided long ago I would never be... well, I would never be obese. Like my parents. (Tell me a fat joke and I'll punch you in the face, I swear to God I will.) I didn't get very far. I felt horrible, but had a nice chat with this nice old lady who visited the falls regularly since she was a little girl. I got to know the history of the area, which was nice. The next day, or maybe the day after that, my sister, cousin, and I went to Oaks Park. We had a really, really great time. Laughs, songs, jokes, exhilarations galore. They went home a few days later.

I still hadn't really gotten time with my uncle. A few vague comments, thinly veiled as jokes to disguise my pain, and his solemn responses don't count. (Tell me everybody dies as much as you want, that doesn't mean you can.)

The dog recovered. I wished to God my uncle had instead. Blood.

I worked more. A lot, really. Visited my best friend, her hubby, their amazing son. Turned twenty-one in July. Got drunk a week or so later. That was fun. I... don't really see what the fuss is about, so that's good I guess: I missed out on the alcoholism gene. (I'm afraid sometimes that my sister didn't.)

Months passed. Life resumed, with the new addition of regularly getting updates on how close my uncle was to death. He needs surgery, gets it, gets infected and nearly dies from that, falls ill, keeps going with chemo, goes back to work. He's a cop! By all rights he should have been given a desk job, I don't know what the hell they were thinking letting a terminally ill man back into the field. The school. Whatever. Whatever. Bitter.

When school started the number of the kids at the daycare went back down to manageable levels. I lost my job. I'm so done with unsatisfying everything. And I'm so done being a burden on my family and sometimes, sometimes I think about how it would be so much less painful if I just--But no.

No.

I won't. I won't. For everyone. For everything. Life is beautiful. Life is kind. Life is worthwhile, and it will get better. It will get better. It will get better. It will get better. It... it might. It might. It might get better, but I don't see how, I don't see when. Copper.

I got a boyfriend. He's... pretty wonderful. We don't live close--in fact we live pretty far from each other. And neither of us drives as of yet. We talk on facebook, but... not as often as I'd like. He has a heart condition. The last time I dated someone with a "heart condition" he was lying to me. I lost nine months of my life to that boy. And they have the same first name. And I still miss my last boyfriend. It's been two full years since we broke up, he and I, and I still miss him. We were... really in tune. Unusually in tune. Too in tune: we didn't need to talk because we knew how the other would react. We held conversations with the other in our heads, and didn't talk for weeks. I'm just having issues with being in a relationship again. Ignore me, I'm being silly. (That doesn't meant I'm not still scared, I don't want this ignored I want answers. I want to know where I stand with the first boy I ever truly imagined a life with.) Blood.

The second of my four grandmothers died. Completely out of the blue. My grandpa walked into her room in the morning and found her dead on the floor. I don't have that day marked in my calender like I do the other things. I started crying. I cried for... I don't know. Probably half an hour? I just exhausted myself. I couldn't--can't--understand why people keep dying. Why do I keep losing people? At least I saw her on my trip. We spent the evenings together watching funny, silly reality shows. When I realized I forgot my deodorant at the last place I'd stayed (my uncle's, the same uncle, the dying uncle) she gave me some unused ones she'd gotten from various hospital stays. She was totally cool with it and helped me not be so mortified. She teased me for having a new boyfriend. We talked books. She made breakfast for me every day I was there. She... we had apple pie for breakfast before I left, they said it was my birthday pie. I hugged her before I went out the door. I remember clearly how I felt when Grampy kissed her goodbye--because they had split up but were still married, still lived on the same land, I was so surprised and so happy--and that I thought, When I get home, I'm going to call her. Just on some random day. I'm going to call and chat with her, and Grampy. But this is me we're talking about here, and I didn't. I just... didn't.

I missed the convention I got to every year. I've missed plays at the theater. I've missed chances to see my friends, my boyfriend, my kids. I keep not contacting my psychiatrist. The dog is going back downhill. And again, again, that feeling.

Bitter

copper

blood.

Regret.

Cory Monteith died.

I didn't realize he'd had any effect on my life until he was gone. It wasn't much, but he still... still reached me, you know? With music, with his acting. I was sad to realize he was gone. Is gone. Why do I have such a problem with changing tenses after a person I've seen waking, talking, moving, is dead. It doesn't matter. A part of me cheers up with the thought that at least I have firsthand experience writing grief now. Another, louder parts wishes I didn't. Most of me... Well.

I ignore it whenever I can.

I learned what explosive, devastating relief feels like. Seeing people you love safe after their house catches fire. Being told that yes, we can make the rent this month after all. Coming clean to your family about that one, huge, ugly lie you've kept hidden under smiles and pain and misdirection after five years of hiding the truth... having them accept and forgive you your own, personal deadly sin. Learning that your uncle has reacted to well to the experimental chemo that his cancer is for all intents and purposes gone. My Indian employers told me to believe in miracles. I do.

I ignore a lot of things. I live in fantasy worlds of my own making or choosing, until reality slams home--in my dreams. I've never had dreams relevant to my life and worries, not really, but a month or so ago I had one that the youngest of my kids, the ones who aren't really mine and I haven't seen since spring--I had a dream, a nightmare, where he couldn't remember me. I was devastated. And I have these waking moments where I stand stock-still, frozen by the fact that I remember picking up a little blonde bundle of joy and smelling smoke in her hair. I guess I learned more about fear this year, too.

I ignore it whenever I can.

One thing I can't ignore, though: I thought I knew what regret was. This year I learned I was wrong. I mistook shame for regret.

But none of that is what I actually came here to tell you about. I came here because I need somewhere to talk about this... incredibly traumatic experience that I've gone through. It was last night, just last night and--God. It brings tear to my eyes just to remember it.

Rewind.

Basic fact about me: I don't like sleeping until I know my whole family is in the house. Shut up, yes, I know it's stupid. But my brain is wired to jump to the worst possible conclusion of any scenario I'm presented with. My sister is going to be an alcoholic. I am never going to learn to drive. I will never publish a novel. We are going to be evicted. Our dog is going to die and I will be the one to find her corpse. My relationship is going to fail.

My dad worked the closing shift last night. She should have been home around midnight. But he didn't, when he's promised--he'd promised--to call home on the nights he had to work late after closing, because I stay up when I don't know where someone is. (I have stayed up until ten in the morning waiting for my sister. Turns out she had an impromptu sleepover with a friend from work after drinking.) And I hadn't been told of any such call. So I called him. I expected to have a snippy conversation with him about how he didn't call when he should have to let me know he'd be late.

The first call happened--in my room with my Superman nightlight on, sitting on my bed, with only a few of my numerous blankets to keep me warm--probably somewhere between 3:30 and 3:45. I got his message box. Hang up. Redial.

By the fifth call--each of which was exactly 25 seconds of ringing and the first few words of his message--I was no longer angry. I was worried.

By the tenth I was frightened.

By the fourteenth or so I was calling by rote. It was automatic. I decided to keep calling until he came home, in case his phone was dead. I quickly squashed the thought Or he is. I left a message. I composed it in my head, very calm-like. I manged to almost say it right, only my voice was raspy as I tried not to cry and I mixed the order of two of the sentences.

"Daddy, this is ridiculous. It's ten to four in the morning--where are you? I've called at least a dozen times."

It was supposed to be "Where are you? It's ten to four in the morning." What a stupid mistake. Really. I couldn't do anything right. Sure he was okay--and then that vivid imagination I mentioned before? Kicked into full gear.

The problem with entertainment today is that there's too much blood, gore, and violence. There are too many movies with cars crashing and flipping and tumbling down mountainsides. To many advertisements with horrible things in the background, whether played straight or for laughs. It's too much. Much too much. You don't like gore, skip the next paragraph.

I was able to--or rather unable to stop myself from--visualize with big-screen hi-definition clarity my father driving home. A deer standing in the street. Whether he swerved and went over an edge or couldn't stop from hitting it and it slammed through the windshield and crushed his head the result was the same. A crash with a drunk driver; his car flipping and landing top-down. My dad suspended from the seat belt, blood leaking from his body in the various places where the car had contorted and crushed his limbs, and pouring where the various things he keeps in the back had struck or impaled him. His phone laying on the roof of the car, flashing at him as I called and called and called. Maybe he was conscious. Maybe he wasn't. Maybe he was in the hospital, rushed to the ER. Maybe they wouldn't find him in time. Maybe the phone was in the street, lights blinking, and he could only watch it as life drained from his torn body. Maybe my calls would be how the cops tell us he's gone. My dad, laying on the side of the road. From attack. From freak accident. From falling asleep at the wheel. From getting distracted.

(People can't understand why I don't drive. I can't understand why they do.)

Because the worst possible, frighteningly logical conclusion of someone being hours late and not picking up the phone is because they are cheating, or they are dead. And I cannot, will not believe my father would do the former. So: I was left with the latter. After so much loss, death, and fear in the last ten months, is it really a surprise I immediately believed?

Last night, I thought my father was dead.

My dad.

Dead.

My dad.

Impossible.

I was going to keep calling until he came home. I had to. Trying to get to him was the only thing I could do. I felt five years old. Terrified and alone.

The thirty-third time I called he answered. Or at least, I think so. I didn't count. Couldn't count. First thing I heard was him saying something to someone--a male voice, a coworker. He said, "... my daughter."

Then he asked what I wanted, and I started sobbing. Understandably he panicked.

My dad has years and years of experience understanding me when I cry and try to explain why I'm crying at the same time. He got angry--because he had called home. He had told my mother he would be late. And she hadn't told me, so I'd stayed up hours after I should have, with the back door unlocked for him to come in through, fighting the sleeping pill I take to counteract my insomnia every second of every minute of those hours, waiting for him to come home. So I could lecture him on needing to call home to let us(me) know he would be late and not to worry, like my sister never does, and make sure he got the dinner we set aside for him, and lecture him about needing to take care of himself, and listen to him tell me about whatever thing had kept him this time, and I would sympathize, send him off to bed, drop into my own and be out like a light in thirty seconds.

He had been cutting lumber with a buzz saw with his iPod playing. He didn't even know his phone was ringing, or vibrating, or whatever. (I imagine that coworker saw the number of missed calls just as I was calling again. He got Dad's attention too late, but then I called again and Dad answered. That's all she wrote.

But there's more to the story.

Of course there is. (Every story has three sides: yours, mine, and the truth.) He said it was okay to lock up the house. After crying for a few more minutes I did so. But I didn't change into my nightclothes, I didn't get into bed properly, and when I got back to my room the first thing I did was step onto the foot of my bed and start digging though the boxes and piles of stuff there, looking for something, anything, that my dad had given me. But really I'd already made up my mind, and I was still crying and fighting crying, and as I searched I must have really lost it because I was whispering, begging for my Ty stuffed leopard--named Nathaniel--to just be found already because I needed him.

I found him, sat on my bed, pulled my top top covers back over me, curled into a ball with my face buried between two pillows, started rocking myself, and stopped fighting that sort of truly agonizing, gut-wrenching crying you never see on TV. Where every breath is like a gasp after drowning and every sob is that deep, throaty, wet, ugly sound of pain and fear and despair and relief and exhaustion all at the same time. True to ADHD form, I was rapidly, insistently, stroking the very softest part of Nathaniel, and pulling the covers tighter and the pillows nearer as I tried to just disappear. Eventually the tears stopped.

A minute or so later I got another flash of that--of Dad, hanging upside down by his seat belt, with the phone just out of his reach and blinking while I called and he couldn't answer and there was blood everywhere, and a cop picking up the phone. The tears started again. I remembering noticing that I could actually feel the individual tears sliding across my face, over my nose and down my cheek. I usually can't. But I could last night.

Last night, when I honest-to-God went though some sort of twisted, rapid, intensely painful and frightening form of mourning for my father.

Last night, when I thought my dad was dead.

He woke me up when he got home--for which I'm grateful. I shot up and hugged him, and eventually found my way into bed properly.

This morning was... awkward. Because I was really mad at my mom, and didn't want my dad to leave my sight. And when I say morning I mean 12:10pm when I was woken by my sister. Or my mother. Or father. I don't remember. Whatever.

It doesn't matter. Not really.

It happened. "We all learned from it," I said to Mom today.

Yeah. Well. What I learned was that I had to make a goddamn iron-clad indisputable rule that if Dad calls home to say he's gonna be late, he can't hang up until he talks to me directly. Like what happened tonight, a few hours ago. We spoke for about ten seconds, it seems like. That's all I needed. Just... to make sure he knew, and she knew, that I knew he would be late. 'Cause guess what? My parents finally got it. Finally understood, through guilt, and pain, and empathy.

I don't like sleeping until I know my entire family is in the house.

Shut up.

Yes.

I know it's stupid.

I'll ignore it whenever I can.

Ja na.