#ebkf

I’ve seen the purity of a baby but no purity exists where I live. And in this wretched form, I’ll say maybe there is more to this world that I can give.

I tell people to love what they’re born in but I cannot follow what I say. No one looks at me as if it were a sin but that’s easy to forget some sad days.

There is only so much hope you can glean when you’re living inside your own crime scene.

The bowl crackles with the kiss of the flame glancing off the empty glass bottle by my bed and I wonder how it could be I only bought this handle 3 days ago

Next to a face I don’t recognize, in my bed I’ve never seen you before

There’s only one drink in the world that can fix this, the maddening boredom of being alive

We do what people in love are supposed to do but if I’m still awake when we or you are done I’ll take that blackout cab home. At least that way I’m not worried about forgetting your name since that memory never formed in my brain.

It’s all just a blur of drinks and bodies, ashes, never formed memories, just cigarettes illuminating silhouettes of this shadow life I forget I’m living.

A terse, quiet “I know” escapes my lips when people say what I did but at the end of the day we’re all aware that I never had a clue.

In that moment I give you something no one ever has, no one ever will, because in that moment I’ve got a use so you can use me til you’ve got your fill.

“Cash only” has no way of stopping me when I’ve already go all that money on me for any nearby euphoria I may need.

A girl will turn to rage when there’s a monster inside of her. Demons don’t just exist on the inside, you know. If I can’t remember the pain then maybe it doesn’t exist after all.

If I’m transient, if I never stay fixed in one place or stay fixed to one person then maybe I won’t exist after all either.

If tonight I fall asleep forever then that’s okay. I never want tomorrow to come anyway.

In May 2013, my 58-year-old mother walked into my room with an ashen look on her face. When I asked her how her doctor’s appointment went, she told me the diagnosis she had just been given, delivered through a stranger’s sobs: “I have Alzheimer’s.” We didn’t realize it at the time, but in that moment our lives were irrevocably changed.

Alzheimer’s is so commonplace in our society that no further explanation is needed to show the devastation of the disease. I look at my mother and know the woman who raised me does not exist anymore; someone else wears her face. She taught me compassion, patience, wisdom. Her life-long feminism sparked my passion for social justice and human rights. I look into her face, a mirror image of mine, and all I see is a shadow.

I have spent the past three years becoming intimately acquainted with human mortality, watching my best friend robbed of her right to die with dignity. I’ve been rapidly cycling through an infinite loop the first four stages of grief, unable to reach acceptance because every day she loses a little bit more and I have something new to mourn. My days were full of desperate hopelessness knowing that, in a few decades, my fate could follow hers. I have also spent the past three years learning about human nature, specifically our capacities for compassion, love, and sacrifice. I have always valued those ideas and have tried to practice them, but it wasn’t until recently that I truly began to understand and embody them.

I left college to care for my mother, in effect putting my life on hold. No one will deny this is the worst thing that will ever happen to me, and I spent the last three years focusing on the utter unfairness of it all. I have needed those years to recover from the devastation delivered that gentle spring day, but during that time the most important thing I have realized is that this will not destroy me. I am resilient, and without even realizing it my mom taught me that. Through caring for her over the past three years, I’ve learned how to fully love and dedicate yourself to someone without losing yourself.

I thought leaving school to devote myself to her was the right choice, and at the time it was. It was not necessarily what she needed, but it was what I needed. Now I realize, to honor the mom I’ve lost, I have to devote myself to my care, my happiness. I learned how to care, both for myself and others, through the love and dedication she always provided me. To care for her, I have to care for myself, take charge of my life and demand my right to normalcy and happiness. In this way, we will both get closure on the sacrifices we have made for one another.  

In the past year I have grown the fuck up, which is something I used to angrily tell myself I needed to do. I needed to get my life together and stop dicking around. I couldn’t allow myself to have fun or cut loose or do something for myself, because I was just being a selfish, self-destructive party girl. I’m every parents’ worst nightmare: a lesbian bipolar college dropout who works in a grocery store with no prospects and no ambition. In the past few months I’ve really come to recognize that that wasn’t necessarily an accurate description of myself and my situation. I was traumatized by my mother’s diagnosis and watching her disappear and break down before my eyes reduced my life to merely a shadow. I was a shadow, deeply entrenched in a rut I could never escape. I had no one who cared to help me deal with the intense grief I endured, am still enduring, so I turned to drugs and alcohol in order to numb the pain when I felt too much, or to allow myself to feel when I simply couldn’t. The night tremors, waking up in cold sweats, being unable to sleep, having panic attacks that made me immobile until I drank....No one saw anything wrong with that. No one knew the problem with my saying “This is what feels normal” when I could finally get drunk. 

I find myself trusting people. I find myself loving people. These people whom I love and trust have helped me turn my life around because they see I’m worth it. If that’s what they see in me, then I trust them. I trust myself. I’m in tears because I realize, for the first time in my life, I know I’m worthy of love. I know I’m worthy of my love, and for the first time ever I love myself. That, more than anything, is what makes me feel loved.

One day, this ecstatic young couple in love was out and about in Washington, DC, and browsed through a furniture store. To me, the table is nondescript, because I’ve seen it all my life and it is over 30 years old. To my mom, though, that day in the very early ‘80s, she saw something magnificent in that dark marbled wood, in the additional table leafs, in the soft oval of the table. She was so taken by it that she turned to my dad and said that one day she would have that table in her house.

And then, out of the blue, he showed up to her house with it.

“No, I think I bought that table for myself shortly before we got married and she just really liked it,” my dad corrected me when I told the above story.

Two days ago, my mom turned to me and asked a genuine inquiry: “What do I have?”

I was not surprised by the question, since just hours earlier my dad had said that reminding her of her neurodegenerative diseases was becoming a daily occurrence (she has Alzheimer’s that presents primarily through aphasia, which in its own right is a separate disease. Aphasia only atrophies the parts of the brain that control language, and she has difficulty comprehending both language input and output. My dad has started telling her she simply has aphasia now). This was, however, the first time she asked me that question.

“You have Alzheimer’s,” I said. 

“Oh.” She was confused, quiet, contemplative. “Well, everyone’s a little bit that.” She said it to herself, not me, not even aware she had vocalized her thoughts. Then she asked, “How do you know?”

“You told me, Mom.” The words tumbled out of me in shock; panic was rising as every fiber of my being screamed at me to run, to escape. All of a sudden I was launched into flight-or-fight mode: I had to fucking leave or I would scream and cry.

“No! No one told me that.” It didn’t come out like that, although that is what she meant. What she said was more along the lines of “no no tell me that.” It was gibberish what she said. Pure gibberish. She was so genuinely surprised, too. She has no idea she has Alzheimer’s. The disease has already taken that from her.

Imagine having to look your mother - your best friend, the person who gave you life, the person who raised you, the person who gave your life fucking purpose - imagine having to look her in the eyes and remind her of what she had told you just two years ago: You have Alzheimer’s, Mom. You are dying and disappearing before our very eyes. You’ve said it before: “I am not me.” “This is killing me.” It’s because of the Alzheimer’s. It’s taking you away from us, and it’s taking you away from you.

You’re drowning, and no matter how hard you cling on, no matter how tightly we hold you, the current will consume you.

It's strange, but, after all this time, I've finally found myself not giving a shit about you, about literally anything about you - just how you always felt about me.