Stuck again



I have a distinct memory that keeps popping through my head....During December 2000, I made my Light Trip back to my old neighborhood. A Light Trip is one in which I zig zag to watch Christmas displays from where I presently live to my childhood home, a now-decrepit house in the middle of Bensonhurst. I had been given a two-week break courtesy of the shithole where I worked, and my mother had gone off to Florida to be with her closeted nightmare. (The Light Trips had begun in 1998, during a rum-induced decision to deposit a bottle of Taylor champagne on someone's doorstep near 21st Ave. The bus never came, so I ended up walking a full 5 miles.) I snaked my way up and in and over 17th Avenue park and stopped for a scene of Disney characters, animated and nodding in time to a medley of Mickey Mouse tunes. The beauty of this window was indescribable. Snow pelted me. I thought about how far away I was, and how I didn't feel like moving. I didn't want to go home, but I had no where else to go. I was rooted to the spot. How I wished for a hole in time to suck me in. I wanted to live right on that block and ring their bell and say how wonderful their window was. It was almost 11 at night. My desperation, confusion, and utter frustration is something that can't really be described. I guess I'm thinking of this because this feeling has returned. It's familiar, too.



I felt it during the winter of 1988 when I was stuck in a high school I didn't want to attend, and the man I adored didn't return the attention.



I felt it on my 17th birthday, 4 days after my father was released from South Oaks Hospital. He would be hospitalized twice more in three years, to no avail.



I felt it in 1990, when I dated that monster who took everything except my sanity. A long illness ensued.



I felt it in 1995 when I met Borgia (yes, he's related to the infamous Lucretia Borgia, who poisoned people), and once again this past year when he got married on my birthday. I crashed the wedding just to see what this lie looked like. True to his name, it was all poisonous.



This feeling is a combination of spinning-doubting-nausea-questioning-headachey fear with an extreme desire for aspirin, soup, books, bathtubs, sleep and a cat in my arms. There are more questions than answers, and I must continue to answer questions for others. They have no workable solutions to my questions. I get blank stares. Shameful that I have a mind that resists leaps of faith, or perhaps I could find some inner dialogue to quell this black muck in my head. I would truly kill for a distraction or some sense of hope.



I'm lost.