October 8, 2008.
10/08/2008
That date is branded onto the inside of my skull. Sometimes it glows red and keeps me up at night.
It's not the memory of the two traumas that came at me, one from the left, and one from the right in a 1-2 punch to the temples. They were pretty awful. The call in the middle of the night, the rush to the hospital, the needing my partner more than I had ever needed anyone only to discover a heinous betrayal wrapped up in a package of lies and topped with a one-big-mind-fuck bow.
Imagine...never mind, I can't even think of an analogy that comes close.
But it's not the memories, it's what came after that haunts me.
My mind packed it's bags in the middle of the night and left me. No "Dear Jane" letter to be found in the morning -- just an empty closet, a couple of wire hangers, and one lonely cobweb with a rather menacing spider lying in wait.
I spent the next two weeks in the same spot, wearing the same clothes, and having the same recurring urge to break a window and chew the glass. That part's not a metaphor, except I think I did actually manage to change my clothes two or three time -- painfully, and I did move a few times to take care of things that were urgent. Then my hair started falling out in great big tufts. Maybe it was pissed at me for not brushing it, or maybe like my mind it just decided that my skull was uninhabitable. I just don't know why it thought the floor was better.
If I had experienced any emotion at all, I would have been terrified for my life. And I probably wouldn't have been too pleased with the prospect of being bald.
I should tell you, I didn't chew on any glass, but I did rub half of my left eyebrow clean off. It took me a year to stop that habit.
It was Lexi that saved my life then. She has no idea that she did, but the one pesky neuron I had left firing had one message, "you can't leave her".
I like the empty closet metaphor. Very powerful.
ReplyDeleteMy son keeps my brain from going as far down as I know it is capable. God sent him to save my life (don't tell him, though, he doesn't need the weight of that on his shoulders).
Yes, that weight is why Lexi doesn't know.
ReplyDeleteI think all of us with kids consider them our anchor in life. Makes you wonder how the women without kids get by???
ReplyDeleteoh! and the eyebrow thing? I did the same thing for a couple of years. Once I broke the habit it took another year or so for the hair to even begin to grow back. Not a good look!
For me, that is an irony. Kyd contributes to my undoing while Lexi helps me keep it together.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that the eyebrow thing isn't unique.