Hospitals blow

My mother was dreading chemo.
I had forbidden her to read online forums, because I am WAY too used to the rather depressing state of mind they can elicite in you. She read them anyway, and everyday brought a new tale of woe from anonymous 36 on the WORST CANCER STORY website.

We didn't even know what kind of treatment she was going to undertake, and I already knew more about chemo side-effects than others, since I saw both my grandparents go through with it.

My mother called me up elated on Friday. The biopsy was OK, and the doctors saw that the tumor was unresponsive to chemo, so they are going to go with an operation and then radiotherapy. My mother told me gleefully that her tumor was just like her.
"UH?"
"Well, it doesn't want to do chemo."
"OK."
"Also it likes drastic measures."
"Right."
"This tumor is just like me."

My father had a really bad spell a few days ago and had to be hospitalized in intensive care again. I'm going to see the doctors today during my lunch break, but reports differ: some people tell me he's doing oK, others seem to think he is very weak. Tracheotomy is an option. Anyway, my mother was telling me about her operation, which is in two weeks, and will require a lot of after-care. A nurse will help me at home, but it will be a lot of cooking, hand-holding etc. I have planned to have family and friends help, but still.

My mother and I chat together, thinking about how it will work out. Then she thoughtfully says:
"I do hope your father won't get worse and worse while I'm recuperating post-op. Then what will you do?"

I still miss my sister a lot. It would be so much funnier to have her around, since she is funny funny .

I may start reading forums for people who hate hospitals.

Jealous

I come from jealous stock. Some people in my family, most notably my mother, are intensely jealous. It's not an emotion I feel very often. As a child, I was jealous of the attention my sister got, like many children, I suppose. As a teenager, I felt jealous of people who had friends. Now I sometimes feel a twinge of envy when people go on awesome vacations. But it's not much to write home about.

Both of my ex-boyfriends were/still are flirtatious, attractive men who were surrounded by women a lot of the time. Some of whom were trying to go out with them. This never made me particularly jealous. And then X actually did more than flirting with one of his groupies.

And I felt so jealous. I suddenly realized what jealous meant. And I hated it!

Jealousy is one of the most pointless emotions I can think of. It brings you nothing but pain. Sometimes I remember in a flash of horror just how bad I felt. How eaten up. How wrecked.

And you never know when it may come again.

The Jewish Bride

This is one of my favourite painting by Rembrandt, The Jewish Bride. I love the way the man looks at his bride, the way he puts his hand on her heart. When I look at this image, I feel a quiet sense of content seep through me again. Rembrandt has the most wonderful way with light and darkness, and when I stare long enough, I get that dizzy sensation of passing from a darkened room to a garden in summer. At first you blink and there is almost pain, and suddenly vividness becomes pleasurable. The smells of August fill the air, and the low humming of creatures makes you walk that much slower.

This painting makes me more aware of other people's body language.


I always wonder what keeps long-term relationships going. I wonder if it's that look, that hand, that infinite trust, that keeps the light from being swallowed by dusk. Maybe it's finding a person that gives you that funny, heart-twisting splash of sensations.

I love that painting.

STFU Couples?

I stumbled upon the tumblr (hee) STFU Married. While some part of me was amused by how TMI some of those Facebook wall posts were, I was only seriously annoyed by the ones that expressed hatred, passive-agressiveness and bile. Why would you insult your ex-wife and sling accusations in a public forum? I hate it when people argue in public-it's one thing to have a disagreement about where you want to have dinner, it's a whole other ball game to describe your partner's poor skills in bed, horrendous parents or awkward mullet phase in front of a train compartment or in a hotel lobby. Let alone the interwebz.

But lovey-dovey messages? "OMG you are the best boyfriend ever I love you so much my little rabbit"? What's so wrong with that?

Last night I was invited to a lovely dinner party. Three couples were there, and I was the sole single person in the room. At one point all the couples were semi-cuddling (hair-stroking, neck-nuzzling) and one guy asked me if I felt uncomfortable. Of course not! Even at the height of my break-up misery, seeing two people staring in each other's eyes, lost to all things trivial, wrapped into their own paradise, never failed to make me smile.

The honeymoon period! Is there anything nicer? When your partner can do no wrong, when each phone call feels too brief, when the days are too short to cram in all the romance and excitement?

I remember mine, and I think back on it fondly.

Dear couples, I'm really happy for you and I hope your honeymoon phase lasts as long as possible. Because being in love and blurry-headed with passion is a wonderful thing.

STFU, haters.

Why I am afraid of taking drugs

I am terrified of becoming an addict.

My father is an alcoholic, many people in my mother's family have been addicts.
When my sister smokes hash or takes amphetamines "to study" better, she thinks I'm judging her because I am conventional and straight-laced, which I am. But not about drugs.

I can't imagine losing control of myself. I remember taking sleeping pills and doing things and not remembering anything, and I vowed to myself never to do that again. I get tipsy very fast, so I rarely drink more than two glasses of wine at a time, say once a month.

Not everyone becomes an addict. I know people who do drugs recreationally.

I'm just scared that I won't be able to, so I don't touch anything.

And deep inside, I wish my sister wouldn't either. Because if by chance she does become an addict-I don't think I can witness any more self-destruction again.

Blue skies are here, at last

We met at a wedding. I was jetlagged, he was drunk. I fell for him, hard, but he lived in Sweden, I lived in America, he was recovering from a break-up, I was in a failing relationship. It wasn’t very promising.
One evening in Chicago, I sent him a Facebook message telling him how I felt. He answered. And how. He managed to slip messages in my pockets, my choir books, in my passport, without my twigging how he had enlisted the people I knew there. I sent him a package. He sent me the most beautiful postcard/letters from his trip to Europe, filled with people and stories and lust for life. In May I went to Sydney to visit him. He fed me almond croissants on Bondi Beach, the rising sun scorching my white cheeks. He fell in love with me.
By this time I was a complete mess. It took a few months to go home, break up with my boyfriend, fail to complete my masters’ paper, and live at my mother's house, depressed and useless. X came to stay with me in Paris. I was still a mess. I clung to him like a lifesaver. He made me happy. Then my father got sick and spent eight months in the hospital. He almost died for four of them. X held my hand and gave me the best hugs. He also kicked my arse and made me finish my paper. He proof-read it for hours on end, correcting it over and over again. I sent it in, got a good grade. He got a scholarship to Lyon so we could live together for at least a year. I found us an apartment. We were happy. Then he wasn't. At first it was all cheese and concerts and giggles and being young and in love. I studied for my state exam, he worked on his research. Then he fell out of love with me. It broke my heart.
He had been through a lot during the year and a half we’d lived together.
So had I, in an entirely different way.
It was hard to know what would happen. During those first weeks of hell, it felt as if all the bitterness, anger and sadness that come with breakups would consume me and him, and destroy whatever bond we had. I hated seeing myself through his eyes, as a clingy neurotic mess. He didn't respect my studies. I didn't accept his quarter-life crisis, as he called it. He bought a new bike and flirted with a young thing. Typical, I thought, before breaking down some more. I did my best, and so did he. We never said the unforgivable. We tried to respect each other. As soon as my classes were over, I moved back to Paris, I passed my exam with flying colors; he got a great grant to do his PhD. We stopped talking for a month. All this feels a long time ago.
It took seven months. But I know I’m over it.
I was in the bus and one of our songs came on. A song we had both listened to when the other was away, far, when we were doing the long distance thing, writing desperate passionate emails every day, when we were so in love. And I didn’t cry. I smiled. I remembered the almond croissants on the beach, and the first time he roller-skated with me, and our trip to Barcelona and how he told me he was in love with me in front of the Sydney Opera House.
I remembered all the good things. All the negative things are gone. And today I am over the breakup, and X and I are friends. Good friends. I have so much to thank him for and I am truly grateful for every wonderful hour we spent together as a couple. I’m happy to have survived this as best I could and I am happy that he is over it too.
I started this blog as therapy for the breakup. Now it has become something else, I’m not sure what. And I have become someone else too, and I don’t mind not knowing who I could be. If X taught me something over the years, it’s that all trips are more fun when the unexpected and the strange happen. I feel strong and brave and ready for time on my own, happy to take care of myself and to be single.
I’m so thankful for my family, my friends, my blogmates. You’ve helped so much. And thank you, X, for being my friend. And for making me laugh every time I see you. I care for you very much indeed.

Family trouble

I've just come back from a lovely lazy day spent with my friend Am, her husband Vic and their cute baby Syméon. They are my age and PhD students, yet they make this parenting thing work. They've been married for some time now, and their parents have been married for a really long time as well. It made me think about my own family and my relationship to families.

Obviously I have a lot to say on this topic, as would anyone. We are molded by our childhoods and most people can be separated in two groups: those who are very close to their parents and those who break ties almost completely. It's hard to stay in the middle.

I'm in a tricky situation.When I tried to kill myself, I hurt my family for ever. They did not read this as my own struggle, my own battle: it was a reflection on their performance as parents or sibling. I understand this completely. If I did not have depression I would read the same mute accusations in my behaviour than they did.

So now I feel I have this huge debt towards them. Although I know that I won't ever try again, I can't take away the worry and the guilt they feel. All the love I can show won't erase their pain.

That's the way life goes, doesn't it? We try to be perfect in our relationships, we try to be in the right, to be the person who's behaving well. And then we're the bad guy. And there may well be no way to make that change.
What has been difficult for me is to accept that I have hurt my family and made them go through hell, but that I need to move on from that. I can't change what I did, but I don't have to obsess about it.

And spending the day with a baby reminded me how free I am. I'm single and childless: the world is my oyster! All the ties I have are my own choice: I choose to love and respect my family and treat them in the best way possible, but I want it to be a choice, not the consequence of something I did three years ago. So while I hope one day they forgive and forget, in the meantime I'll discover the world and become a happy person. In the end, that's what they also want for me.

Things change

Things change, baby.

Almost seven months after the break-up, I'm calling my ex my friend, because he is. I'm going on dates and trying to feel single again. As predicted in May, I'm no longer in the noisy despair stage: pain happens, but the main mode is numbness and quiet indifference.

So a lot has changed in a way. Has it?

Depression makes you wary of trying to define yourself by your behaviour. I am not my depression. It is a part of me, but I don't want it to define me. I want my good traits to define me, but depression makes it hard sometimes to define those.

When I was X's girlfriend, he would often complain about my tendency to "fish" for compliments. I did. I needed an exterior eye to correct my deformed inner one. I am acutely aware that my vision of myself is flawed. But see, I am flawed too. And this break-up has made me realize some things that I always feared to articulate, in case they would be self-fulfilling prophecies.

I was always scared that "the real me" would be repulsive to others (friends, family, boyfriends). And then I met X. He loved me despite my defects. I told him about my depression, my eating disorder, my insecurities and yet, he loved me.

Until he didn't.

I entirely accept what happened, and in a way, this acceptance is my problem. Because if a man tells me that I am too dark, too heavy, too difficult, he will be telling me what I already feel, what I already know. That ultimately, my good qualities cannot compensate for the bad ones. When X told me he felt trapped, I understood that I was the problem. When, you know, it's always more complicated than that.

So as I gingerly dip a toe in the murky waters of flirtation and seduction after years of coupledom, I've consciously or not defined what is palatable and what is not. It's OK for me to complain laughingly about feeling under the weather and then switch the topic to something general. It's not OK to say what I really feel. Because that would be scary. And in the end, it's my own fucking responsability, no one else's.

At the moment, someone must have given me a Love Magnet, because I am being propositioned all the time. My stock is up. Yet something holds me back-and that something is the fear that once again, I am misleading these people into something they may not want to handle. I told X about my problems, but he didn't believe me, as he later admitted. Damned if I show my true colors, damned if I don't.

It's exhausting to live with demons on your shoulder. We all have those, although they may differ. Jealousy, greed, anger, sadness. Pick your poison. It's so exhausting to pretent they don't exist.

I knew I wasn't going to react to this break-up the way it was expected of me. My anger was short-lived. My bitterness almost non-existent. My affection and respect for my ex did not dissolve into ether, they morphed into something else.
I came to see myself as a list of pros and cons, the way X saw me, with the column of cons outweighing the pros.

Sometimes I still do.

And I want that to change.

Bitter/sweet

My sweet, my heart.

These words leave me with reluctance. Whispered endearments.

My sweet my heart my own darling.

Some words have texture. I remember staring at a Flemish painting, marvelling at how the stately futures were weighed down by rigid panels of cloth, and how each depicted jewel brought under the skin of my fingers the remembrance of stones and metal. So much flat reality.

Some words are both flat and textured. I repeat them, finding comfort in their triviality, but they are like poison. A phone against my lips, a spring morning filled with bitterness, washed away by rain.

My own darling, my dearest love.

You discover endearments in every language.

French is my mother tongue. It moves me. I believe wistfulness is its best mode. We have strong consonants, vibrant fricatives, butthey taper off into mellowness, giving an impression of relectance and abandon, quite unlike the watchfulness of German. You cannot really let a sentence drift away in German, or if you do, you are speaking it like a foreigner.

But yes, it took falling in love in English to really love English. In fact, being in love with a grammar Nazi, a high-stickler, gave me freedom to explore the recesses, the dirty corners and bring back forgotten treasures, ready to be laughed away or fiercely protected. His English is better than mine because beyond its accuracy, it is English. Mine is a hamper of toys. I feel no protectiveness towards it, the way I do towards my French.

My love, my delicious darling. Such flatness! I acknowledge their well-worn smirk, unavoidably sickening.To me, though, they are just broken in. I still feel these words and recognize them for the treacherous friends they are. All I've found within them, their music, the rumble of syllables finally meaning something. All I've lost.

In between the lost and the found, the texture of these words: an elusive, delicious texture that brings a smile, and an almost smile, as I say them.

Choices, choices

I hate this armchair, but I try to settle comfortably. I am paying for this, after all.
"So let's pick up where we stopped last week. Why don't you want to have children?"
I look at him. He's scratching his nose, not looking like an inquisitor at all. I smile.
"I don't want anyone to have my genes."
"What's wrong with your genes?"
"I'm chronically depressed." I wave an airy hand. And all that. I also have really bad blood circulation and asthma. But those don't count. They aren't life-threatening. They don't make you want to die. Or try to die.
"Do you believe depression is genetic?"
"I believe that it is, yes. And even if it's not, how could I bring up someone if I'm sad a lot? Wouldn't it be unfair on the child?"
I was brought up by someone with addiction. I know what it feels when your love is not enough for someone to change, not enough to make them happy. When you are a child, you don't know happiness is something you make for yourself. You think it's your fault.
"Why do you believe it's genetic?"
"I don't want to believe I had a choice in this."
I didn't choose to be alive. A lot of the time I wish I weren't. I'm stuck here for the best and for the worse. And my best is amazing. And my worse is soul-killing.
"I don't want to believe that I chose depression for myself."
"You've been through a lot."
"No, I haven't. And even if I had, it wouldn't change anything to the fact that it's my responsability to go beyond my bad experiences to make something of myself. If it's something wrong in my genome, my stumbles don't make me feel so guilty."

I choose to not be angry; I choose to forgive and forget, I choose to fight for what I care for.

"Maybe everything is a choice."
"Life isn't."
"Yes it is. You're here. You're choosing to remain alive. You're choosing to see me. You're choosing to get better. Every morning you go running to pump some endorphins in yourself and make yourself happier."
I can't see through my tears.
"Sometimes I feel no one knows what this feels like. How bloody hard it is. That no one cares."
"Don't you think I care?"
"I don't know."
My family cares. My friends care. But in the end, the shrink is right.

I choose this struggle, and I will run again tomorrow, and I'll think of the things I love and am passionate about. I'll see my friends and family. I'll cuddle with the cats and make really stupid jokes.

Whatever is coming, I may not be ready, but I choose to pretend I am. Give it to me, and watch me take it.

I choose to be a grown-up.

A moment of bliss

Today, or is it yesterday, I heard a wonderful concert. José van Dam sung a beautiful cycle of Schumann lieder, which got me crying after about five minutes. There's something about Schumann, the poetry he chooses, the piano's soft and furious interpretation, the waves of emotion and pain, that gets me every time. Then we had some lovely French chansons. Normally I'm not too fond of French songs, because the lyrics sound so corny. The way people used to speak changed, yet the chansons keep the same distribution of syllables over the notes. It's slightly perturbing when you are trying to listen to the music. But here the poetry was by Baudelaire or Verlaine, so you're pretty much enjoying the best of French poetry.
He concluded with Poulenc's cycle of bawdy Renaissance songs. Watching van Dam, who will always be for me the most dashing Leporello, winks and makes suggestive gestures while the audience howl with laughter was a great moment indeed.
So I cried, I laughed, and I clapped my hands raw.

I was sitting next to X. We were enjoying it together, as friends. Music has always been something we both love intensely, though in entirely different ways. (He's never liked Baroque so much either). But it was part of the pleasure to be there with him, after all that we've been through together, building a new chapter in our lives, yet still able to smile at each other or mistily grin when we were moved. Here is a man who held my hand when my father was terribly sick for months on end. Here is a man who taught me how to enjoy so many things in life, a good meal with friends, a glass of perfectly dry white wine. And this is the man who once loved me and now cares for me, and wants only the best for me, and who knows that I wish him everything he could possibly want.

So as I cried during the Schumann, I still felt like a very lucky person indeed.

Irony

My current situation reminds me a lot of what the lovely Britni was saying on her blog a few weeks ago. I give advice I find difficult to follow to my sister, who is also going through a rough time with her ex-girlfriend. The ex is with another girl, yet keeps texting and calling J to tell her how much she means to her, etc. I tell J to cut her off, stop answering her calls.

Wish I found it easy myself.

My ex is not a piece of crap like my poor sister's former girl. He is a lovely man in so many ways, which is probably why I'm still hurting so much almost a month afterwards. But once I get to move out of this town, I will not talk to him. I need to move on, forget his horrid new girlfriend, and be a happy single girl. All this will happen. I know it will. When I follow my own advice.

up/down

It's been up/down a lot in Saraland. I'm sad half the time and OK the other, angry half the time and indifferent the other, lost half the time and determined the other.
I need help. I need help right now. I feel that I am breaking down so slowly I hardly notice it, that my heart is in such a turmoil it can hardly function. Eating makes me queasy, running makes me dizzy, thinking makes me cry.

X is having dates with our neighbour, dates with his Rebound Fuck, dates with his friends and I feel so lonely and unloved, so useless and stupid, not because of his social life but because I miss him. I miss him so much. I miss being comfortable with him and hate the feeling he gives me at the pit of my stomach. I hate seeing him so gorgeous it makes me want to kiss him, and having nothing more than a pat on the head.

When will this end?

I have the results of my exams tonight and will know if I get to do the orals. Please, O knowledgeable deity from the future, let me get this silly exam so I can move out of my town, away from him and go kick ass under another clime.

I love you. I love you so much. And I will let this go, please.

Please.

Lonely

Well, I've always been a lonesome cowgirl. Struggling with it all, to tell the truth. Never sure if I was OK with being lonesome, or on the contrary haunted by my potential loss.
For the first time in years, I feel lonely.

I miss you. I miss being able to tell you everything, trusting in your loving affection. I miss kissing you for no reason, miss having sex with you, miss the nightly comfort of your body against mine. I miss you a lot. But I don't want you back.

I just want to stop missing you.

Back in Lyon!

Yep, I'm back. And I'm not going to lie...It's nice. Just had my first driving lesson today, felt all the excitement of being behind the motor and controlling a machine, it was great fun. Not a huge success parking, but all in all I felt quite comfortable wheeling the thing. X seems ok, he was lovely and sweet with me, we had a giggly evening and cuddles, and I missed him a lot. I hope we continue this way and will strive to communicate as much as I can if ever one of us ceases to be happy with our living arrangement. I do love him, he's such a lovely person. And I'm happy and I want to spread it around.

healing

Starting to heal...Starting to enjoy spinach leaves dipped in lentils, to smile at children in the street, to enjoy tennis, to feel guilty about not working, to look forward to shopping for sunglasses because summer is approaching...
I know the pain will come back but for now I can bask in this feeling of happiness and enjoy it for what it is worth:
everything.
Yelena sent me an email and Maruska had lunch with me and I feel surrounded and loved.
Thanks people.