Archive of ‘home’ category

Stranger at Home

Its strange being home. Everyone asks me how my year has been and I have no answer but a generic ‘good’ and a wide, vacant smile. They say how much I must have missed the Island, and I give give a non-committal nod of the head and change the subject. It is hard, because until they mention the fact that I have been away, I feel like no time has passed at all…because now the seasons are different and I can only tell how much time has past by the fact that I have grown, and the little stickers on the back of the car. Its as though I’ve been transported to the future, and I can look at the newspaper of next year, and view the city a year ahead of schedule. If I was on more drugs, I’d think it was magic haa.

But I don’t like it. I’m so tired of this half-life; of the mind-numbing drugs and the time gaps and the even wider gaps between my old friends. I want to scream that this is enough already! I have proved that I can handle this, I have suffered and proved time and time again that I can handle this. I have been tested; haven’t I passed? Can’t I just be fixed now and go back to the way things were without many changes? Who am I screaming to…are they listening?

Where is that old life? Where does the time go? To a vacuum? Into a vault? A vault in our minds? How cruel that my own vault is empty of the present, that the time and the life are all gone. All spent. Where does the time go?

Sidney by the Sea

Today was long, but all together very wonderful, especially as it took place in Sidney by the Sea. I’m staying with the Keais, a GNS family, who have been so wonderful and friendly (and listen to awesome music!).

I went to meet with a really good friend for coffee, and her boyfriend who is visiting from Mexico, Dobby, and Juan Lucio. They were so chill and upbeat, and it was so wonderful to see them both, and we talked (in Spanish…such a challenge!). I had so much fun, I laughed more than I had in awhile.

Tonight, I went out for dinner with the Family at ‘Fish on 5th’ which was fun! I love fish! They only have a short memory, like me! I’m very sympathetic towards fishies these days.

It feels strange to be here, like its someone elses life that I’ve walked into, where it all feels like a dream, and as though I am underwater looking up at the surface, waiting.

Home

I’m here. A year of waiting and I’m here…home. It looks the same, and smells the same, only better than I could have imagined.

This is my 80th post.

The flight went well, although it is aggravating to try and travel in a wheelchair. Its almost impossible to move, and its cramped, choked, crowded in a plane. Suffocating, if you don’t like tight spaces. It was hard to move past all those people, all those eyes, going down the isle, so many people staring, their expressions ranging from mild curiosity, to alarm or pity, which I hate. Do not pity me, I want to say, pity those who have made me this way, who have made us sicker, because there is going to be a war (civilized, of course), and we shall win. Make no mistake, we plan on being the victor.

At the airport, a few of my friends came to meet me, which was real cool, and we all had lunch together, and I finally got my WhiteSpot Salmon Burger with kuma wedges (sweet potato fries!). Very exciting.

We’ve just been settling in and organizing all of our crap and stuff. Its hard. I’m so tired. Somehow I think a part of me thought that once I was home, I would be all better, that I would be cured miraculously by the waters of the Pacific, and the fresh air and friends. I wanted to believe that so much, that I could just walk off the plane and into the waiting arms of my old life. And that I’d be whole and happy, simply because I was home. I wish life were that easy. I wish I could wish myself better. I wish a lot of things could change, but if we could just snap our fingers and make it happen, life would be so dull, listless, there would be no life without the journey, no happiness without the pain and no present without the endless past. So is the way. So is the way.

The Penultimate Post

I’m going to be home tomorrow, this time tomorrow actually. After a year of waiting, it seems almost cruel that I will have no anticipation of the moment, that I can just step of the plane and back to the world, without feeling the past year and hopes on my shoulders.

I wonder if I should feel more anxious, excited, worried. I wonder if its from the drugs, but I feel nothing at all, just an emptiness that fills me up. I want to feel anxious, and excited and worried.

The lake is beautiful. It doesn’t matter if you live in even one of those breathtaking postcards or posters, no one could deny that it is. That it is peaceful too. Its nice being here, and of COURSE being with my family, which has been too much fun! (I’m not being sarcastic, honest!!)

(Thank you so much you guys! Thank you for not only feeding me soup when I was sick at home, but for driving/pushing me across the country, and sitting through bad times, and laughing with me in the good ones and for listening to all that medical jargon and translating it later, and repeatedly for me. For hugging me and still loving me! Thank you so much for, after all that, you actually let me stay at your house, Nancy and Phil. You were just asking for trouble, you know that, don’t cha? Thank you so much for playing more games than you probably have in a while. Thanks building a whole ramp so I didn’t have to climb the stairs (which definitely would have sucked, not gonna lie) and for making me feel that much more welcomed and loved, and for all the laughs, Phil. Amy, it was just SO cool that you hung out with me, even though I was/am all sick and boring, and that you love me even still. Thanks for the coffee stops and mall ransacking, and the chilling in your valuable spare time. Love ya chickie! Thank you so much, Nancy, for looking after me for an inordinate amount of time and for all the laughs and hugs! Thank you so much for all the love, dedication and patience, and for still loving me, even when it would be hard to, Mama! I love you guys more than I could ever tell you.

I can’t wait to be home. To be able to say that I am home, and look around and be some where remotely familiar. To use those words would make me so happy, and feel a little more hopefully about tomorrow, and the next dash of tomorrows.

Almost There

I am so tired today. The kind of tired that makes you want to curl up in a small ball at the end of your bed, and blissfully float through nothing. A fog that clouds your mind. A sound that fills you and leaves no room for energy. Have you felt this sort of tired? How do you lift the mist, see clearly through the fog with no light?

I did my Spanish exam today…I’m finished the course! And very pleased to say so. Didn’t do to badly either, even for someone with half a brain… I’m proud of my self for finishing something, for having something to show for this time here…Its frustrating to have so much time, and no energy to do anything with it. I believe the term is listless…

We’re going home on the 30th. I can’t believe it. A part of my didn’t actually think I’d be coming home. Its strange, to be finally so close to what I’ve wanted for a whole year…it doesn’t seem fair that I will have no anticipation of the moment, that because I don’t remember it will be like every other day today.

I don’t trust to hope that home will be the same. I want to be able to step back into my old life, like a portal opening up from this time to the past. I want to step right through it and pick up the pieces as though no time has past.
But the catch is that so time has past for you, and no time has past for me.

It’s Been Awhile, Ain’t it.

We are having tandoori chicken tonight which may not seem like a huge, exciting bit of the day but it is way cool for me! I wish we had a clay oven though! I’m not feeling too nauseous (wow thats a lot of vowels!!) right now so pehaps I’ll eat lots, but the propect of that is slim. Ce la vie, I guess.

We did the whole ‘Puppies of Westport’ and Whole Foods thing today which is tres tres exciting! 
I can’t really think of what to tell you guys. It’s kinda crazy that it’s winter. I mean, yesterday it was summer and Tim brought me over some shoot-em-up movies and said I didn’t look yellow to him, and held my hand and all and I was looking forward to going to Fyfe’s birthday later on that night. I wake up ever morning and I’m not in the guest suite at home, there is no mark in my arm from where the put the IV in last night at the hospital, my hair is clean and I’m wearing different pajamas. I can tell by the light streaming in that is it winter, not summer. Its not hot like summer. And unless I’m very much mistaken I’ve grown and inch or two and gained ten pounds. It’s insane. It’s crazy, missing so much time. I am so easy going now. I’m sitting in ‘the living room’ in a house that isn’t mine and surrounded by stuff that has a feel like home but it isn’t. Imagine. This is fucked up man, is all I’m thinking.
I’m IV-ing right now which majorly blows. It is so cold, especially in my chest, where it goes first. It kinda burns a bit and makes it a little hard to breathe, but it could be just cause it makes me really really anxious. I feel so messed up. I could see all this being funny, a good story to tell in a few years. In many years. 
Nancy is coming tonight and I’m pretty stoked. I love her so much and she has been way wicked awesome these past months. And Phil, but I think he’s teaching. I miss him too! 
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