My Life As A Farce

Remember I told you something was happening on my campus yesterday? A female student left one of her classes to go to the bathroom. In the bathroom was a guy — non-student — with a gun. He raped her. It was 3:30 in the afternoon. One of my classrooms is right across the hall from the bathroom. Campus, town, and county police shut down campus for two hours before concluding the suspect was no longer on campus. They found him at almost 9pm, across the street (Georgia Ave, but that’s just one block over from campus) at the Day’s Inn. He was arrested after fighting back.

Matt and I are not agreeing on this topic. Intellectually, I know the arguments: I can’t let my past dictate my life; the odds of someone assaulting again on campus in broad day light are now slim; odds of being assaulted are slim; it can happen anywhere, so am I going to be afraid to go by myself everywhere (again)? Matt initially said all the wrong things, which has made me even more defensive: oh, it was probably someone she knew (wrong), a fellow student followed her in there (wrong), it was probably in a bathroom at the far end of campus (right — except it’s right across from my classroom, which makes me feel worse).

I am freaked out. The building it happened in is relatively new (two years old) and this semester is my first time with a class in it. I was surprised at its location — it’s got Georgia Ave to the west, Burlington Ave to the north, King St to the south, and to the east is a parking lot and then the metro tracks. You don’t need an ID card to access the building (or any of the buildings on campus), so it’s very easy for anybody to just walk in there… which is clearly going on. Walking around on that campus after dark creeps me out more than walking around the city at 4am — it’s worse lit, and at times, seemingly more deserted. Apparently, it’s even dangerous to use the bathrooms in the middle of the afternoon. That’s not something their wimpy “blue light system” is going to cover. Arrugh. I’m angry and I feel really uncomfortable with the thought of being there, now.

I was in Florida to help settle up my grandparents’ estate. We barely made a dent in it; I’m going back in three weeks, having the ex’s daughter meet me there, and then we’re going to box up all the remaining photography and framing equipment and put it in storage near her house. We’re going on a road trip this summer, so when I go down to pick her up I’ll pick everything up then.

It was so, so sad being there. I really didn’t know my grandparents that well, but I had come to respect them in the past few years. Going through their stuff, sorting it for trash, donation, or to divide among the family, I came to know them better. I have an amazing amount in common with my grandmother; I hadn’t realized how much. The more I learn, the parallels become clear. It makes me feel empty, lonely, guilty, that I didn’t get to spend more time with them, get to know them better once I became an adult — once I began to understand them.

Going through the life’s detritus of people I actually know (I’ve done abandoned houses before, which is different) was bizarre. There were so many photographs of me, particularly in the first 18 months in my life, which is both when my grandmother was teaching herself to become a photographer and was when they still lived in D.C. She had awards for photos of me as a toddler, which I didn’t know. She had other photos published all over the place, including National Geographic. Finding so many pieces of my grandparents’ lives and having to decide what was important — in the attic we found Hebrew prayer books published in 1906 that had come over from Poland when my family immigrated — and what wasn’t — musty rolls of wrapping paper, boxes of empty bottles of photo chemicals, old medical records from my grandfather’s practice, etc.

When my mother’s parents died, I wasn’t invited to be apart of breaking down the household, partially because my aunts still live in the house. But this time around, I’m the oldest grandchild, and also the only one interested in “the family,” as it were. As such, I found the family mezuzah that had hung on the door on the house here 60 years ago, and I actually get to keep it. But I also shed a lot of tears. Going through your loved one’s things in this way, it isn’t something I’d wish on anyone.

Somehow, I managed to come of age thinking I fit a U.S. size nine shoe. In the past year, I’ve learned I actually fit a U.S. size eight on the left foot and size eight and half on the right foot (or is it the other way around?). That’s a literal fact as well as a metaphor.

I grew up thinking I had bigger boots to fill than I was apparently suited for. I thought I was going to stomp all over the stratosphere and leave sizable imprints behind me as evidence of my impact. Lately, I’ve found my self-importance has ranked me lower than an ant in Yellowstone National Park — not just small, unobtrusive, hard to find — but a molecule in the atmosphere, floating willy-nilly with no purpose, invisible to everyone except those who can imagine I am t/here.

Over the years, I’ve gone from dreams of megalomania to the realization that I’m melting away into the wallpaper, unnoticed, untouched, and not truly responsible for anything except my own demise.

Maybe this is growing up? When youth’s dreams of greatness melt away to the reality of mediocrity in a non-meritocracy, maybe this is what remains — defeat. Or maybe this is the other side of mental illness — having chased away the Phoenix who wanted to soar, I’m now lured by the Hob who hangs out at home, helping around the house and hoping to be invisible.

Because I feel like I could be painted into the wallpaper around you, but you still wouldn’t see me. Apparently, I’m not to be seen.

Or maybe this is actually the worsening of mental illness — having realized that big boots and awesomeness were not possible, I decided that I would be nothing, no one. I diluted what I was — and I miss what I was — in order to “get by.” Except getting by means not doing anything at all. No goals, no substance, no drive, no hobbies — everything was washed away in the quest to get rid of the impossibility of making the mania feel happy, justified, complete, or accomplished. Sack the bitch and get left with the non-producing sow.

Is it the certainty of youth that I miss, or the disease? Was the drive all due to my age, or sickness? Now that I’m older and have my diseased mind in better control, who am I? Am I anything? Do I feel anything, think any non-diseased thought? Will I ever truly be able to reconcile how I feel about what I did in my youth (at times, all of a year ago!)? Or is it just this, from here on out, this vagueness, this even-tempered grey area of the mind that rarely visits the colored world anymore? Perhaps this is why my (much older) second cousin (on my father’s side, which is the side with all the bipolar people like myself) refuses to take medication. Maybe it’s the medication that detaches you from life. Or maybe it’s growing up. Or maybe it’s the disease progressing to a downward turn. Or maybe this is just how I’m supposed to be — once a bright light, now dim and dusty.

I don’t know.

The more time goes by, the harder it is to think, to write, to provide conjecture about these things. The more I just fall into this grey place where I’m not sure I should be, but I don’t know how else or where else to go — particularly because maybe I’m supposed to be here.

One thing is for sure: I miss the stinging clarity mania pretends to provide. It might not be real, but it feels damn good at the time.

My husband let me open a Christmas present early. It turned out to be a version of this: except in fuzzy light pink fleece. Mine doesn’t have a drop bottom, but it does have booties, an attached hood, a kangaroo pouch, and “Cassbot” embroidered on the chest. It makes me look an elongated, but still roly-poly Peep. Apparently my husband is not only a feeder but also has a candy fetish.

I can’t stop laughing about this damn thing. He’s so sweet and good intentioned.

Yeah, I lost my SSI today because Matt makes about $100 too much per month for me to qualify. Which means I no longer qualify for Medicaid or any of those other things… but it’s not like Medicaid was paying for anything, anyway. Shit, we fucking GOT MARRIED because Medicaid wouldn’t pay for the surgery to fix my knee, so instead of living in sin the way we liked we got hitched and he started forking out $300 a month to pay for my health insurance.

It really feels like a Catch-22, to end up in a situation where I had to make a decision that to improve part of my health, I had to give up all my health and financial security. Matt doesn’t make enough for us to get by in this high cost-of-living area, and I’m too gimpy to find a job that’s where the income is steady enough that the wages will matter. Oh, and possibly, maybe provide health insurance — no, that’s far too much to even slightly fantasize about, much less ask for. [He pays $300 a month for my health insurance, then add our other health expenses like out-of-pocket and co-pays, and that’s another $300+ per month. $600 per month. That’s just under the U.S. average of $7500 per person per year as of July 2009, though it doesn’t include our tax or employer contributions (which changes the numbers drastically).

Along the same vein, I saw the gyno for my annual last week. I was several months late. My last annual came back fine. This one, I have a lot of abnormal activity going on, so much so that my doctor doesn’t want to wait six months to do another PAP but wants to go ahead and schedule a colposcopy. Last time I had one, in 2003, I had to have a LEEP done soon after. If I keep having to have my cervix frozen every five years, I hope I can just get the damn thing cut out. It’s not doing me a hell of a lot of good, anyway.