Don’t believe them, don’t get bitten twice

I think about writing things in some kind of order.  I feel like I have a million things yet to say about all the shit that happened before the car accident- the cancer, the divorce, etc., but then things come up in my head in whatever order they’d like to.  So that’s where I need to go.  First, I’m going to say that there isn’t any one specific thing that has happened that has made me think about this.  Nothing horrible happened to me today.   Nobody stabbed me in the back (that I know of) and nobody broke my heart.  I all too often will tell you that this is no longer possible, because I just don’t care.  Of course, if you know me, you know that I’m a sap, always will be.  I care a lot less.  A lot less.  But I care.  I can’t help myself.  So it is always a shock to me how much some people just don’t a give a shit about the people that have come into their lives- however brief, however tumultuous.  I don’t understand it.

I’m not explaining myself well.  Let me try again.

After my accident, as I have said, the support I received was amazing, overwhelming, something I will never ever be able to express or thank anyone enough for.  At the same time, there have been a select few over the past several months who had enough of a part of my life at one point or another that you’d think they’d at least ask how I was.  I think about that- how some people I barely knew did so much, and others did nothing.  It’s got me thinking about exactly what someone would have to do to me- what lack of decency they would have to have for me to flat out refuse any kind of help.  For me to not be bothered to ask if they were okay.  I keep coming up empty.  Maybe I won’t help someone in the same way, maybe I will be stingy with the amount of myself that I will give up, but it will be something.

I think about this and whether or not it just makes me foolish or naive, and maybe it does.  Make no mistake, I put myself less into new people these days, and I’m glad for it.  There are a very very select few that work their way under my skin just enough to make me care a little more- and it always scares me, but in a good way that makes me feel more human and alive.  Getting completely obliterated every now and then keeps me honest and (I hope) kind.  But really, I don’t know any other way.  I don’t want to be any other way.  I may be the person who will try to keep a brave face about absolutely everything as much as I can, but when you get to me, you get to me, and you’ll know it.  Everyone else- every thing else, is just decency and compassion.  I will never understand what makes a person reach that point where they just don’t have it at all.  Maybe it is some kind of irreparable damage that happened to them, some people are just born with that piece missing.  I’m glad I’m not.  Whether it stings just a little or it fucking levels me, I am so glad I will keep going back for more.

 

I always flirt with death

I’ve been wanting to come back out of nowhere and try to put into words the last 3 or so months.  I almost get there, I almost get there.  Truthfully, I don’t know where to start now, how to organize any of it.  I spent exactly 9 weeks in the hospital and rehab (back and forth a bit) and have nothing to show for myself.  I wrote one blog entry.  I didn’t read any books (just a couple of chapters of “Little Bee” and that was an idea for a post that i didn’t write) or write any letters.  I didn’t knit or do anything crafty.  Really, I’ve never been so fucking useless in my entire life.  It’s no surprise that the last couple of weeks of rehab, where I was living in a nursing home really, were pretty damned dark.  When you’re laid up for that long, people don’t come to visit as much.  And I got that, I did.  I wasn’t mad at anyone.  We all have our lives to get back to.  Truthfully, I didn’t want to see anyone any more.  I had nothing to say.  I didn’t want to admit to the miserable bastard that I had become.  I felt ashamed of it.  Like, how dare you?  You’re still alive.  You’re going to walk again.  Shit, I had dates in rehab.  I went shopping (on line).  Things could be worse.  Unlike my roommate, I had control of my bowels.  Things weren’t so fucking bad.

And here’s what I hate to admit now.  Since being home, in some ways I feel worse.  I am finally processing some of these things.  I don’t know if I will ever grasp the fact that the people who love me didn’t know if I was going to live.  I can say these words, that I was brought to the hospital by helicopter and that I was admitted in critical condition.  But I don’t know if I’ll ever get it.  When I woke up and saw the people that had rallied around me it was overwhelming.  I didn’t get it.  I had already had cancer.  I had to live with that every day and hope that things were going to be okay.  The car accident happened, I didn’t see it coming, I didn’t remember it, I just had to recover from it.  What was the big deal?  Of course, initially, I had zero understanding of what kind of recovery I had coming up.  I didn’t know that I wasn’t going to be able to go to the bathroom without supervision for at least a month and a half.  I didn’t understand that for the first 2 weeks, I would have to call a nurse every time I needed to scratch my own foot.  There are a million things you don’t even think of.  Everything and I mean EVERY THING becomes an enormous chore.  I honestly don’t know how I didn’t break a lot sooner.

I don’t know that I ever broke. I got really really close.  And being me, I couldn’t talk to anyone about it.  Not really.  It was admitting weakness, and I’m not big on it.

Now, I often feel on the edge of the break that didn’t come.  Yes, I’m admitting it, but I’m still not going to tell you if you ask me.  These things keep happening to me.  I feel like I’m constantly being tested.  Take today.  I had a PT appointment and was unable to get any of my wonderful helpers to chauffer me to the hospital, so I called a cab.  Now, first, I was aggravated.  I called them an hour before hand and they were still 15 minutes late.  The driver was an older gentleman from another country who was very apologetic and I felt sorry for him, decided immediately that I would not be angry.  We’re pulling out of my driveway, we have not left My Driveway, and another car plows into us.

It took me a minute to figure out what had happened.  The accident was minor, but the other car was coming fast- a blur in the periphery.  I sat there quietly thinking, “when will this stop?”  When is going outside going to be normal again?  Your own street becomes a bad memory and then you get locked up in hospital and rehab for 9 weeks.  In a way, despite the doctors’ and nurses’ and aides’ and PT’s and OT’s best intentions, it was the opposite of helpful.

The strange thing is, I don’t really think that.  I don’t get scared to go outside, not at all.  I get stir crazy from being inside as much as I am.  In a way it is rehab all over again- I’m lonely without the visitors but I’m too miserable to want to see anyone any way… but this isn’t accurate either.  I want to go out, but every time I do, I’m almost getting creamed by some car.  Or, as was the case in my recent trip to NY, almost getting left in a rest stop in Connecticut by the bus.  I still don’t feel like “why me?” so much as I feel like “what the fuck?”

Last week, after the Farmer’s Market, was the worst.  I was walking in the crosswalk, maybe 50 feet from where the actual accident took place, and a truck had to slam on its brakes to stop from hitting me.  This time was not the same as the first accident.  This time I saw it all.  It was slow and horrific and I was on crutches and couldn’t move.  This was the big moment where your life is supposed to flash before you.  Here’s what flashed before me: “are you fucking KIDDING me?”