Dance Me to the End Of Love

The sun is shining. The whole world is brand new. I am 15 and I am in love for the first time but I don't even know it. All I know is that I have this feeling in my stomach whenever he's around. All I know is that the sound of his voice gives me goosebumps. He says my name like he invented it. And his smell. When it's raining and we're outside swim team practice waiting for our parents to pick us up I stand under his umbrella with him and being that close to him is intoxicating. He wears Brut deodorant and it wafts off of him like the most powerful aphrodesiac I have ever experienced in my young life.

He wasn't my first kiss but he may as well have been. Because after that kiss my entire life changed. I was his the moment our eyes met in the downstairs of the Steerbarn during a teen-dance. But after that kiss he owned me. I was his prisoner. I was addicted, obsessed, enslaved, in love. We became inseparable. We spent hours on the phone talking about everything and nothing. Minutae half the time but it was the first time I had someone who fullfilled every need. He was a one-stop shop. He was my best friend; I could tell him everything, be everything in front of him and be attracted to him and him to me. We were comfortable in front of each other. Before he told me he loved me, as a preview I guess, he told me that you know when you are in love with someone when you can take a shit in front of them. And we could. And we did. There were no boundaries between us.

I was one of his friends in his group of friends. He was in my group of friends. Even there, we were accepted by our respective friends the way we accepted each other, unconditionally and unapoligetically and without boundaries. We were part of each other's groups. I had separate connections with his friends that didn't include him. His friends are some of the best friends I've ever had in my life. He had similar connections with my friends. I was him and he was me. We were a team. We were interchangeable. We were Briana and Brooklyn. I couldn't ever tell where I ended and he began. We had our own language and our own routines. I'd call him and he'd say hello and I'd say hi. Then he'd say, "who's this?" And I'd always answer, "your worst nightmare." Every time I called.

There is something about first love that never gets replicated. It's like how my dad talks about his local pizza place as a kid and how it was the best pizza to this day that he's ever had. I wonder if he was subject to a blind pizza taste test with all of the reknown pizzarias submitting slices whether he'd pick the slice from growing up. I think he believes it was the best pizza because it was the first pizza and he had it when he was experiencing every other first in his life and all of the firsts are the best. It's the nostalgia factor borne of wonder.

When Brooklyn and I broke up I knew that I'd never feel that way again; I couldn't envision ever being with anyone else and being in love. When Illinois and I broke up I knew I would. It was almost like despite how despondent I was and the despair over the dire turn my life had taken after Illinois, I already knew the drill; I would eventually fall in love with some other dude and maybe it would work out and maybe it wouldn't but it was all old hat by then. Not at all like it was with Brooklyn. With Brooklyn, the first time we broke up was in November of 1995, days before Thanksgiving. It was excruciating. I was living in Boston at the time. He was living in the School of Visual Arts dorm on 23rd street. I came home for Thanksgiving. On the Friday night that I arrived we bought a bottle of Jose Cuervo and a pack of Marlboros and sat at his card table across from each other. By the end of the bottle we were going down from the 9th floor, his floor to the 6th floor for him to introduce me to Long Island Lolita, this girl he was 'supposedly' just friends with, even though they sometimes slept in the same bed. He assured me that nothing had ever happened that they were just friends and that she'd love to meet me because he talks so much about me. We get to her room. They are friendly and comfortable and I sense something I don't like. They are too friendly and too comfortable and then I notice his pajamas folded up on her bookshelf. That is all I need to see to confirm what my instincts have been telling me since the first time he mentioned her name. I walk out of the room and wait for the elevator. He follows me. We are wasted. In the elevator we run into a friend of Brooklyn's who's tripping on acid and says, "you guys look like separate people. You always looked like a unit, like one mind and now you don't." And that's how I felt, naked and cold and missing a limb. I took the elevator to the lobby and ran outside crying hysterically in the night arriving at Madison Square Park, no coat, no cigarettes, no ID, no wallet, not even a quarter to make a phone call. Just me and my pain. I squatted down and peed in the park, crying and crying.

Eventually I made my way back to his room. His roommate was there. We went to the staircase to continue our conversation. It was awful. It was sad and pathetic and painful and gut-wrenching and I truly didn't believe I could exist in this world without him by my side. That conversation in the staircase marked the first and only time I ever saw him cry. We went back to his room. He slept. I cried all night. As soon as I woke up I called my parents. My dad answered. I asked my dad to come and pick me up. He said, "don't you have the car, didn't you drive there?" "Yes," I explained, "but something bad happened and I can't drive right now." "Are you pregnant?" he asked. "No, even worse. Me and Brooklyn broke up." My dad sighed with relief and said he was on his way. That night I slept in between my parents in their bed.

I fell in love with Brooklyn the instant I locked eyes with him at that dance. It was July 13, 1990. Our first kiss was July 29, 1990. He told me he loved me the summer of 1994, the night of the OJ chase. Our relationship was turbulent but our love was strong. We were both passionate and lived life to the fullest yet acted our ages, which meant that we often said and did things that were hurtful to the other, we were reckless and didn't understand the work that must go into sustaining a relationship. We were experimental, adventurous and artistic. We couldn't stay away from each other. After our break-up that Thanksgiving, we decided to not see each other or speak for one month. As soon as we saw each other again, we were catapulted immediately back into our old routine of late-night phone calls, the play by play of our days, telling each other everything our friends had told us in private, making plans for the next day, seeing each other as often as possible. Yet it wasn't for ages that he acknowledged me as his girlfriend again. Once he did, we confessed to eachother who else we had fooled around with during the time we were 'unofficial.' We had talked and talked about the Long Island Lolita ad nauseum. I finally had come to terms with the fact that nothing happened. It had been years and his story hadn't changed and I had no proof besides my gut feeling.

In our big confessional, I told him who I hooked up with and he surprisingly didn't take it too badly. Then I asked him. His answer, "Long Island Lolita." I laughed, "No really, who? Anyone?" He said, "Yeah, Long Island Lolita." "Okay, whatever, if that's all you got, let's go to bed," I responded and we did. When we woke up in the morning, he exclaimed that, "I can't believe how well you took that." "What?" I asked. "You know, that I slept with Long Island Lolita." "WHAT?!!!!! I thought you were joking." And then ensued a very long conversation I won't bore you with where I insisted on knowing everything from time of day, how many times it happened, what precipitated it, what positions etc.

This isn't a 'trust your gut' story even though it kind of is. It's a story about young love, first love, how you don't know what you're doing but you put everything you have into it. You are able to do that because you have no clue how much you stand to lose and how searing that pain is, how only for the first 5 seconds when you wake up in the morning are you without it, until it hits all over again and you spend the whole day in a fog until you finally fall asleep and you get that precious 5 seconds of normalcy the next morning until it hits you all over again. After the pain of losing, it is near impossible to ever throw your cards all out ever again. But that's what I want. I don't want to play it safe like I have been ever since Brooklyn. I want to risk everything. But this time I want to risk everything and win.

Simple Kind Of Life

"Girl, you better watch out, you're gonna catch pneumonia," he screamed to me as I passed him outside the Family Court building on Brooklyn Bridge Boulevard. I looked back and laughed, "I just had pneumonia!" feeling strong and reckless, feeling like me. I crossed Tillary Street and ran up the incline on to the bridge passing Brooklyn's building on Adams Street and looking at it trying to remember what his apartment number was and wondering what he'd do if I turned around and went to his house instead. Of course I didn't do that, been thinking about him lately and almost called him last week when I was sad but didn't; that's a Pandora's box I am not sure that I want to open. I ran over the bridge revelling in the beauty of the Brooklyn Bridge at night in the snow. There is nothing like it. I was going to go to yoga last night but when I left work and saw that it was actually snowing (I am a weather cynic, I doubted it would snow), I knew that a warrior princess run was in my near future.

I got home, devoured one of my 'magic' brownies at the suggestion of Maguire who opined that it could make for a good run. I did a quick change and was on my way. It was a transcendant experience. Memories flooded my mind. I remembered my first winter in Brooklyn, winter of 2002-2003 which was my best winter in Brooklyn. I was living on Sackett Street with A and MO and just starting getting serious with Illinois. I was working at the liquor store and between us, we all had flexible, weird, free schedules. It snowed like crazy that winter and we had a blast going out every night or staying in and drinking wine or smoking pot. The snow made everything we did feel like an adventure. We played in the snow and rented movies. That was the winter of the famous 'honey brother' contest where we got very high and turned the honey jar upside down and made a bet as to how long it would take for the honey to follow. A. won. Because she won she decided we all had to pick a goal to complete in the next month. Hers was to sign up for acting classes. Mine was to get a real job. MO's was to stop making out with so many guys. Illlinois' was to only stay at the bar for a maximum of one hour after he got off work. We all made good on those goals.

As I approached Manhattan and turned around en route back to Brooklyn the vision of the bridge in all its majesty with snow falling and the flag waving and Brooklyn in the background made me proud of my last five years living in Brooklyn where I realized who I was, where I became who I am, where I reclaimed what I had lost and had some of the highest highs and lowest lows; I really lived, for the first time ever I really lived. Of course I have a lot of it to blame on my health. Having a chronic illness makes you feel more alive as everytime you feel 'normal,' it feels like some divine being is smiling down on you, like the sun's shining for the first time and it's shining on you. And everytime you are sick, you're so sick you think you will die. So you feel like you're really alive and it's ironic because you are closer to death than people who never feel as alive as you feel. And I love it. What a Valentine's Day treat to be running on the Brooklyn Bridge at night in the snow at the mercy of the most beautiful vista spread out before me in all it of its glory and with my amazing body full of toxins running just the same as it always did. Each stride a miracle and each stride my miracle, my body. I can hate my body all I want but when I run and do yoga I love my body simply because it still works and because I am in control when I'm running. My body is at my mercy instead of the opposite. In fact, my diseased body can do more than most healthy people's can (when I was in the hospital and had an x-ray of my lower lumbar I had to bend forward and backwards and the technician told me she'd never seen anyone bend that far). I am still a badass motherfucker running on the Brooklyn Bridge at night in the snow big smile on my face listening to crazy hip-hop reveling in how great my life is how much I have overcome how lucky I am how I have never been happier than I am right now.

No boyfriend. No real job. No health. No money. No book deal. But I am thrilled. When you lose everything, you see how much you actually do have and how precious these things are. Like when I go through my clothes and get rid of bags and bags and oddly finally have something to wear. I didn't buy anything new; I can finally see what I have is all. I ran over the bridge and back. I ran into DUMBO. I ran on Furman Street until it turned into Columbia. I took a right on Carroll Street and saw that my old apartment was painted green. I took a left onto Van Brunt Street and ran until I hit the river, Lady Liberty was proudly raising her torch off in the distance. By then, my I-Pod had run out of battery and I was singing to myself. I laughed realizing I was out of tunes (and tune) and very far from home. Then I noticed the sound my feet made in the snow and the slush slush of cars going by and I was fine. The tenor of my run changed but my run was still glorious.

The lesson in all of this reminiscing and musing last night is that I am happy. Happiness has nothing to do with a job a boyfriend or any of the above. My body works despite how fucked up it is. I am enjoying my apartment, my neighborhood, my writing, my reading, my family and my friends. I am enjoying being me. I am enjoying the control I feel over my future, just in finally knowing what I want it to look like as blurred by the snow as it still is. It snowed for me today and I spent almost two hours running in it. That's love. That's Valentine's Day. I couldn't have had a better gift.

Breathe

I almost lost my sister yesterday.

We had been fighting for two days. I saw K. Wednesday night and spent the entire time crying about how my sister doesn't trust me and I have known it for awhile and felt this painful distance with her in the past six months when I needed her the most. How can I convince her that my intentions are honorable and that my honesty isn't malicious. How does she not know that. How could she ever assume otherwise. I am bereft and alone. How did we get here?

As usual, I blame myself. What did I do? What didn't I do? It's obviously my fault. She's telling me it is. And that's my default assumption anyway. There is a reason I was never angry at Illinois. I blamed myself. K chides me for taking the 'lion's share' of the blame for everything that goes wrong in my life. Self blame is such an indelible part of my internal thought process that I rarely get mad at anyone. I was never angry at JE for leaving me when I needed her the most. I was confused and thought there had to be a good explanation, she would never do that to me. I couldn't be angry at Illinois for leaving me when I needed him the most because I should have known better; it was really my fault. And I couldn't muster anger for my sister when she said she didn't trust me. I should have been outraged. A normal person would be outraged. But I wasn't because I internalize everything, take the blame and make it my fault.

K tried to mediate. My sister was pissed at me for revealing information to her that wasn't what she wanted to hear that I was telling her for her own benefit. She perceived me as non-supportive and treacherous. Meanwhile, I had grievances too. I had never mentioned them and had spent months submerging them as deep as I could and giving her excuses in my mind for why she may have not done these things. Everyone I told about her transgressions were outraged and angry at her on my behalf but as usual, I was unable to muster up the anger and instead had these nagging feelings of neglect and betrayal and confusion that I didn't tell her about thinking that if she cared so little that she'd do these things in the first place, why would she care enough to redress them. Self-fullfilling prophecy I know. That's how I convince myself out of confronting people. Sick I know.

Anyway I was wondering why we are the way we are. She has no problem getting angry and throwing out blows and blaming. I internalize and sugar coat and never want to rock the boat. I keep everything a secret and always try to assure that everyone gets along. Meanwhile, none of my needs are met. I am usually so out of touch with them I don't even know what I am missing. She claims to feel the same way and maybe she does. But she is quick to defend herself and quick to get angry. She's also quick to place blame. I wish I had those qualities.

Why are we the way we are? And how we are has permeated us in every relationship. I don't confront anyone. I try to always be 'okay,' even when I am so not okay. I always say I can handle it even when I can't. I try not to make waves. I always take responsibility and I never ask for help. That's why I got fired from my job. I never admitted when I was in over my head. I never asked for more time. I never asked for help or clarification. I figured I'd figure it out. And they'd get so frustrated when they realized how much was on my plate and ask me how I could accept all of these assignments that I clearly would be unable to complete by their due dates. It made me look irresponsible. I see that now. But that's always been my way, saying yes when I really should be saying no. Saying I am okay when I am far from it. Saying I feel great when I feel like shit. Saying I'm sorry when the other person is clearly in the wrong.

I did a little research on something I've always been fascinated by, birth order. What I found answered some questions.

Birth order personality is established by age two for most children.
Birth order does not change once it is established.
Birth order results from coping with a life situation, not from programming by parents.
Birth order personality affects every area of life.
Birth order personality includes strengths and weaknesses
From: http://www.birthorderplus.com/birthorder/intro.htm

The oldest-born and the only-born have been reported to take more internal more internal responsibility for their actions (Falbo, 1981). Falbo theorized that oldest children had probably developed this sense of responsibility because they were more often put in charge and then only because they had no one else to blame things on. Research on aggression and exhibition found that last-borns scored highest on need exhibition while middle-borns scored highest on need aggression (Begum, Banu, Jahan, & Begum, 1981). First-borns, on the other hand, scored lowest on both exhibition and aggression. http://www.jasnh.com/a1.htm

Eager to Please: It's easy for oldest children to fall into this routine because they started out with a very strong need for Mom and Dad's approval, and eventually this spilled over to other adults such as teachers or coaches. When there's a job to be done, it's usually a first-born who jumps up and says "I'll do it!"
Likes to Avoid Trouble: When people expect a great deal from you, it can be hard to speak up or complain about something. You might not want to be seen as causing problems or less than "perfect."
If you're a first-born, these feelings may be familiar:
"Everyone depends on me." "I can't get away with anything." "I don't get to be a kid." "Why do I have to do it? Nobody else does anything around here." "How come I'm responsible for what my little brother or sister did?" http://pbskids.org/itsmylife/family/birthorder/article2.html

The first born child will receive expectations and responsibilities from his or her parents. Because of this, many firstborns are in danger of acquiring perfectionistic or people-pleasing behaviors. Middleborn children have a diverse range of personalities. The habits of many middleborns are motivated by the fact that they have never been truly in the spotlight. The first-born always seems to be achieving and pioneering ahead, while the younger sibling is secure in his or her niche as the entertainer of the family. The middle born child may develop great social skills and have an easier time growing up with an other-centered point of view. The middle child knows what he or she is doing and tends to become very intelligent in their efforts to gain attention from siblings. Middle born children are usually quite talented, and their quest for perfection against their siblings can lead them to discover new and unlooked-for qualities, musically, academically, and theoretically. It has been suggested that middleborn children are more likely to be entrepreneurs. Many middleborn children tend to have several interests, or even obsessions. This is usually because they tend to try to find themselves more often than the firstborn or the youngest of the family. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Birth_order

As sisters, we will have each other forever. But this is meaningless if we don't get along. We'd share obligations to our parents as they age. But we don't have to be friends; plenty of siblings do not realize the value they have in each other. What a waste that is. To lose out on a friendship with a sibling, someone you have a special language with, someone who knows you in a way no one else ever will, someone who has seen you in ways no one outside the home does and is bound to you by blood is special and priceless and undescribable in its beauty. Our relationship is one of the things in my life that I am most grateful for. I cannot imagine what my life would have been like without my siblings. The rift in my relationship with my sister the past six months has made me feel lonelier than I've ever felt. And it's not because I've been alone. My relationships with my friends have flourished. I've never spent more time with parents. I speak to my brother every day.

My sister was my first roommate. We had to coordinate wake up times, shower times, bed time, who had to turn the light off, make rules about borrowing each other's clothes. You learn a lot about compromise and negotiation when you share a room. And my brother, as soon as I saw him I fell insanely in love with him. My dad tells me that when I found out he was a boy I asked if they could exchange him for another sister. That changed soon as I saw him and we brought him home. I spent endless hours watching him in his playpen in our dining room. I was amazed by him. As an infant he got a very high fever and was rushed to the hospital with a mysterious illness requiring a spinal tap and a host of other tests. They never figured out what it was and it went away and he came home. I was so scared. He was my baby. He was perfect and beautiful, so perfect I couldn't stop kissing him and playing with him.

Yesterday things got so bad between my sister and I that she told me she didn't trust me. I countered with, "if you don't trust me, we have nothing." And that's true. That must always be our foundation. I suddenly foresaw a future of seeing each other on Christmas and Thanksgiving with limited contact otherwise, instead of raising our kids together which is what I had always assumed we'd do. Today we are okay. Things are back to normal. We have made a truce. Thank God I am not alone anymore. My brother is not enough to make up for the loss of my sister. Just like my sister couldn't compensate for my brother. I need both. They are me and I am them. Without them I don't exist. "[T]he sibling relationship — not your relationship with your spouse or kids or parents — is likely to be the longest relationship of your life." http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=124276 And it is the most gratifying one if you take advantage of it

My Eyes Adored You

When I expressed fear over what is wrong with me my dad responded with, "you always zig when everyone else is zagging," to explain that my blood test results will be normal. Things just take a little longer for me. Is that it? Is it that simple? Can I start to zag now? I don't zig on purpose. Everything in my life has been a big hurdle, a huge ordeal. Nothing has ever come easy. I have learned that when I stop and focus, I can do anything. Like the bar exam. I stopped, planned and focused and I nailed it. But everyday life, no way. I've never been able to stop the rush of contradictory thoughts racing through my mind as I feel like life is too short for me to ever do everything I want to do as I quit one job, break up with Brooklyn because I start to feel held back buoyed into place and I need to swim, move, transfer colleges three times. If I let myself settle comfortably into any of those places, would I not be where I am today? Would I be somewhere better? Whenever I get comfortable I feel uncomfortable. I feel stagnant.

I was always half in love with him. I say half because it was never fully realized. It never got a chance. Maybe if it had it would go away for good. Maybe it would be so good that it would never go away. Now he seems like a metaphor for my life. I just thought it would work itself out at some point. I knew it was there. So close, always around, will know him forever; he'll come around, it'll work out. But we're old now and what if he marries someone else? Then he's gone for good. And I never did enough about it. Just let him slip through my fingers. Just like I did with all of my other dreams.

I was 10, he was 9. I was 11, he was 10. I was 12, he was 11. He was my first crush. He was the younger brother of my best friend. He often tried to hang out with us. She made sure he was excluded. He and I were the same size back then. She was taller than both of us and had the power to make him go away. I didn't know I had a crush on him. I had never had one before and didn't know what it felt like. I only knew that I wanted him around and liked sleeping over at their house because there was more opportunity for contact.

We got older. My feelings evolved. Curiousity mixed with fear mixed with lust mixed with the comfort that you only get when you grow up with someone who's mother has yelled at you like you're her kid too. The nights you've slept in the same bed with his sister always talking about boys but never talking about him, never confessing. What if you had? Or what if he didn't have an older sister. Or what if you and she weren't so close, then would things have been different between you two?

I got hit by the Brooklyn thunderbolt when I was 13. But the summer that I was 16 I finally found myself with him. Brooklyn and I weren't exclusive, weren't even officially dating then and despite our feelings for each other, we were young and let our instincts rule. Our instincts told us to act our age. I don't remember the first kiss. I only know it was incredible and felt like a dream coming true. Brooklyn didn't like it. Neither did his sister. But I did. Unfortunately being 16, I never pursued him, despite how much I liked it. Peer pressure's a bitch. Also, he wasn't exactly making it easy for me. He did not pursue me either.

But he always showed up for me. He still does. I can count on him for that. To always be there when I need him the most, unasked; he just knows. He makes me feel safe in a way that only my father does. Brooklyn was enraged when I let him drive my parents car because I wouldn't let anyone else. He warned me the summer people were talking about me, I had slept with Brooklyn the night before at a party and Brooklyn had a very angry girlfriend as a result. He was concerned with my honor and told me that Brooklyn was the one spreading this rumor. I was touched. But again, I didn't do anything. This was also in the height of my feminine powers. When I think about the opportunities I had that summer I am still shocked. I get why I wouldn't want to be with the one guy who seemed to have my interests in mind. The others were actively vying for my my affections. All he did was be my friend in his subtle, understated, sincere way.

He visited me in the hospital and handed over his fleece pants when I said I was cold. When I spoke at my grandmother's funeral it was his face I was looking at. He came to her shiva. He came to my grandfather's shiva. He always shows up for me. When he wanted to be hooked up with A, I set it up. There is nothing I wouldn't do for him. And miraculously the two years they dated were two years that my feelings were completely on hold. Then there was the night a couple of memorial days ago when we ended up having sex. It was our first time. None of our other dalliances had ever yeilded actual sex. We always came dangerously close but were interrupted in some way and neither of us wanted to stand up for what we were doing enough to actually complete it. We were very drunk and he fell asleep in my bed and I didn't sleep at all. I was downstairs eating breakfast with my mom when he slunk downstairs and out of the house. I wonder what was going through his head that morning.

After Illinois and I broke up he is the one that gave me exactly what I needed and didn't know I needed. Refuge. Shelter from the storm. He picked me up and made decisions for me and took me to my sister and listened to me ramble and cry and try to figure it all out. Then he disappeared. I couldn't deny my feelings for him anymore. I realized then what I had been suppressing for so many years. He always shows up for me. I never have to ask. He knows. He sees me naked and still likes me and continues to be there. He just knows. He gets me. So I took the plunge. He came home for Christmas. I had designs on a New Year's kiss. But he left on New Year's Eve. I texted, "I wanted to kiss you on New Year's Eve." He responded, "If I was there, you would've been kissed," and I was touched and thrilled and excited and shocked. The next day he called me and confessed that he's been in love with me since he was 10 and I confessed the same thing. We figured we'd figure it out when he was back here for good. I waited. He came back. He stayed with us. That first night he slept on the couch I left my door open and kept hallucinating myself walking over to the couch into his arms. I never did it. And he never did either.

And here we remain. Only now I can't look forward to ending up with him, unless it is a second marriage or something. We are older now and he has a girlfriend and I don't even know what my story is. This story is symbolic of my whole life. Checking to make sure it's still there and then not doing anything about it. Assuming that it will always be there and available to me. Why have I been so blind? Why have I been so scared to go after what I want? Why have I been afraid to accept that I have needs? Whenever I think I am running after what I want I have these paralyzing moments where I realize how much I have already lost, how many opportunities I have already missed. And some of them were priceless. Some of them would have given me the solace and the answers that I am scared I will never find again. If only I could zig.

Shiver

I was six years old. I believe it was the summer after first grade. My mom was pregnant with my younger brother and we were at our country house in Pennsylvania. The woman from across the street knocked on our door because her daughter had lice, did we have any of that special shampoo? Turned out we did. I had just had lice. It also turned out that her daughter was my age, her son was my sister's age and her dad was a lawyer like my dad and from a similar background as my father. The families became fast friends. H and I collected slugs in the summer and named them, usually 'slimey' and 'slimey 2' etc. In the winter we made snow men and when my mom went away for work and my dad stayed in the city we'd stay with them and have jelly donuts for breakfast and dance to Hey Mickey by Toni Basil and Venus (which we thought was penis and a very dirty song) by the Bangles.

One day while playing with our slugs H asked me a questions that haunts me to this day. She asked me which parent I would pick to die if I had to pick one. I had never thought about which one I loved more. Anyway, I realized there were more practical concerns than that. My dad makes more money than my mom. Also my dad is around on a regular basis and home every night. But, my mom can cook better, she braids my hair and she cleans the house. When my dad gets me ready for school I have two uneven pigtails. He does make a valiant effort with dinner and treats us with forbidden delicacies like ice cream and entenmann's cookies when mom's away. What it came down to was that I feared my dad was the weaker person, that as much as he loved us, he loved my mom more and her death would destroy him. I pictured him in their bedroom staring at pictures of her, leaving us to our own devices - snotty nosed, dirty, eating moldy food. I knew that despite not making as much money and her traveling, that mom would be stoic and strong and it would be business as usual at our house, just without the magical --> -->je ne sais quoi that my dad's booming, jovial presence brought to our home. I loved my dad so much that as a little girl I wanted to marry him. He played with me. He engaged me. Mom was no nonsense. Dad indulged me and my ideas and my dreams and fantasies. Dad told us bedtime stories when mom was away about the great baseball players of his youth like Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth and about the time he saw Robert Kennedy Jr. speak on 14th street and about he and his twin brother dating the same girl.

Many years later I realize that my dad's softness and kindness on the outside belie his steel interior. Meanwhile, my mother's no nonsense, stiff upper lip belies her soft, loving interior. Now I think they'd have been equally able/unable to handle the death of the other and raise us kids. I shudder at the thought.

My dad has atrial fibrillation. It means he has a dangerously erratic heartbeat. He is taking three medications for it. A beta blocker, lipitor and coumadin, a form of rat poison used to thin his blood and prevent clotting. In April, he went for a catheter ablation which was supposed to abate the need for the coumadin and regularize his heartbeat. The procedure was unsuccessful and his dosage of coumadin was actually increased.

Last Friday my dad went in to electrical cardioversion where he is sedated and defibrillators are placed on his back and heart to shock his heart into regularity. That was unsuccessful as well. He has another cathater ablation scheduled for January 31which will focus on different parts of the heart than his first one did.

I am scared.

My dad's response to my reaction was, "this isn't a bad thing [that it didn't work], everytime something doesn't work, we get closer to the solution. We're not done with options yet so nothing to worry about." Either my dad's a lot stronger than I thought he was or he is protecting me from worry, albeit unsuccessfully.

I can empathize with what he's going through, if he is actually scared. Not too long ago, I was on the roller coaster hell of close calls and near misses, believing I saw a light at the end of the tunnel of my treatment only to be back in complete darkness at square one. I hope he's not feeling the despair that I felt.

Now that ages old question is coming back to haunt me as I absorb the fact that treatment isn't working for my beloved dad. As much as I wasn't ready at age 6 to lose either parent, it is scarier now. My parents are people now. I appreciate them now. I know them now. We've gone through so much together. They love me unconditionally, just because I am me. Their love is my foundation. Without it, could I stand? My dad tells this story of his grandmother's funeral and how my grandmother, his mother, was so out of her mind bereft that men had to hold her back from jumping into the grave with her mother. If I lost my dad now, I would be in that mind state.

This is yet another thing I have no control over. I feel lucky that my health crisis schooled me to drink up my moments and live in the present tense. It also taught me that mortality is not an abstract notion.

I haven't spoken about my fears to my mother, sister or brother. They'd probably "tsk, tsk" me away anyway. I hope they're right.

Bag Lady

Writing about Staten Island upon meeting him in 1999: "I am unsure as to exactly when my first impression of Staten Island was but I remember thinking first that he seemed like a cool guy. Then I realized that he was a cool guy wrapped up in a very attractive package. I didn't realize how gorgeous his brown eyes were nor did I ever get to hear his Staten Island accent or hear his voice crack until that day which was so endearing. I remember loving the sound of his laugh and I remember feeling that we were on the same wave length. I didn't know then how deep his voice can get or how he has a million different smiles. I knew that looking at him anchored me for some reason and I didn't understand why. I just knew that I had never felt it before. "

Brooklyn was the love of my life. But I gave him all of me, I gave him so much of me for so long that it was crippling to think of a world without him. He was my anchor, my soul, my rudder and we loved each other unconditionally. I didn't rely on my friends and family the way I relied on him. I didn't share myself with my friends and family the way I shared myself with him. He swept me up. I was fascinated by him from the moment I first noticed him and gradually allowed him to enter and eventually rule my world until he was the only person in it. Once we were in college, we were a team and since my friends loved him and his friends loved me, even our friendships were infiltrated by the other and we almost didn't exist to others if we weren't together. We were a team, a comedy act, a show, an instant party. But when it turned ugly, I stayed and kept quiet because it was all I had. I didn't know how to tell my friends or where to start the story. There was too much water under the bridge between Brooklyn and I that it would feel like a betrayal of him and of myself and the life I chose. Brooklyn and I shared a brain, heart and soul. So in law school when I started to wake up and realize there was more to life than our bubble that there was a whole world out there full of possibility and I had choices and didn't have to stay where I was I knew Brooklyn and I had to break up. Since we were living intertwined like siamese twins that was a horrifying, crippling concept. The fear of a life without him was unfathomable. Then entered Staten Island.

My world opened up when we met. I remember telling him at the Mary J. Blige concert he took me to for my 24th birthday that I felt like my life was in color for the first time; that it had been in black and white for so long. But what Staten Island and I had wasn't sustainable. Staten Island wasn't for me. He was very adamant about what he expected from me. And as it turned out, he didn't expect me from me. Let me give you an example, he asked me how I felt about marriage days after I started the break-up proceedings with Brooklyn. I couldn't have been more confused about life and what I wanted and I was only 23 years old. On the one hand I was free of Brooklyn and his expectations and our small world yet on the other hand I wasn't free at all. I felt so betrayed by Staten Island who I thought should have been going through what I was going through. He broke up with someone he had been with for four years to be with me and I broke up with Brooklyn to be with him. But I didn't expected us to automatically become inseparable like I had been with Brooklyn. There were so many emotions I didn't understand or know how to handle. I expected us to wade through the unknown together slowly and eventually come out on the other side holding hands. But we couldn't. He wouldn't. I was at the mercy of yet another artist who was trying to sculpt me into what he wanted and as malleable as I was, I wasn't budging. As much as I liked him I wanted to be freer than he wanted me to be. I didn't want to move so fast. He wanted to jump from one 'safe' place to another and I jumped with him against my instincts. As much as I loved him and wanted to be everything he wanted me to be; this miracle man, so perfectly different than Brooklyn, and wanted to make him happy I couldn't do it. I needed to find myself and he wasn't the answer. I needed to be alone but I didn't realize that. I liked him a lot and was scared to be honest with myself and with him. Maybe I thought that if I came clean I would lose him entirely and be alone and then have to deal with having broken up with Brooklyn all by my lonesome. And again, that was an impossible concept to perceive.

As it turned out, the hold Brooklyn had on me would last years. I wish I had my early impressions of him to insert here. (Unfortunately, I lost about 20 journals after my junior year of college and those impressions were part of that lot). I remember the first time we locked eyes. His were grey. I remember our first kiss like it was yesterday, but it wasn't; it was July 29, 1990. I remember when he first told me he loved me. He was the first time I couldn't eat. I slept with a sweatshirt he leant me until all of his smell was long gone from it. He was a force of nature. All my boys are but Brooklyn set the standard. I was still thinking about him when Illinois and I started having problems. I used to talk to Brooklyn, my best friend, in my head.

"I was pregnant with twins. I didn't even know it until I went to the emergency room and found out that I had lost one but that there was another one in there. Unfortunately, the other one didn't make it either. All I wanted to do was to call you and talk to you about it. I know they weren't your twins. I know we're not even together anymore. But I couldn't stop thinking about you the entire time I was pregnant. I hoped you would be happy for me and not too sad. I hoped it would somehow make us closer again. I wanted to tell you that I broke a promise to myself I made years ago, when we were together, about never having another abortion. Do you think having a D&C counts? I am scared that it does. I had to have the D&C because the second baby was dead inside me and the drugs they gave me to induce a miscarriage didn't work. After this experience I hate myself for having those abortions. Maybe those babies with you would have been fine.

I also broke another promise to myself. I told myself that if something happened and I lost the baby that I would break up with Illinois. I haven't. And I don't know if I will. I have to remember what was important to my pregnant self because I want to try again and if I stay with him, it will be him I am trying with. I have to learn from my life.

You would be appalled at what our life is sometimes like. Maybe you would think that you never knew me. Maybe you would think less of me. Hopefully you would understand that I gave up. I feel like my life is a big mountain and I am climbing and climbing and breathing all kinds of heavy and sweating and hungry yet no matter how hard I try I never reach the top.

You were always my best friend. Now you are just my best friend in my head and I tell you everything I wish I could tell you in real life. You know everything about me in my head. You know about my frustrations with my career, you know all of my friends and you know what I am going through with Illinois. I think you are my prototype. I don't think I compare guys to my father; I think I compare them to you. That means I end up with drinkers. Illinois' drinking makes life hard. At first it was fun. We went out every night and slept all day. He'd cook me crazy, creative meals at 5AM and then we'd go downstairs to my bedroom and have sex. The problem was that he never wanted that phase to stop. But I can't live like that all the time. I had a new job I had to get up early for then I started training for the marathon. So like you who used to ask me why I wasn't fun anymore, he has been asking me the same thing. There is more to me than late nights and lying in bed all day."

I almost did get the chance to tell Brooklyn about Illinois and I, "Illinois and I have been together for close to two years. We have lived together for close to a year and a half. Things aren't perfect but they're great. I am pregnant with his child. Tomorrow night I am meeting Brooklyn to tell him. Illinois doesn't know that I am meeting Brooklyn or telling him. That isn't even the dilemma for me. The dilemma is that it isn't Brooklyn's child and a part of me will always wish that it is our little blond haired child with chubby cheeks and green eyes and his perfect nose. Brooklyn is the love of my life. I am sure that part of that is me idealizing the past because clearly what we had didn't have staying power. But part of me wonders whether I just needed to grow up and figure my self out and I needed to do that on my own. I love how Brooklyn and I had marathon conversations and could talk about everything and nothing forever. I love how he is talented and driven. I miss how we slept together so perfectly. To this day I have never slept with anyone else like that. No matter how erratic my sleeping patterns have always been I could always fall asleep next to him. Always."

So was Staten Island rebound? Was Illinois rebound as well? I thought I was in love with both of them at the time. Two years later I know I was in love with Illinois. I was definitely in love with Illinois and despite to this day never being able to sleep with someone the way I slept with Brooklyn, Illinois unlocked the hold Brooklyn had on me for 14 years and made me free. Finally free. Only thing is, I have never been as close to another person as I was to Brooklyn. Don't know whether that is sad or whether that is smart.