bad at comforting

I held my mother as she cried today. I sat next to her on the couch and reached my arms all around, expecting her to brush me away as usual. She didn't, and in those moments her body felt so much smaller than mine. The numbness which I had been cloaking myself with against the all day attacks suddenly cracked. As it slipped away I felt a raw anger pointed at our attacker--the source of mom's tears.
I leaned in and squeezed tighter the harder she sobbed, the more she apologized for what she could've, should've, would've done to put an end to all this. For a second I let myself imagine that I was transferring my numbness, that perhaps in exchange for her pain I could loan her some of my indifference. But in this equation, it was only the misery that had been multiplied.

I've always felt unskilled when it comes to providing comfort in times of grief; I freeze, I get awkward. I either cant't say the right thing or say too much. That in turn makes me feel more guilty. But no matter what, there are few worse feelings than watching your mother fall apart and knowing there's nothing you can do to stop it.

Dis(tress)patches from the Archives

I have this habit of thinking in third person.

“As she adjusted some more books on the shelf, the framed picture caught her attention and she wondered how it could ever be that her eyes had once looked so bright and innocent.”

I don’t know when it started, but sometime during my coming up I began to describe the situations around me as they unfolded—to myself, in my own head, as a witness.

I think it developed from all the books I read. I think it developed as a necessary device for a kid who always spent more time in her head than out.

Now, I think it’s a coping mechanism, or a subconscious escapism. Either way, it somehow gives me a momentary disassociation, or perhaps a hyper-association that quickly displaces the me.

“She shut the door behind her and scampered to her bed, a sense of defeat in each step. The warm damp air of another summer night flowed through the window and she knew she would somehow have to force herself to sleep. She lay in the soft lump of her blankets distracted by thoughts of just how many crickets chirped from below…”

I write this way too. Even when I tell my stories, sharp memories that still make me feel the way they did when they happened. Sometimes I wonder if even my tendency to turn my “I”s into “she”s and “we”s is not a good enough disguise. Its like maybe I don’t know how to belong to a story in a way that doesn’t betray it. That doesn’t betray me.

“A loud, clunky bang below suddenly seized the moment, and her eyes darted up from the page. Heart banging out of her chest, the book fell to the floor as she stood up to throw herself against the door.”

Truth be told, I don’t even want to be in the stories.

(2014)

Dis[tress]patches

The uncertainty of it all is the most stressful part.

You could be in the clutches of a deep, comfortable sleep when the terrifying shrieks yank you right back. The screaming is soon accompanied by wailing and for a brief, dizzying moment you wonder if perhaps you haven't awoke at all. Perhaps you have been thrust into a nightmare; except somewhere in your consciousness you recognize this brand of chaos. You try to ignore it at first, try to shut your eyes and even put a pillow over your head. This pathetic attempt at disassociation only makes the swelling combination of foolish curiosity and illogical guilt grow larger. Soon they have taken full control of your body--you are up and reaching for the controls on the tower fan, switching off the liberating gusts of cool air and sonic relief. Now you can make out the ramble more clearly. Curse words are hurled in a  staccato, rapid-fire assault at no target in particular. You swallow back a clod of misplaced guilt, the kind that witnesses to traumatic events and survivors are left with, despite knowing they could have done nothing to alter destiny. You know better than to step into the line of fire. Besides, all desire to perform the noble sacrificial lamb role have evaporated over time and have been replaced by a collective resentment. There's nothing you can do but save yourself, you try to repeat to your distracted mind. The booming thumps of footsteps made heavy with rage get louder--it's coming for you. You throw your full weight behind the door--and your faith in its ability to keep the threat at bay...