give it a rest...

... in short. 

It's easy to get caught up in the work of The Rebuild, after horror. Change. Healing. I want it now; I want to be over this; I don't want to be the pathetic figure any longer; I want myself back - the parts that loved people without reservation, welcomed them into my life, bore their hurts and fed their faces in my kitchen with mismatched chairs. Recovering from a stalker is like surviving a Mafia hit: the cement shoes didn't drag me to the depths, but chipping them off feels as though it's taking forever. And walking in them feels even slower.

But even when I don't feel as though I am, I'm still moving forward. It happens to all of us, even when we don't realize it. In the words of the great Dolly Parton as Truvy Jones: Time marches on, and, eventually, you realize it's marchin' across yo' face. 

(This is not that clip; I just figure that some banter between Ouiser and Clairee is appropriate in any situation. Have I mentioned that one of my many talents is that I could probably perform every part in this entire movie by myself? Yeah. Proud of that one.)

I get caught up in criticizing my reactions - the rage at injustice, the exhaustion of suppression, the bone-deep guilt of feeling wounded at peoples' terrible reactions - it's all overwhelming, and I try to fast-forward the process. Vacillate between submerging myself in it to hurry it along and completely withdrawing it, to test whether or not I can "be normal" again, with my pre-2012 self as the litmus. 

But you can't reclaim a life by beating yourself with all the ways in which your life will never be the same. 

Things change. I changed. 

Okay. 

The struggle is real, but it's not my identity. 

Because if I'd never experienced the horrible 2012 - things I talk about, things I don't, things I won't - I'd still be searching for meaning. My life would still be different than it was two years ago. Because that's what happens. Things change. You've changed. Me, too. And while it's true that surviving violent crime raises the stakes a bit, exchanging one life-consuming goal - staying alive - for another one - the quest for The Meaning Of It All - isn't healthy. Even the quest for goodness can get myopic. 

And so, the moments of goodness that don't need to be ferreted out:

Accompanied my mother to St. Pete for her birthday lunch; we drank prosecco and ate little bits of chicken marsala and lobster roll and meatball sub and caprese panini, and pignoli cookies. I am grateful for the sensory memories of basil, pine nuts, fresh mozzarella, amaretto that ground me to a history which, though fraught with its own obstacles, will always exist completely outside the events of the past two years. The irony, that this moment of immunity occurred two blocks from the house where the madness began (and, I presume, continues to occur). 

Plotting the next six weeks' worth of baking for work. Brainstorming ideas. Preparing to whittle them down from Ooooh That Would Be Gorgeous And Delicious to Let's Be Reasonable to Stop It; That Is Not Cost-Effective. I am grateful for a beautiful work environment, grateful to be part of a team of very real, very human people who provide informed input and facilitate creative freedom.  

A perfect afternoon: cool weather, rain falls, my window is open, my room smells like sky-damp trees. I lie in my bed and marvel that I am lying in a bed, beside an open window, totally without fear. I recall one year ago, the nausea of inwardly preparing myself for physical defense, should the need arise; I am grateful for peace in my life (and a home with an alarm system). 

Friends and I texting and messaging simultaneously. While I should be driving. While I should be baking. While I should be reading that novel on which I frivolously dropped $25. I am grateful for friends who know me just as I am, who don't think of me in terms of I wish she were more or less; I am grateful for bursts of companionship with people who bear no agendas. 

I am grateful for the warm presence of good men, and the unexpected, unique peace it provides. 

Acknowledging this hopeful moment: My life repaired, in part. It’s a very different life, with huge lingering questions. But right now, there is peace. Laughter. Room to breathe. Room to store the big questions, for now. Without worrying about safety, or reputation, or unearned consequence. 

Life is much, much better than it could be. 

And now: enough of this crap; where's the rest of my meatball sub. That is all. 

diving dread, and the intoxication of "why."

[reposted]

Have you ever felt dread?

I’m not talking about fear. Fear is immediate; fear kicks in when you’re faced with imminent danger. A mugger with a gun; a stranger in your house. I’m talking about dread. Dread is persistent. It gnaws at you. It consumes feelings with its irrational sense of doom. You can’t ignore it. It just won’t go away. Dread has a long game. I think dread is, in its simplest form, worrying about the outcomes of that which you can’t possibly control.

And I think that’s the thing of it.

Every home-invasion victim… every wide-eyed, fear-gripped man on the wrong end of a gun… every rape victim pressed facedown against a floor… every person who has ever felt their world shrink under the widening menace of a stalker… every mother who has watched in horror as floodwaters washed away her babies… every driver of every car which has skidded off of any number of steep embankments….

One could argue that lives lived in specific debauchery can invite specific consequences – violence as a byproduct of criminal life, illness and bankruptcy as a result of heroin addiction, that sort of thing. But no matter how they lived their lives, I can’t ever believe that a single one of those aforementioned people deserve, invite, or otherwise attract the kind of blitzkrieg decimation that seems to fall out of the sky on the criminal or the soccer moms, the students or the strung-out dealers.

Every one of those aforementioned people, in their own ways, in their own dialects – all of them uttered the same bargaining chips in the heat of the moment. Every single one of them considered themselves, in the moment, worthy of begging for the sudden, crushing weight of chaos to be lifted off of them. Every single one of them thought that their moment of trauma – that moment when your body goes numb, when it seems everything lifts and dulls except for the shrill hold of a single note, the summation of everything you know of life, balanced on the tip of a knife, the pen-pointed scrawlings of a crazy person, shoved under your windshield wiper, the sour breath in your ear, the blind craze in wide eyes – was dire enough that, in those moments, there was nothing but the blade, and the God who hears the frenzied pleas of those whose lives pivot on an edge.

Every one of those people considered themselves strong or capable enough to alter the ending. The mother who tries to swim out into the floodwaters; the mugging victim who grabs for the gun; the father sidling around dark hallways corners wielding a baseball bat at 2 am. They can change the outcome. They’re strong. They’re good people. They can abort evil. God’s on their side. God gives them strength.

Sometimes, they prove themselves right. And sometimes, their world falls into blinding change. Sometimes, they’re shot, instead. Or drowned. Or raped. Or their screams of God, help me! turn unintelligible as their car somersaults toward the bottom of the ravine.

There is nothing so special or extraordinary about any one of us that we should expect anything other than what's waiting for us on that edge. There is no strength of character, or level of determination, or amount of personal insight, that matters. And I cannot help but find God's intent in tragedy totally capricious.

God's not against you, but when your number comes up, nothing will save you.

Blasphemous words? I don't know. I never thought I'd write them. But no matter what you believe, they're true. I don't say them flippantly. I say them hesitantly, with the reverence they deserve. I'm aware of what I'm tiptoeing around. I don't like being here, either. So don't jump my case.

I just want to know: Why is the question of why such a totally different question this time around?

I used to think that dread comes unannounced. And now, I think it’s the predictable, surmountable part of an unannounced terror. Dread is the hope, somehow. Because dread is anticipation, and anticipation is the first spark of a game plan. And because hope, like dread, often comes unannounced, and innoculates our darkness with a bit of irrational optimism.

Somehow, unexpectedly, dread is a small comfort.