alltheavenueslookugly

here. i’ve sent you a photo. of me. on an airplane.

proof, that i did not break my promise to you.

and this time i could not be selective about where i sit – and now

i’m pressed against a window with an older married couple in the seats next to me.

this is going to be the longest plane ride of my life. even longer than the time that i flew from seattle to baltimore after grandma died. that trip was over 800 miles farther and was coupled with layovers in strange cities – but this fucking ride is going to take forever.

i’m scared, because i have no idea what i’m coming back to.

in the last 24 hours i’ve hurt people that i care about.

i’ve scared people that i care about.

i’ve heard “i miss you,” “i’m so glad you are safe,” and “you fucking asshole.” and i don’t know which of these i actually believe. but i’m leaning hard toward the third suggestion, because of course i am.

in the last 24 hours the only thing i’ve done right is not toss myself from a bridge.

the lady next to me on the plane wants to talk. her husband is asleep next to her – wearing a sleep mask, and already snoring quietly before we take off. she’s friendly, and i don’t want to be rude, and of course she asks me, “are you from san francisco, or just visiting?”

i tell her i’m visiting. i live in houston.

and she tells me that her and her husband live in san francisco, but that they are on their way to louisiana. she says that her husband’s mother died two nights ago, and they are flying there for her funeral. as she shares this with me, she sets down the book that she’s been holding and rests her left hand on her husband’s hands that are folded on his lap. he doesn’t move, and she doesn’t even glance at him for a reaction. and i think that maybe she doesn’t even realize that she just did it.

maybe she doesn’t.

but i noticed.

and it is incredibly sweet.

and it broke my heart.

i land in houston hours later, and as much as i want to say it looks, feels, and smells different – it doesn’t. with some fleeting amusement i realize that while it feels like i’ve been gone from this city for weeks, i haven’t. i’ve not even been away for thirty-six hours, and yet, i expected everything to be different.

i think to myself that there is no way i belong here any longer. when i left here i waved goodbye to this place, this life, all the fires, and small breakfast pills and early morning cuddles with nightmare shadows. this place shouldn’t even exist to me any more, because i tried.

you’ve come to pick me up. you find me. we hug for what seems like hours, and it’s the first time in a very long time that i feel comfortable and peaceful and loved. and i realize just how much i missed you.

and i ask you to take me to a bar because i need a drink. i need lots of drinks to tell you the story that i told you then – the story that i’m now telling everybody else a year and a half later.

the next week is personal. i wrote this for you, and you know what you did. after arguably the two worst days of my life, i spent the next week in some unrecognizable calm with grocery store visits, broken garage doors, and the best/worst reality television. and you were there the entire time.

i visited my psychiatrist the day after i came back, and he told me that at least some of this problem had been caused by me going off of one of my medications cold turkey. i told him that my insurance company had decided out of the blue to not pay for it – or it had decided to fuck me over and it kept getting delayed and insurance companies do not understand that playing around with people and their medications can cause real problems. or maybe they fucking understand and they fucking just don’t care. whichever. it doesn’t matter now.

but i didn’t notice how bad it was affecting me until it was way too late – and at that point i was less than a mile from the bridge.

and i cannot blame the medication loss completely.

i can blame my brain.

i can blame chemicals and environment and me being over-sensitive and me being unable to understand that it is possible that people care. me feeling the emotion of love – maybe too much – and not knowing how to show people how much i love them.

all of this.

and you broke through it somehow. and now i’m back where i began. i’m here, and life will continue, and i will continue to have dreams about flying or falling and splashing and every single problem evaporating as my bones explode against the water.

within a couple of weeks everything around me will return to the normal that i didn’t think i could live through – or the normal that i’m afraid i cannot keep living through.

and i will keep writing about it for as long as i can – or as long as people want to hear what i am saying. but no matter what happens. whether it happens in a moment or a week or a year or etc…

and you know you saved my life.

and i’ll still never understand why.

~ by alltheavenueslookugly on 2018/02/08.

Posted in re-blogs