Some shaky moments on Friday afternoon had Amy worried until I re-enacted, then immediately criticized Sylvia Plath's life choices only to scream sarcastic revelations from our balcony for anyone in our courtyard caring to hear.
"Do you know when I knew you were actually okay?" she finally said on Saturday afternoon.
"No."
"It was when you stuck your head in the stove."
Amy has just finished The Bell Jar which has given way to endless discussions and pondering of a woman, who from her writing, we really both like and are obsessively intrigued and saddened by. I suppose it is not funny and it should not be fun to joke about such things, but in those moments, dark humor always seems to help.
I suppose heading to the end of the year party right after a breakdown was somewhat interesting considering the dynamics of leaving ASM are very complicated. But there are 21 other colleagues who are in the exact same position, so after giving Sandee Utter advice to all that I encountered, "It just isn't right to miss a school party!" Complicated or not, most of us chose to attend.
I can't help but like full circles and standing there on the Grand Visconti's lawn, I couldn't help but gaze at the new people here, with a year or two under their belts, people who, though I didn't believe it, now feel like family standing next to the other people leaving, with a year or two, three, eight under theirs who also feel like family. I missed Annie. The fluid transition of coming and going, the letting in, the letting go. And even though I was joking with Luke to just take a swim in the fountain with me, I was feeling rather heavy hearted.
The fact is I don't really let go. I always miss. "I am a history teacher!" I long to scream, even if I can only claim such a title for a couple more days.
Justin was wrong when he said I am just filling a void from another love with him.
"Ha!" I long to laugh that cynical dark laugh, "As if that is possible! My head would really be in the stove if I tried that one (Though, I am a little more Virginia Woolf)" - I know J, you do not find any of this funny.
The thing is I don't fill the voids with new people. I refuse. Instead, somewhat like a cutter, or maybe just a Counting Crows fan, I quite honestly like to feel the pain. And even after the pain stops, I love the scars, the caverns, the voids, believing they are beautifully deep. Telling my aunt I didn't want lavender even though she insisted it would make my four inch scar from melanoma disappear.
"I want it there forever."
Am I wrong to believe that love is infinite and the caverns and voids that hurt so much when being formed can truly carve me into the person I want to be? I believe that more than I believe in anything. I will not be afraid to love desperately and deeply, even if that means that sometimes I feel things too strongly.
I know I will miss certain people forever. I know I will never look at the sea and not have a smile thinking he would be happy there. I miss him and so many others everyday but that does not mean I can't continue to love. Because I do, intensely and honestly.
When I tell people I love them, do you know what they say?
They say, "I know."
The fact is, I am not Virginia Woolf or Sylvia Plath even though I have a respect and empathy for them, for I desperately wanted to walk into that swamp three years ago and breathe in until all the pain stopped, but the fact is I didn't. Maybe it was because I happened to be with Heather when I got the email and she wouldn't let me go as I listened to her utter prayers to make me okay, maybe because my parents watched me like a hawk for months and yelled at me when I didn't eat my vegetables or maybe a hundred other things, that I had nephews who forced me to write, "Cooper or Spencer loves Aunt Rebecca." as many times as it took until my face softened and I actually heard them, or Kyle who had a white avalanche trunk and took me to every movie produced including the chick flicks he hated, my sister who was feeling the same things or an uncle whose poems and dinners made me realize there were at least two men on the planet that could truly see my soul. I could go on, but I survived, survived long enough to get to Italy.
I arrived in Italy bright eyed, smiling with high heels and cute dresses. Inside, I was sad and desperate, reeling. Somehow banking on the fact that this is where I would figure out how to "do better than survive".
So there I stood on Friday night, three years having passed, examining my gamble. My heart heavy again with voids, caverns, scars in the making... the ones I love, some of them, there standing in front of me, others so far away...my eyes slowly letting the tears come as the alcohol finally won its battle and I motioned to Amy that I was going home.
But
What I realized is
The scars will be
so worth it
in the end
Because
it was in Italy
that I learned how to live.
"Do you know when I knew you were actually okay?" she finally said on Saturday afternoon.
"No."
"It was when you stuck your head in the stove."
Amy has just finished The Bell Jar which has given way to endless discussions and pondering of a woman, who from her writing, we really both like and are obsessively intrigued and saddened by. I suppose it is not funny and it should not be fun to joke about such things, but in those moments, dark humor always seems to help.
I suppose heading to the end of the year party right after a breakdown was somewhat interesting considering the dynamics of leaving ASM are very complicated. But there are 21 other colleagues who are in the exact same position, so after giving Sandee Utter advice to all that I encountered, "It just isn't right to miss a school party!" Complicated or not, most of us chose to attend.
I can't help but like full circles and standing there on the Grand Visconti's lawn, I couldn't help but gaze at the new people here, with a year or two under their belts, people who, though I didn't believe it, now feel like family standing next to the other people leaving, with a year or two, three, eight under theirs who also feel like family. I missed Annie. The fluid transition of coming and going, the letting in, the letting go. And even though I was joking with Luke to just take a swim in the fountain with me, I was feeling rather heavy hearted.
The fact is I don't really let go. I always miss. "I am a history teacher!" I long to scream, even if I can only claim such a title for a couple more days.
Justin was wrong when he said I am just filling a void from another love with him.
"Ha!" I long to laugh that cynical dark laugh, "As if that is possible! My head would really be in the stove if I tried that one (Though, I am a little more Virginia Woolf)" - I know J, you do not find any of this funny.
The thing is I don't fill the voids with new people. I refuse. Instead, somewhat like a cutter, or maybe just a Counting Crows fan, I quite honestly like to feel the pain. And even after the pain stops, I love the scars, the caverns, the voids, believing they are beautifully deep. Telling my aunt I didn't want lavender even though she insisted it would make my four inch scar from melanoma disappear.
"I want it there forever."
Am I wrong to believe that love is infinite and the caverns and voids that hurt so much when being formed can truly carve me into the person I want to be? I believe that more than I believe in anything. I will not be afraid to love desperately and deeply, even if that means that sometimes I feel things too strongly.
I know I will miss certain people forever. I know I will never look at the sea and not have a smile thinking he would be happy there. I miss him and so many others everyday but that does not mean I can't continue to love. Because I do, intensely and honestly.
When I tell people I love them, do you know what they say?
They say, "I know."
The fact is, I am not Virginia Woolf or Sylvia Plath even though I have a respect and empathy for them, for I desperately wanted to walk into that swamp three years ago and breathe in until all the pain stopped, but the fact is I didn't. Maybe it was because I happened to be with Heather when I got the email and she wouldn't let me go as I listened to her utter prayers to make me okay, maybe because my parents watched me like a hawk for months and yelled at me when I didn't eat my vegetables or maybe a hundred other things, that I had nephews who forced me to write, "Cooper or Spencer loves Aunt Rebecca." as many times as it took until my face softened and I actually heard them, or Kyle who had a white avalanche trunk and took me to every movie produced including the chick flicks he hated, my sister who was feeling the same things or an uncle whose poems and dinners made me realize there were at least two men on the planet that could truly see my soul. I could go on, but I survived, survived long enough to get to Italy.
I arrived in Italy bright eyed, smiling with high heels and cute dresses. Inside, I was sad and desperate, reeling. Somehow banking on the fact that this is where I would figure out how to "do better than survive".
So there I stood on Friday night, three years having passed, examining my gamble. My heart heavy again with voids, caverns, scars in the making... the ones I love, some of them, there standing in front of me, others so far away...my eyes slowly letting the tears come as the alcohol finally won its battle and I motioned to Amy that I was going home.
But
What I realized is
The scars will be
so worth it
in the end
Because
it was in Italy
that I learned how to live.
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