The past which never is long forgotten.. (Part 2)

I said goodbye to the cats and went out to the car, thinking after I locked the door never to see the place again. I had one thing to take care of back at work, and driving the 30 miles there, I worried of broken glass, whether the cars would be hurt or not. After taking care of my errand at work, I drove to a payphone and called T, telling him he needed to go to the house and clean up the glass. He didn’t understand at first what I was talking about, but I said ‘Goodbye’ and then he knew what I meant. He tried to talk me into calling the doctor, but I refused, and I told him I was going where he would not think to look for me and that I was driving out of the North Bay area. I found out later that he called the police after he got to the house and found the mess, and told them to look for me driving erratically in the vicinity of our home. He didn’t even believe me when I said I was driving out of that area.

Hanging up I got into the car and drove across the bridge, towards where it all began for he and I, some 80 miles away. Once I arrived there, I tried to find a vacancy in a motel room, but there was a convention in town and there were no places open. That left driving back the way I came, some 20 miles away, there was a motel off the freeway and I went in there, checking myself under a nickname I loathe and my maiden name, thinking it would afford me some privacy.

Getting into the room, I opened the bottle of wine and called my best friend M. We spoke for 3 hours while I finished the wine and started eating pills. I think I took about 70 of the Tylenol PM after I had consumed a few dozen other pills, muscle relaxors, steroids, anti depressants, pain pills, as M pleaded with me time and again to tell her where I was.

Of course, stubbornly, I refused, and began to write my suicide notes. Writing one to my parents, I then began another, to explain to whoever found me why I did what I did. I had his poems that I found while rummaging in the house before leaving, reading them to her, so I could leave them. As I wrote in the referred to entry, it wasn’t until she said, ‘Do not let them be the ones who find you, I need to be there, not some strangers.’ And that is when I told her finally, where I was. She had walked up and down the street with a sign, asking people to call 911, she knew if I heard that she was trying to contact someone, I would hang up, so she relied on others’ to be quiet. They tried to trace the call, though it ended up 30 miles from where I was, and when they pounded on the door, I was quite calm. I knew I was done fighting.

I opened the door, showed them what I took, showed them the notes. They swarmed the room like some kind of terrorist were there, and I found I needed to use the privy. They refused, citing a 5150, and I offered that the door stay open, that one of them watch, I just feared making a mess because I knew it would be a long time before I could do this.

Finally one of them was kind enough to override the others, letting me go and have privacy, though the door was left open. The next few hours were a blur, I never once felt sleepy, in fact, I didn’t sleep for 3 days. Having my stomach pumped was not an experience I recommend, nor was living in a mental ward for over a week. Though it taught me quite a bit of reality, what others go through, it still will always remain an image I do not wish to go through again.

T was, predictably, very upset with me. He became the victim at this, needing even more time with her to get over his anger with me. When I returned to work I was moved across the hall, and the rest of my life from that point is HERE.

So where am I now? Would I try this again? No, I never would. I know what it would do to my mother, who has already lost so much. I know that it is not a release; it leads to more torment, not peace. Am I proud for having done this? Of course not, I am ashamed that I did.

So what is it that allows me to be strong? For I am told that I am. I do not think of myself as strong, nor do I think of myself as wise as a friend of mine said today. I see myself as pitifully weak. I see that I am 41, without a real life, without stability, without people near. I am afraid of others, of getting close, because closeness means risk and risk means pain.

Sometimes when younger, it is easy to think, ‘Oh, by the time I’m 40, I’ll be married, settled down, think of retiring.’ Yet here I am, and what do I have? I have two cats, no children, and I hide myself away to not risk meeting others who could cause me pain. I do not trust easily, and to be perfectly blunt, I do not think I am the type of woman that a man would really want to deal with. Of anyone who has read me for any length of time, they’ve witnessed my ups and downs, and more often it is downs. I have a hard enough time living in my own skin, than to make someone else do the same.

Time is fleeting, and yet still there is such a strong part of me that wishes so much that my life were not over. Yet those options I had when young are gone now. By choice. For I threw away 8.5 years for a man who was empty inside, and by that choice, I threw away my chance at a life of fulfillment, of children, of growing old with another.

What would I say to her now? I would say to learn from what has happened, realize your strengths and weaknesses in how you deal with this situation you’re in. For the next time you meet a man, it will be touched by what happens now. It is your choice if you will let it ruin a future relationship or not, or if you will open your heart to the possibilities, and not cause another to have to try to make up for the lack in the one who broke your heart.

That is what most people do, I know, because it is exactly that which I did to others. I wanted them to make up for my past, and no one can. No one has the responsibility or obligation to, anymore than you are for him or her. If they try to, on their own desire to, that is something entirely different. But one cannot look to finding one who can make everything better with a kiss.

I wish it were so easy, as mothers kissing boo-boos. For perhaps I could have spared others these rantings, perhaps I could have spared myself an ocean of tears. Perhaps I would not be so fearful that I hide away. Perhaps I would be a woman that a man would want in his life.

Yet I am merely myself, flawed and imperfect, I am just Luriena.