bsgsix

I am not particularly happy about this decision, but due to some recent events, I've decided to make my journal friends-only from this point on.

Obviously, if you are already a friend on this journal, this doesn't matter a bit (unless you aren't logged in, of course).

If you have an interest in following my journal but aren't on my friends list, please comment below and I will add you so that you may see my entries. A few entries are public - some of my works for therealljidol, a few pictures, some music reviews, general thoughts I don't mind sharing with the public, and things that promote disability awareness - but otherwise, I keep most things under a tight watch here. Too many creepers...

But if you want to be a legit creeper, just leave a comment, and I'm sure we can work out something. ;)

(Voting is up and live until Saturday the 19th at 8 pm Eastern! Please consider casting a vote my way to keep me in the finals of this writing competition: https://therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1033913.html - so please read! Vote! Read the other fine entries and vote! Get out the vote! Rock the Vote! Okay, I'm finished here, ha....)
*

"I started small - you know, like most thieves do," I said, shivering in the parking lot. What had I been thinking, wearing only a skin-tight red tank top and short black skirt at the end of January? Such intelligent plans, all thrown away by such a careless outfit.

"I'd hardly call you a thief," the officer said, and he turned to his partner. Both of the men had thick shoulders which rose and fell in a hypnotic fashion as they chuckled, but I could tell they were laughing at me, and I looked away.

"I know you're keeping me out here in the cold just to torment me," I said. "So you should know that I really don't care." My wrists were cuffed and were beginning to ache, but I still tossed my head to the side nonchalantly, my long hair flying carelessly in the winter wind. "And if you'd 'hardly call me a thief,' then I think you should let me go."

"Tell us what you stole the last time you were here," the officer said.

"It's just Walmart. I took cheap Walmart crap. What do you want me to tell you, that I found Walmart's only Faberge egg and hid it deep in the county's only underwater cave? Wanna call a documentary crew and get them out here for the grand discovery?"

"Cut the bullshit." The officer's partner walked over to me and glanced around. When we both noticed that a few people were looking at the scene, he grabbed my wrists by the metal cuffs and pulled me toward him, and I winced as the metal scraped my flesh. Tears stung my eyes, but the wind kept them from flowing out, and for that, I was grateful. Let the pleasure of crying be denied to me. And, most importantly, let it be denied to the officer and his jackass partner. They probably weren't terrible people, but they weren't exactly being kind, and truly, the problem came down to this: they were irritated to be putting up with our small town's most recent and notorious pain-in-the-ass thief, who was an eighteen-year-old, five-foot-two, one-hundred-pound girl. They'd been outsmarted at least nine times, and they weren't happy - not until this day, anyhow.

"Fine," I said. "Whatever. I took some food - I don't even make two hundred dollars a week at the bar, you know, and I do pay my own bills, so I was broke and had to get things to eat. It was stuff like granola bars, cans of black beans, non-perishables, all that. Then I realized I didn't have a can opener, so I stole that. Necessity is the mother of thievery here. After that? I'd just walk out with whatever I needed. It's not an issue of want. Just need. More food, over-the-counter medication, tampons, washcloths, blankets, plastic forks, batteries for my portable radio, panties, a few books, an umbrella so I could walk to work-"

"-but your car is right here," the officer interrupted. "Why would you walk to work? Is this vehicle stolen?"

I smiled but shook my head. "No, it's not. Registration's in the glove box, where it belongs, and it's in my name. I just don't have the money to fill the tank every week. Not something you'd understand."

"In all, today aside, how much do you think you've stolen from this Walmart? Monetarily speaking, that is. Give us a ballpark figure."

I stared at the officer and then looked at his partner. "I honestly don't know," I said. "Five hundred dollars? Six hundred at most?"

"In the course of two weeks?"

"Yes. When you have to survive, you do what you can. And I need to stay warm and eat and not go crazy, if that's okay with you. I'm sorry."

Honestly, I wasn't that sorry, but the handcuffs were hurting and the January air was turning my bones to ice, and I wanted to go. I wanted to drive away, have a proper panic attack, mitigate it with some Valium, and sleep until tomorrow's shift at the bar.

"Now," the officer said, "tell us about today. Tell us about what you took today."

"No. Why? You know what it is."

"Yes, but we want to know how," the officer's partner said. "You're dressed like a whore; probably a convenient side gig for you, knowing who you are. How did you get it... we want to know how you did what you did."

"I am NOT your whore," I lashed out, pulling against the handcuffs, teeth bared at the officer and his partner as though rabid. Perhaps I was. Perhaps that was why my brain was so fuzzy, was why I couldn't remember everything I'd stolen, was why I'd find strange items in the trunk of my car like jars of baby food and seven jackets, all the same, as though there happened to be more than one of me.

"Oh, hold her back," the officer laughed. "She's out to get you!"

"I'm not telling you a thing," I growled. "Not without an attorney. Let me go."

"Not until you tell us how you did it."

"I said no!"

I was so cold and I couldn't hang on. The world around me spun, and before I fell to the ground - the officers not bothering to aid my fall, for I watched them as I braced myself to slam against the asphalt - I screamed out, and the tears I'd kept frozen in my eyes simultaneously broke free:

"Sebastian!"

Everything went dark as the echo of the name filled my head, and I could not take back what I had foolishly uttered.

*

I had learned one odd, yet true, fact in the first eighteen years of my wayward life: on the wall of every psych ward holding pod, there is a placid painting, usually of a lovely woman or of a unnaturally cute kitten romping through flowers.

This time, I was in the room with the woman, who sat on a windowsill as she smiled and stared out at the robin's-egg sky.

Jump now, I thought. If you jump now, you'll die all young and pretty. Jump out and save yourself.

"Well now," a man's voice said as he unlocked and opened the door of the pod. He had on a white jacket and a pair of khakis, but all I could look at were his out-of-place red sneakers. "It's you again. Not doing so great? You are looking thinner. And I got the rundown from some officers, but honestly, it was convoluted. You were belligerent and passed out, and in the ambulance, you started scratching the skin off your wrists and told one of the paramedics that you were going to kill yourself unless someone brought you your baby. Any of that add up?"

A voice inside me said yes. Yes, that all happened. Yes, that was all true. Yes, you'd been caught shoplifting at Walmart after nine clean getaways and you passed out because you were cold. Yes, in the ambulance, you recalled the pain of rape and the pushing and cramping and aching of miscarriage, so you started scratching off your skin. Yes, your nails did serious damage and you had to be strapped down. Yes, you wanted to die. Yes, you didn't want to lose that baby. It didn't matter if that baby had come from rape; that was your baby, and you were going to care for that child the way you were never cared for, weren't you?

"It doesn't add up," I said flatly in a voice that didn't sound like mine.

"You don't have a concussion," the doctor said. "So what are you hearing?"

"Don't tell him you were pregnant and lost the baby," the voice said. I clamped my hand over my mouth.

"Don't tell me what?" the doctor asked.

"I didn't say anything," I said. "You're crazy."

"Yes you did. I heard you clearly."

"Don't tell him that Adam raped you after you fell in love with him during a piano recital a few months ago. You naive little girl. Don't tell him that you're a drunken slut. Don't tell this man anything or he'll fuck you, too."

"Mandi, I don't - I'm not here to have sex with you," the doctor said.

"I didn't say you were!"

"But I heard you."

"That wasn't me! It was a voice! It's not mine!"

"So you're hearing voices that - that are speaking for you?" The doctor came toward the bed and sat on the edge of it, inches from my leg. I thought about kicking him, but I realized my legs were strapped down, too. Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am.

This was the lowest moment, I thought. I wasn't being punished for the right crime.

I snickered. "A voice. And the voice says this: fuck you and your ugly shoes."

Then I reached down to try to tear the flesh off my shoulder with my teeth.

There were hands and lights and a tightening against my body. There was screaming. There was a needle, a pressure, a sharp pain.

"She's hearing voices," the doctor said to another figure in the room. "And there was talk about abuse; we're going to need an exam just in case, okay? Luckily, she doesn't appear to be taking drugs or is intoxicated, so we can work with her when she wakes. But she lied: none of these emergency contacts are real. So she's going on an involuntary hold until we can sort this out. Nothing else we can do right now."

"JUMP!" I yelled to the woman painted on the wall.

Then I felt another push, another application of pressure, another prick of pain, and I faded away.

*

After about three days of sleeping, waking to lash out and tear at my skin before receiving another shot, sleeping some more, and every so often being escorted to a bathroom or having a pill shoved down my throat, I met with an older man in a forest-green office.

"Do you feel calm in here?" Dr. Mau, the older man, asked me.

"It's a fucking office," I said. "It's your wonderland, not mine."

"We're going to be working together for a while," he said. "But first, I want to ask you something that I read about in your file."

"Have at it."

"I just want to make sure that the following is true: you were sexually abused as a child, physically abused later on, raped by a family friend at fourteen, and then, assaulted twice on your college campus, with the second assault leading to a pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage?"

"Yep. We all done here?"

Dr. Mau scratched his neck, his tan skin turning red from the pressure. "That's a lot for a young girl to face," he said. "How are you doing?"

"Just lovely. It's been a real fucking gem of a week. Now, are we done here?" I stood up and kicked the wooden chair.

"You've already been diagnosed with anorexia, anxiety, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder from your first stay," Dr. Mau said. "And there's more. We're far from done, Mandi. Sit down. Please."

His tone was slow, but it wasn't a thoughtful kind of slow. It was sad. I'd never heard anyone sound so sad about my life. Even I had never sounded so sad about my life, and it was mine to feel sad about. I sat down.

"So now, you're having hallucinations and thoughts about ending your life," Dr. Mau said. "And it sounds like your behavior is very - odd. Shoplifting. Having sex with random men and women. There's some sense that you are invincible, but then, you want to die. It's as though you are a human roller coaster."

"I am not having hallucinations," I said. "I hear a voice. One voice. That's nothing. And why do you think I'm invincible? Because I shoplift? I take what I need, okay? Yeah, there's a thrill to it, like the thrill of having sex in a public place, you know? But right now, I'm just taking what I need. But that human roller coaster thing... well, yeah. You know, I like that."

"Do you think that is an appropriate description of your behavior?"

"My behavior?" I stared ahead at part of the forest of the forest-green wall. "That's just who I am. I'm Jekyll and Hyde. You're just getting Jekyll right now. That's all."

"We need to meet several more times, probably for a good week or two," Dr. Mau said. "You'll be safe. But I have to tell you that you meet the criteria for a few new diagnoses."

"I don't care."

"I need to start you on some new medication, so you need to care. A good combination of medication can keep you calm and stable. It can make the voice go away."

Now I was listening.

"Fine," I said. "What do I have? What am I taking? Simple version. I'm tired."

Dr. Mau leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingertips on his desk, and I held back nervous laughter. He looked like the villain in an old movie; some crazy, scheming man who was about to tell some wayward protagonist what her ultimate fate was going to be.

And yet - wasn't I the villain?

"On top of your anorexia, OCD, and anxiety," he said, "I believe that you also have Kleptomania, Major Depressive Disorder, and Schizophrenia. I already have started you on two medications for these called Lithium and Zyprexa - they are why you have been so drowsy since you were first admitted - but I'd like to add in Depakote as well. And I trust you've been taking your Anafranil and Valium that was prescribed the last time you were here, yes? We've been giving it to you since your admission, so I'd like to assume you've been taking it at home."

I started to cry. "Home," I said. "I have to go home."

"Why did you lie about your emergency contacts, Mandi?"

"Because I'm eighteen years old, and besides my seventeen-year-old boyfriend, I don't have anyone."

"What about your family?"

"We're... estranged. And I don't want people at the bar where I work to know my situation. I don't have anyone. I'm dying, Dr. Mau. My brain is trying to kill me. I'm dying, and I'm alone."

Dr. Mau leaned forward. "You aren't alone right now," he said softly. "We'll see to it that we get it right by the time you leave. There's intensive therapy. Family therapy. Behavioral therapy in an outpatient setting. Somehow, we're going to make it work for you. But you have to stop stealing. Don't listen to that voice - the one that tells you not to eat, or to harm yourself, or to say things that you really wouldn't say. Please. Know it's your disease. Schizophrenia can be a monster. We will tame it together. Okay?"

I wanted to shut out all the doubts that rolled through my mind like the tide during full moon. I wanted to tell him that I couldn't be Schizophrenic, because if Dr. Henry Jekyll wasn't, then neither was I. I was something else. I could feel that he was wrong.

But he was nice. He was safe. And among all the things I needed, I needed nice and safe. Nice and safe would lead me home.

"Okay," I said. "Kleptomania. Depression. Schizophrenia. I'll try to eat more. I'll try to be less obsessive and not act out on those intrusive thoughts. I'll try my best."

"Good. Then let's get you to your real room. 72 hours in a padded cell with a gym mat isn't a fair space for you. Let's get you a shower, some clean clothing, and into your room and your first group. Then, in time, home. I hope you can call someone to check up on your house. I'm sure you need someone to grab your mail, check the messages on your answering machine, all that."

I stared at Dr. Mau and started to laugh. My chest shook and my lungs ached. My heart hurt. But I couldn't stop. I laughed until he paged for a nurse to come get me, and as the nurse escorted me out of his office, my laughter turned to sobs until she gave me an injection, placed me back into the padded room with the gym mat, and I fell asleep, allowing myself to be wiped away from all meaningful existence.

*

About three drowsy, slow, therapy-laden weeks later, I was declared physically healthy - gaining five pounds made my doctors happier than any five pounds ever should - and, even more notably, mentally healthy. I had a month of my daily Lithium, Zyprexa, Depakote, Anafranil, and Valium prescriptions, and paper slips for another month of each medication. I had a new psychologist and a new psychiatrist who were willing to see me on their sliding scale payment method. I'd hadn't reconnected with my family, but my boyfriend and his mother became my emergency contacts, and both declared that they would be happy to monitor my well-being.

However, upon the day of my release, neither my boyfriend nor his mother could pick me up from the hospital. Dr. Mau allowed me to break protocol and take a cab home, since I had shown "so much growth." It also helped that I had my purse, which contained $30 of cash, as well as my college ID, which gave my name and birthday. I suppose he figured that, as long as I knew who I was and could pay for where I was going, I'd be okay. After all, I was medicated, I had therapeutic tools, and I was no longer hearing "the voice."

Of course, I was still hearing "the voice." Years later, an expert team of trauma psychologists would accurately diagnose "the voice," as well as several other voices, as Dissociative Identity Disorder, not Schizophrenia. All that Depakote and Zyprexa couldn't medicate away trauma. But I, the filled-with-promise eighteen-year-old, the unafraid writer and singer, and the newly-released "normal girl," was about to blaze her way through the second month of 2000 all shiny and sane. That girl was heading home.

"Where to?" The cab driver was a man in his 50s, and he looked familiar, but I lived in a small town. Everyone looked familiar after all those years, and being over-medicated on anti-psychotics couldn't change the almost incestuous familiarity of small-town life.

I looked out the window and smiled. "Walmart," I said to him. "I have some things to take care of."

*

I over-tipped the cab driver as he let me out at the front doors of the oversized retail corporation. Once he drove away, I started walking toward the back of the parking lot.

One thing I hadn't told Dr. Mau: during my three-week stay in the hospital, I'd had my boyfriend take inventory of all the items I had stolen. If they were all there, they were to be packed up into one place for my return. If anything was missing from my list, he was to let me know immediately. After all, I had a complete, written record of everything I'd taken, with the exception of perishable items. I was an obsessive-compulsive thief, among other things.

"It seems like it's all there," he'd told me via a phone call I'd placed collect from the hospital before I'd been discharged. "All of it - some canned goods, a can opener, over-the-counter meds, sanitary products, washcloths, blankets, plastic forks, batteries, a portable radio, panties, an umbrella, as well as some pants, jeans, shirts, jars of baby food, and several jackets. What's the baby food for, by the way? You're not..."

But I'd brushed him off. I'd been pregnant once, but I'd lost that baby. He wasn't a father. He never would be.

"What about the last thing I took? Did the police take it back?" I asked.

"Nope. It's safe. Everything is packed up in three boxes, as you asked."

"I'm going to check it out the moment I get home, and we'll meet up," I'd said. "Thanks for taking care of it. I'm glad you had my spare key. I love you." Then I'd hung up, satisfied that I'd be returning to my normalcy soon.

In the back of the Walmart parking lot sat Sebastian.

I started to cry. "Oh my God," I said, and I ran over to hug him. "You're okay. No one hurt you." I rubbed my hand along his body, feeling every curve, every dimple, every mark.

I opened Sebastian's trunk, his red body glistening in the afternoon sun, and saw the three boxes my boyfriend had packed for me. True to his word, everything was there.

The trunk slammed with a solid thud as I unlocked Sebastian and slid into the driver's seat. I rubbed my cold hands along the steering wheel, started the engine, and once I was warmer, hopped back out again and reopened the trunk.

Blankets. Clothing. Granola bars. Two bottles of water. The portable radio. A book. Three jackets.

I made up my bed in the backseat - blankets on the seat, jackets bunched up into pillows. I climbed in, changed my clothing, grabbed my purse, and took my medication. Then, I slid down into the warmth, grabbed a granola bar and my book, and curled up into a ball.

It was good to be home.

*

This has been my entry for Week Twelve of LJ Idol - now on DW! - titled "MacGuffin."

For anyone unaware of what a MacGuffin is (probably not anyone writing for Idol this week - or many readers, writers, or film lovers!), a MacGuffin is "a plot device in the form of some goal, desired object, or another motivator that the protagonist pursues, often with little or no narrative explanation. The MacGuffin's importance to the plot is not the object itself, but rather its effect on the characters and their motivations." (Lifted from Wikipedia, because I'm lazy.)

This is, as always, a true story. In early 2000, I owned a 1988 Chrysler Fifth Avenue that was bright red, and I named it Sebastian after the crab in The Little Mermaid. Before I was able to afford an apartment - I was mentally ill and living on my own, often staying with strangers, and once or twice, sleeping on the street - I bought Sebastian. He barely ran, and the gas mileage was a joke, but he gave me something I didn't have - a home.

However, a car serving as my home - or, more importantly, the fact that his name was Sebastian and that Sebastian wasn't a person - isn't all that important. What IS important is that my shoplifting created a situation in which I was involuntarily committed to a psych ward, discovered some past memories, and was incorrectly diagnosed with Schizophrenia, all while trying to GET home - and home, to me, was a place where I could be emotionally safe. There is no physical object that stands in for an emotional home. The motivation was home.

Unfortunately, I had that incorrect diagnosis for five years before a trauma team determined I had DID, and even then, I didn't tell anyone until after my brain injury in 2010. And when I was in that psych ward, I wanted nothing more than to go home - emotionally. To find a place where I belonged, even if that meant the side of the road, another psych ward, or - eventually, and thankfully - my own apartment.

And the easiest way out of a psych ward? Play the game, claim normalcy, take the pills, and be complacent.

At eighteen, poor and tending bar to pay for a cell phone, therapy, medication, and gas money, I was willing to play that game. I'm now thirty-seven, and cannot imagine being that complacent.

But that was a different time. I (fortunately) don't live in a car, I don't shoplift, and my life no longer has a MacGuffin.

Oh - except for that one stolen object from Walmart. But it doesn't really enhance my plot now. Nineteen years later, an object like that cannot motivate me, after all... I mean, can it?

"Oh my God," Ryan said as we grabbed our backpacks and left the choir room. "That was literally the longest rehearsal ever. Ever. Spelled out. E.V.E.R."

I laughed and climbed the stairs to the main floor of our beautiful performing arts center. Ryan was right: it had been a long rehearsal, but I was bouncing with energy and excitement. I'd arrived on campus that Tuesday morning at seven, eager to begin practicing the Mozart opera, and my efforts only two weeks into the fall semester were paying off. Our director called me an emerging star. My nineteen-year-old self absorbed the praise, basked in the glow of the words he had used: effortless, graceful, brilliant. The rehearsal had been long, but to me, it had also been epic.

"It's noon," I replied as we reached the foyer. "I'm starving! I'm thirsty! Let's get Pizza Hut at the Student Union, okay? My treat."

"Yes, queen. Whatever you say, dear diva."

I laughed again as Ryan opened the door that pushed us out onto the main campus. Everything was utterly perfect, as though the day had been made with me in mind. The grass was glistening an almost emerald shade in the bright sun, the temperature was a lovely sixty-five degrees, and my long, auburn hair trailed behind me as I practically skipped between the brick buildings to the Student Union. I felt lovely, I felt talented, I felt appreciated, and to top it off, I had something else to celebrate: my one-year wedding anniversary to my high school sweetheart, Luke. We had big plans to go into Baltimore that night, to hit up the clubs that served minors, and to sing karaoke until our throats were sore.

But Ryan didn't follow my elated skipping. I stopped and turned, and I noticed he wasn't moving at all.

"It's too quiet out here," he said. "Something's wrong."

"It is not!" I exclaimed, walking back toward him. "Would you stop being so dramatic? Everyone is off at lunch. Come on."

"Mandi, stop. I mean it."

The way he said my name chilled me, and I looked around.

Ryan was right: it was silent. There was no one else on campus. We were the only ones walking toward the student center. The parking lot to our right was practically empty. Even the other members of our opera weren't anywhere nearby. We were completely alone.

"Okay, so something's up," I said, reaching into the pocket of my jeans for my cell phone. "I'll call my husband and see what's been going on. He knew not to call me between seven and one."

"Think it's a bomb threat? School shooting?"

I shrugged. "But we were in the arts center, so wouldn't we have been evacuated? Though we were in the basement choir room. Maybe no one knew we were down there? But we were loud." I was talking myself in circles, uncertain of what to say to reassure him. "Well - I just don't know. Maybe?" In the wake of Columbine and other related incidents, it was possible. But I just wasn't feeling it.

And then my call to Luke failed.

Three high-pitched beeps. "We're sorry, but the person you have dialed is unavailable."

I tried again. Three high-pitched beeps and the same damn message.

I stared at Ryan and then looked at the cerulean sky. No clouds. No noises. No planes. Just silence.

"Okay, so - aliens, maybe?" Ryan said. I smacked his arm, my heart pounding with newfound worry. Cell phones weren't working. The campus was deserted. And yet, everything was so beautiful. So perfect. It was noon on a random Tuesday in September. We had just performed gorgeous music. It was my one-year wedding anniversary. How could anything be wrong?

Suddenly, my throat tightened and I grew lightheaded. An emptiness washed over me, as though I was facing death, and I couldn't shake the sense that it was coming for me. I grabbed Ryan's arm, my nails digging into his skin.

"Run," I said between clenched teeth. "Ryan, run, and don't look back."

*

Mato, I thought as I sat in the driver's seat of my dark blue Saturn. Mato, my twin, tell me you didn't go to work today. Please be the impetuous pain in the ass you were when we were kids. Please.

I knew I should drive home to be with my husband. I knew I should call my mother, if I could get a call to go through. I knew I should stop listening to the news - what I'd seen on TV had been enough.

But what I knew and what I could actually do didn't match up.

"What movie is this?" I'd asked the stranger beside me as a group of at least 500 students stared at the large TV in the Student Union. "Is this Independence Day?"

He'd put his hand on my arm, asked where I had been for the past few hours, and then told me about the attacks.

But he didn't need to tell me. I saw the recycled footage for myself.

People were jumping out windows. Buildings were collapsing. A plane was burning on the ground in a field. Reporters were crying as they spoke. Smoke was everywhere. Bodies were everywhere. So many people - rushing, speaking in hurried tones, sobbing with their faces dirty and their bodies shaking. There were so many people. And they had nowhere to go.

While I'd been safe, tucked away in the basement of a performing arts building for almost five hours, the world had suddenly changed. I'd been cocooned in music and ignorance while the ground around me split open and swallowed humanity whole.

I'd immediately tried to call my husband again, but the stranger in the Student Union told me not to bother. "The lines are all jammed," he'd said. "Emergency calls." Defeated and numb, I'd put the phone back in my pocket, turned around, and walked directly to my car.

But I couldn't remember how to drive. So I turned on the radio, listened to the news, and began to think about Mato.

"Okay," I said in the confines of my car. "Okay. You're okay. Mato is still in Croatia. He is not in or near New York City. I would know by now. I would have to know."

There was screaming on the radio as I heard a knock against my car window. The superfluous noise startled the hell out of me, and when I turned to look at the figure, it was only then that I caught my reflection in the car window and realized I was the one screaming.

"Clear out," the police officer said. "Please go home."

"I don't remember how to drive," I said, sobbing and screaming at the same time. "How do you drive a car? How do you use a phone?"

"I know," the officer said, his voice calm despite my screaming. "But I need you to turn on your car, put it into drive, and go home. Are you far from here?"

"No. Only three or four miles. All the back roads."

"You're okay. Go home and hug your family."

As he walked away, I started the Saturn. Could I go home and hug my family?

Mato. I drove, and my only thought was his name.

*

Luke was my husband.

Mato was the first man with whom I fell in love.

I was fourteen, a formidable force who acted out, showed off, and ignored the periods of missing time that I'd later learn were due to dissociation. Mato was nineteen, a Croatian college student with dark eyes and a sly smile whose older sister had moved to my hometown to teach college.

Mato's family and my family had been friends for decades: my wealthy great-grandmother met Mato's parents in the 1960's, and they quickly bonded over shared interests and cocktails upon boats. When Mato and his older sister were born - Jasna in the early 70's, Mato in the late 70's - their parents wanted them to know their heritage. Jasna and Mato grew up spending their time between a luxury home in St. Louis, Missouri, and a small cottage in Croatia. When Croatia was attacked in 1991 after declaring independence, Jasna and Mato came to live permanently in the States, but Mato was dismayed. He'd loved Croatia. That had been his home.

"It's false wealth. This whole American thing? It's false. Old money is always false," he told me during an expensive lunch the day I met him in 1995. "Plus, these thirty dollar lunch specials are such a rip-off. No one here seems to care, but I do." Then he smiled and patted my arm, and I knew I was in love.

We spent that week in 1995 together while Jasna was looking for a house near campus. Fourteen and nineteen put me and Mato in a strange situation: we were attracted to one another, but we also knew the age difference was just enough to upset our families, not to mention the law. Plus, he was in college and longed to return to Croatia. My life was in Maryland, still under the rule of my parents and their money, and no amount of posed pictures, flirtation, and kindness would change the situation. He would, inevitably, leave me.

Mato visited every spring and fall until 1999, but even then, we continued our friendship via email. He was working at an investment firm in Croatia that sent him to the States several times a year, and I was a college freshman, hooked on cheap beer, one-night-stands, and a quick, regular high.

"This is not how Artemis would act," he said to me in an email, referencing our old nicknames. I'd been obsessed with Greek mythology in high school, and since Mato and I couldn't be a romantic couple, we'd settled on something different instead: Artemis, goddess of the hunt, and Apollo, her twin brother.

"Artemis would dismiss that comment and stand up for herself, Apollo," I'd replied. "I don't need a twin. I need a friend."

"You're going to lose me if you don't cut it out. You're better than this. Trust me - I have five years on you. I've made mistakes. This is not the person you want to be. Look at me! Look at my life! I'm traveling, and working. I'm dedicated to this career. Artemis - you have your music. Throw yourself into that, okay? Live your dream. Don't be trashy. I'm thousands of miles away. I can't come rescue you from yourself right now."

I closed down my Hotmail, refusing to reply. I could be anything, and I was not trashy. Who the hell was he to tell me what I should or shouldn't do? He'd been against money and the finer things in life, and now, he was an investor, traveling the world, making deals at the age of twenty-three.

It was then that I decided Mato was a hypocrite, and I never spoke to him again. I spoke to Jasna, his older sister, who often told me about Mato's trips to London, Paris, and New York, but I never spoke to Mato directly. I couldn't. When the bottom did fall out and I ended up in a psych ward, I wanted to call him, but I feared he'd mock me. I feared he would tell me that he was right.

But I still loved him. I still saw his gleaming dark eyes, heard his jovial laugh, saw the softness on his face as he played with my younger brother. I still saw his innocence and his youth. I still loved him for the person he was: my Apollo. The God of the sun, of prophecy, of art.

I loved him.

But on September 11, 2001, love wasn't enough. Love was not enough to save Mato's life.

*

I smoked cigarettes on the couch in my apartment - my first time holding a Marlboro Light between my fingers in almost a year. But hey, the world was burning. Matt Lauer and Katie Couric were openly crying on my TV set. My husband hugged me, but all I could do was stare at him and ask him why our cell phones weren't working. I didn't know what else to say without mentioning Mato.

Eventually, I was able to call my mom. "I was picking up your brother from school and tried to call you," she sobbed. "I couldn't reach you. I thought the worst."

"Why?"

"Because of the evacuation."

"Oh, right. That." Luke and I lived in Pennsylvania, only twenty minutes away from Three Mile Island - a nuclear power plant which had become infamous in 1979 after an accident released radioactive material into the air. We'd already heard the evacuation sirens that day in September 2001. But I'd chosen to ignore them. Instead, I'd continued to smoke, and I calmly packed a bag of clothing, books, and toiletries that could live in the back of my car, just in case.

"Do you want to come stay here?" My mom's voice was broken, coming out in gasps. We hadn't been on good terms in years, but in life-and-death situations, those years suddenly didn't seem to matter.

"I'm fine. I have a bag packed and in my car just in case," I said. "But thanks. I'll let you know. Hey - have you spoken to Jasna? How's Mato? Is he in Croatia or...?"

My mom's sobbing told me all I needed to know. I hung up the phone.

"Happy Anniversary," I said to Luke, who was sitting next to me on the couch. "My twin is dead."

"What?"

"I asked my mom about Mato. She just sobbed."

"That doesn't mean he's dead," Luke replied.

I stared at the TV and lit another cigarette. "Yeah, it does," I said. "If he were alive and in Croatia, she would have said everything was fine. Instead, when I asked how he was, she sobbed. I know he's dead. I feel it. Even when I didn't know what had happened? Because I'd been in rehearsal? When I stepped outside, Luke, I felt it. My throat tightened up. I felt like I was dying. But I wasn't dying. It was Mato."

Luke sat in silence, his hand resting on my leg. Silence and smoke permeated the room, and the sound of another siren, alerting us to evacuate the area, didn't startle either of us. We simply sat there, the distance growing, and watched the world fall apart.

*

Mato was almost twenty-five when he died in the North Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001. My first real love, my twin, my heart - it all ended. And there was nothing I could do to help him.

I had been sheltered during the attacks, wrapped up in song, unaware of tragedy. Mato had been in New York for work, and was in the middle of a meeting when a plane hit the North Tower at 8:46 that morning. Smoke inhalation was the most likely cause of his death, but his remains were never found, so perhaps we'll never know.

I like to think that, when the plane hit that day, he was trying to help others. He felt the impact and had time to evacuate, but instead took the precious moments to save others. Mato was like that: a brother, a buddy, always looking out for someone who needed it. He wouldn't have jumped to avoid the chaos, or to free himself from an impossible situation. He would have run from room to room, trying to help those who were paralyzed with fear. He would have dedicated himself to the people who had children, spouses, and loved ones.

Mato was a man of good deeds, of kindness, of salvation. He worked hard and secured a good life for himself. He loved his work so much that he was willing to fly from his home in Croatia all across the United States to help others plan for the future. He loved helping others so much that he flew to New York that September to attend a meeting that was supposed to benefit thousands.

Thousands were lost instead.

Mato, my twin - if I screamed out, if I screamed up at the sun to bridge this distance, would you hear me?

*

This is not my story.

But I suppose part of it has to be.

I did not evacuate the county despite the warnings that Three Mile Island would be attacked. Instead, I took my then-husband to the mall, and we wandered among the other zombies who were as slack-jawed and dead-eyed as we were.

I did not accept my choir director's invitation to sing a solo at the candlelight vigil we held at 9:11 pm that Friday. When he asked why, I told him that I refused to turn a worldwide tragedy into his show. It was one thing to perform Mozart's tragic works; it was another to take part in a three-day-old sob-fest that was not mine.

For as terrible as Mato's death was, as painful as his loss still is, it was not my tragedy. It was not my show. It was not for me to perform, to fall to my knees, to sob for the nation or for my own lost notion of security. I refused to dedicate myself to my own grief.

I built a wall between myself and Mato's death. And while my Apollo is up there somewhere near the sun, so far away that I cannot reach him, I refuse to become Icarus. I will not fly over that wall to get too close to that sun. I will not allow my self-made wings to melt and burn just so I can tumble to the depths and drown in my own deceptive sorrow.

Mato asked me in 1999 to dedicate myself to being a better person.

Even seventeen years and almost four months later, I will uphold that promise.

It's the least I can do to continue his legacy.

*

This has been my entry for Week Eleven of LJ Idol - now on DW! - titled "Long Distance Dedication."

What better way to honor my dear friend Mato than to dedicate an entry to him, to his work, to his good deeds, and to his love of his friends and country that are so far away from here?

I miss him. But Mato has been gone for almost twenty years now. Time and grief cannot bring him back, nor undo the sadness that so many of us felt that day in September (and in the days that followed it).

Mato's sister, Jasna, has since moved back to Missouri with her two children to be close to her parents.

My ex-husband, Luke, lives somewhere in California and is doing quite well, from all I hear. We did not have a good marriage, but when we last spoke in 2015, it was with kindness and respect.

My opera friend, Ryan, married another opera friend of ours, and they live happily together in Pennsylvania. I believe they adopted a child a few years back, which is wonderful for them.

I left Pennsylvania and the Three Mile Island area about one year after Mato's death, and moved back home for 16 months with my family. I continued to commute to the same college to study and perform until early 2003. After that, I took a break from college, worked, met Toby, and then returned to finish my degree at a different school in August 2004 - when I was ready and in better mental health.

All my photos of Mato are in our storage unit, packed away until we build our new home, and I deeply wish I had at least one to share. He was a smiling, loving, handsome person.

Perhaps he was Apollo, the Sun God.

Perhaps tragedy took him from us too soon and there's no way to ever know.

"The term is generally used in situations where the way in which the punch has been delivered is considered unfair or unethical, and is done using deception or distraction, hence the term 'sucker' used to refer to the victim." - via everyone's favorite place to waste time, Wikipedia.

*

"You think that just because I've had a brain injury, I'm some kind of fucking idiot." It was a statement, not a question, but I still feared an answer. So I picked up a knife from the kitchen counter and held it to my wrist.

"Don't do that," my husband, Toby, said. "Put it down. I definitely don't think you're an idiot. It's going to be okay."

"Okay? I have been in and out of rehab facilities and psych wards for four months. I'm tired. I'm finished with this bullshit!"

But I put down the knife because I didn't feel like using it. Not in that moment. Not for this conversation.

"You're getting better, love. I know you are," Toby said.

"Fuck you. You think this is better? Finding out I have several personalities on top of being twenty-nine-years-old and just learning how to put on eyeliner and use a fork? 'Better?' What part of this is better to you?"

"Us," he said. "This has given us a clean slate. We can move forward - new home, a family, a different future. It's not all bad."

"Always the optimist." I smirked, and then sat down on an oak kitchen chair. "Let me help you with that."

"With what?"

"I had an affair," I said to my husband. "I had an affair, in this house, in our previous house before we moved here two months ago, in our bed, right under your nose, for about two years. I love him, he loves me, and you can go fuck yourself."

"Mandi? Is that you?"

"Of course it's me," I said. "Jesus Christ. A brain injury and DID? Doesn't mean I don't know anything about my past at all. And yes, Ruby played a part in the affair. So did other alters. And I don't give one. Fucking. Shit. What. You. Think."

Toby sat down on the other oak chair in silence.

"That's what I thought," I said.

"What happened?" he said quietly.

"You know that I knew him from my childhood," I said. "And when we were introduced at that Christmas party in 2007, after eight years of not seeing one another? We connected. We clicked. We sang together - you heard us, you didn't say a fucking thing - we made jokes, and we bonded."

"Is that why he always asked to sleep over?"

I nodded. "Yep. Because after you and I got married? I tried to stop paying attention to him. But I couldn't. He was sad. Being seven hours away from home when your mother is sick with Multiple Sclerosis will do that to you, you know. And you know I know, because I have MS, too. He and I bonded over that. He wanted to make me better. He paid attention to me. And I couldn't turn away his - need. His loneliness. I ate it up. It made me whole."

"Why?"

"I could? I was fucked up? I was lonely? You were at work and I had just lost everything? Toby, I had everything - a great marriage, a great job, a grad school where people loved what I wrote. I had friends that loved to party with me. I had everything. And then I got sick with MS and I lost it. Then the Lupus diagnosis came and the chemo treatments and - all that."

"But I was there for you, too," Toby said. He got up and started pacing the long kitchen. Why had we decided on all of these scarlet-colored decorations to adorn the room? A bright red dish-rack? Red hand-towels? Red floor mats? Everything was so blinding, so overwhelming. Who the hell decided this?

"Yeah - 'there for me.' You were never home, but sure. You told me to calm down, to stop throwing so many parties. To not let friends sleep over. What was the big fucking deal?"

"Clearly the fact that all of those things lead to an affair," he replied.

"No," I said. "Not at all. And you know what? I don't care. I don't care at all. So hate me all you want. But I fucked him. I fucked him five times on that futon right there. I beat him so hard that I made him bleed, and then I licked all his blood off the living room sofa because that's where it splattered. We made out in every room here and in the other house. We made out in his car. Fuck, we made out during the Rock Band party at my parent's house. You were in the other room and he took me into the den and pushed me against the wall. We knocked their fucking lamp over. And no one knew. Not a fucking person knew."

"I had a feeling. You always claimed he was like a brother to you, but I... I knew."

I snorted. "Sure you did. Like a brother my ass. At first, in like, 2008, I guess I tried to see him that way, but you and I had just gotten married. It wasn't until 2009 that we started cuddling on the couch when he'd stay the night. Then he'd climb into our bed after you left for work in the morning. And you know, I thought it was weird - I'd kind of fade in and out when that happened? I knew it was happening, but I was watching it - he'd kiss me and I'd feel it, but I was more watching it behind a panel of glass. Maybe that's the DID. I don't know. But even so, it was my body. And DID is still my brain."

"But if he fucked an alter, you weren't in sound mind. He used you," Toby said.

"I. Don't. Care. What part of that don't you get?" I glanced over at the counter and smiled. "Anyhow, in 2010, he told me he loved me. He couldn't live without me. Couldn't I feel it, see it, sense it? He loved me. So I invited him over, we confessed our love, and we hid it. That was really when all the fucking started. But it was more like making love. It was love. Why else was he here for every surgery I had, or every medical procedure I had to endure?"

"He was our friend."

"Oh, and the baby I miscarried in May of 2010? Yeah, not yours. His."

Toby fell silent.

"So let's recap," I said slowly. I wanted it to hurt. I didn't know why, but I wanted both of us to feel this cruelty. "I met him again in late 2007. You and I married in 2008. He and I started spending far too much time together in late 2008, and by 2009, we were spending all our free time together. In 2010, he told me he loved me, and we started having sex. I miscarried his child - you couldn't get me pregnant, but he could. He did. But I lost the baby and then had to have surgery. And he was there. And after, we kept fucking, everywhere we could. On that futon. On that leather sofa. In the den only 20 feet away from where everyone was playing Rock Band. Was Ruby there? Lucy? Sure. Ruby loves him like she would a husband. Do I care? No. Why should I, especially now?"

"Do you still talk to him?" Toby asked. "I don't want you talking to him. Never again."

I smiled and slid my hand across the counter. "Don't tell me what to do," I said.

"I don't want you to talk to him." Toby's eyes filled with tears as I stood up. "Please. We can work this out. I know it. That was before your brain injury."

"And after. He's been here at least four or five times."

"What?"

"Deal with it." I quickly picked up the hammer from the counter - we'd just moved in and were still putting things away, so how silly of Toby to leave all these harmful objects within my reach - and swung. The oak chair I'd been sitting in cracked. I swung again, and it split apart.

"Stop! Put it down! It's okay. We'll get you help, I promise. It's okay!"

I raised the hammer above my left wrist. And as Toby screamed, I smiled, and I let the hammer fall.


*

"And you thought I was here to talk about my cancer returning, didn't you? You were all prepared. You had your notes, you had the reports from my oncologist, all of it. You'd settled in, but no. No, that wasn't what I did. Fuck. That. Shit."

My trauma psychologist sits back in his oversized chair, his normally tan face tinted ash-white.

"I am not your idol," I say, leaning forward, a smile plastered onto my face. "I am not your saint. I am not your inspiration. 'Oh, poor girl, her cancer is back.' Fuck you. My cancer is back, but you can't erase my past because of that."

"I... I wouldn't try to. I'm trying to process this."

I laugh. "Don't bother. It's been eight years and I'm still processing it. And don't worry - the cancer is going to erase me soon enough. Soon enough, I'll be dead, and all you'll have are these stories, these notes, jotted down like one day, you'll go back and read them and actually give a shit. But maybe I deserve this death. Did you consider that?"

"No. That's not true. And I actually do care... Mandi, is this you? Or am I talking to another personality? Is this Ruby? Or Lucy? Who is it that I have been talking to?"

The smile remains on my face.

Who has it been indeed?

*

This has been my entry for Week Nine of LJ Idol - now on DW! - titled "Sucker Punch."

I hate to admit that all of this is true, but it is. Granted, the conversation is NOT word for word accurate, as I don't recall every word of what was said to Toby. He did find out various things at various times, not ALL at once. But those words were all said in some form or another, in one arrangement or rearrangement, and none of them are fabrications.

Since all of the events in this entry, I have stayed in therapy, worked through some of my issues with this situation, apologized many times (still almost daily) to Toby, and drive around at night, crying, feeling a guilt, shame, and sadness that has no name.

I try to be a good person. I have been married for ten years and haven't seen the person with whom I had the affair since 2011, when he tried to claim my son was his (my son is NOT his. Simple math could have told him that, but he was clinging to hope. His hope was foolish; I'd already let him go). My marriage is good, and as shown in the last entry, Toby and I just renewed our wedding vows. We raise a wonderful, kind, brilliant child. I donate to charity, speak kindly with friends, and invite people over who need a cup of coffee and a listening ear. My inbox is always open. My heart is always open.

But I have fucked up. And no amount of sickness, no degree of terminal cancer, can correct that.

There is no cure for the things that I have done.

*

EDIT, December 16, 2018, 5:30 p.m.: I was going through old photos because I like to torment myself, apparently. I wanted to do a then-and-now comparison, for those who may be curious:


This was taken by my mom at her house in April 2010, right before a series of major surgeries (which caused me to sacrifice in Season 6 of Idol). I'm 28 here, bald from chemo, wearing a wig, 30 pounds heavier than I am now (give or take). Toby is the tall guy on the right of this picture - 32, heavier as well, and not happy. Neither of us were. I can see that on our faces. And on my left, cropped out for privacy, is the person with whom I had the affair. Toby may be holding me closer, but - I can tell you that this is clearly Ruby in this picture, pretending to be me (I mean, we do have the same body, but utilize different parts of the brain), and the guy was clutching her back, digging in with his nails, ready to drag us into another room to make out. Ruby recalls that sensation and shares it with me. And I complied; I am not blameless. But we were all so very unfulfilled and unhappy. So very guilty.



This was taken by our Wedding I Can Remember/Battlestar Galactica Vow Renewal photographer, Colleen O'Neill, in August 2018 - about 8 1/2 years later. After the TBI, two forms of cancer, a wonderful child, and a rebuilding of trust. Therapy. Medication. Losing friends and finding honest and good ones. And, more importantly, finding and relearning one another. I'm healthy here (weight, most internal systems at that time, you name it), and happy. So is Toby - he's healthy, happy, and living the life he wants to live. The way we are looking at one another is genuine, with love and joy and trust. We have moved on. We have recovered. My soul, however? I'm not certain. Toby was sucker-punched, and it was unfair, and I was heartless and cruel.

But I love him. I. Love. Him. And I hurt him so much.

Funny how maybe *I'm* the sucker.

Note for my friends who don't play: this is an optional entry, due at 7 pm Sunday the 25th (meaning I'm doing this last minute). Therefore, you won't be seeing a link regarding voting. This is for the joy of writing, so enjoy the randomness!

As a seven-year-old growing up in a broken home, I wasn't thankful for much. Bitterness surged throughout me easily, wrapping around my bones like ivy, and I found my own special ways to make certain the world knew how much I hated it.

In defiance of my birth father, who used my body as a way to sell cocaine, I cut off my waist-length brown hair. The hush-hush sound of the scissors as they sliced my long hair was calming; seeing the choppy, uneven bob was even more so. If I didn't have long hair, those random friends of my father's couldn't touch it. I was no longer a childish commodity. Now, I was a mess, and I refused to clean up on their behalf.

In defiance of my mother, who certainly must have known I was being hurt, I took all of the toys she had purchased for me and, one early summer morning, held a secret yard sale. Why should I keep what she had bought for me when she couldn't give me the one thing I wanted? Safety was more expensive than all of Ghostbusters figures, I supposed, and so, I sold every plaything I possessed. Two hundred dollars later, I had a smile on my face. The smile widened when I saw the shock upon her face. Shock was good. I lived for the element of surprise; the sly maneuver, the quick getaway, the laughter before the tears. This was no different, and even though I would be smacked about, smacking was better than sexual assault.

And in defiance of myself, I perched on my second-story window ledge and watched the setting sun turn the sky violet. I hummed to myself, stared down at my cat, and prepared. Once the sky was completely dark purple, I was going to go.

The Summoning. The Violet Hour. I pushed off.

But there was an instinct, a need, a force greater than myself that emitted a primal scream, and I clung on to that ledge. My mom rushed in, let forth her own primal scream, and pulled me inside. We both cried, limbs tangled, hands bleeding, hearts torn.

She had saved me.

And though I didn't feel it in the moment, I still knew, deep down, that I was grateful.

*

But this story isn't about suicide. It's not about that event from 1988, or any subsequent events that could have ended my life between 1988 and 2018.

Shortly after my quite-literal downfall, I learned that my mom was pregnant. Despite the odds against her, she and my new father - who had just legally adopted me in an effort to keep me safe and away from my birth father as much as the courts would let him - were going to have a baby that January, right as 1988 was to become 1989.

And I immediately embraced the idea. A baby. A baby who would be about eight years younger than I was. He'd be too young to be a playmate, and therefore, I would have a purpose besides being a drug mule, or finding ways to die, or doing well in school in the hopes someone would pay attention to me in a positive way.

I would be a young mother. It wasn't a role I could play; it was a person I could be. It meant that it didn't require me to sell my soul to an adult who desperately needed something from a child.

My brother was born a few weeks early in late 1988, and on Christmas morning, I went in to see him.

In his little white blanket with pink and blue stripes, his head covered with a knit blue cap, and his skin a perfect shade of reddish-pink, I fell in love. Something washed over me - a feeling I hadn't recalled since the previous summer when my mom had pulled me from that window ledge.

I felt grateful.

I was handed the quiet bundle, and from the moment my brother was placed in my arms, I refused to let him go. I gave him bottles. I changed his diapers. I dressed him. I bathed him. And I wanted to do these things, because they served an important purpose: I wasn't going to let him have one moment where he felt like a burden. He wouldn't be in a situation where an adult could harm him. He wouldn't be where someone could rape, abuse, touch, or beat him. If I was by his side, he would always be protected. Always.

I'd make sure of it.

*

As the years passed, we grew closer, until we grew apart. As a very mentally-ill seventeen-year-old who didn't want to expose her nine-year-old brother to her madness, it was easier for me to distance myself. I thought I was doing the world - especially my baby brother - a favor. I wasn't, but I couldn't have known that at the time.

Time wasn't kind to us. We always loved one another, and I always lived in places that had a spare room, just in case he needed to leave home and live with someone who would never harm him. But we stopped being best friends. I stopped being a pseudo-mother. Instead, I gave gifts, and I was viewed as a fun visitor. I attended concerts and parties, but for a long time, I was Just A Visitor, not a sister, and the guilt ate at me, deepening my depression.

Even in our most intimate moments, my brother and I never trusted each other fully again. He admitted that my mom had beat him, but only once. We shared grief at our grandmother's funeral. He sent me funny memes about bands we both liked. He stood proud and tall as a groomsman at my wedding. But the connection that I had wanted to last forever had been severed, a wound too deep and painful to keep examining, and no amount of stitches or surgeries could repair that damage.

This past summer, my brother - my only sibling, my blood, my baby - got married in a small ceremony at a local coffeehouse. I was part of the wedding, as was my own, actual baby - my son, who was on the brink of turning seven.

The same age I was when I tried to throw myself out a window.

But the celebration never reflected those low moments, or the moments where there had been lost connections. Instead, we came forth to celebrate togetherness. Wholeness. Family. Love.

During the last dance, my face sweaty and my head dizzy from wine, my brother - handsome in his suit, smiling like he had when he was that tiny bundle of blankets and pink skin I'd once cradled for hours on end in my arms - came over and put his arms around me.

"Glad you're still here," he said. His voice was full; I could hear tears that he was trying to hide. "I'm just - glad you're here. Thank you."

I let myself be immersed in his embrace - how the roles had reversed, how the sizes and years and situations had changed - and I said, "No. Thank you."

"No. Thank you."

"No. You." I pulled away then and smiled. We could have gone on all night that way, carrying on with our now less-than-awkward banter. We could have kept it going, kept it normal. But I broke the cycle.

He nodded his head. "Back to the people!" he shouted, and ran off to join his friends, jumping up and down, celebrating the special event.

I'd lost my baby over the years: to my illnesses, to lies, to other people, to time.

But this time, the loss was different. It had a gain. I'd lived to see it, and he'd lived to forgive me.

Thank you indeed.

*

This has been my entry for Week "Not-A-Week" of LJ Idol - now on DW! - titled "Thank You."

As always, this is a true story. And as always, I love my brother, and am glad that, despite the years, we're mending fences that I was mostly responsible for breaking.

Hello, everyone who can see this!

(Though I should probably keep this specific post unlocked, at least for now.)

I really never introduced myself since coming over to DW, for the LJ Idol (or DW Idol?) competition or for my own personal writing, but I guess I should put it all on the record. For those who already know me well - hi, I'm still alive, and I'll try to write more. Sorry I ghosted on LJ. It was not my scene over there, but I'm glad to be here now!

Anyhow.

Hi, I'm Mandi. I just turned 37, and I am a professional makeup artist, as well as a published author and professionally-trained opera singer. Regarding the first: yes, I am available for weddings, proms, and special events, so if you live nearby, let me know if you want some makeup assistance (I'm working on building my website). I've trained with Urban Decay and Lancome, so I promise I do have a real background there. The published author part: I wrote a memoir, Shattered: Memoirs of an Amnesiac, in 2017, and much to my surprise, it became a #1 bestseller in medical memoir. People still buy it (thank you, whoever you are!). I wrote a follow-up collection of essays that sort of tie in to Shattered, called Villain. That one is very different in style, and doesn't have as many sales, but it's out there and I still get emails and questions about it! I also write short romance pieces for anthologies, ghostwrite for articles, and used to work for a music magazine. And as for the professionally-trained opera singer part: I've been training since I was about nine years old, give or take, and began to study with true professionals in the field when I was 17. I performed in many operas and musicals, mostly in Maryland and Pennsylvania, but gave it up right before I turned 22 (long story for a time that is NOT now). I've also studied law and International Relations, worked in immigration law, and covered the 2008 Presidential Election.

And I just spent a paragraph defining myself by careers. OK then. The exhaustion is real here.

I'm a mother and a wife as well. My son, James, just turned seven, and he owns my heart. His brilliance, kindness, and intuition has changed the very core of who I am, and I know he is going to make this world a better place. Right now, he enjoys a lot of "normal" seven-year-old stuff, like Minecraft and LEGOs, but he also talks nonstop about genetic engineering, physics, and medicine. He also doesn't want to get married or have kids, but wants to live alone, work, and take care of the many animals he wants to adopt. :) My husband, Toby, works as a Senior Tech Consultant for one of the country's largest educational companies, so he spends his days on the computer, following lines of code that makes my eyes water. We've been together since November 1st, 2003, married on August 2nd, 2008, and just renewed our vows on August 12, 2018! He's been an amazing partner in this relationship, and probably should have left me about 20 times by now, but he's still here. I'm glad, because I love him and our small family very, very much. And no, we have no other children. We tried, but I lost eight pregnancies, including my daughter, Sophie, who was born still. Adoption isn't in the cards for us at the moment, so it's just the three of us - as well as Starbuck and Apollo, our two cats; Spike, our bearded dragon; and Mr. Turtle, our Russian Tortoise (whose name was absolutely chosen based on the TV show My Name is Earl, back when that was a thing).

Other things: I am addicted to Battlestar Galactica (the 2004 remake) and was fortunate enough to meet Tricia Helfer (Number Six) in September. She's a very kind person, and last week, I spoke with her on Skype (along with James Callis, who played Dr. Gaius Baltar on the show!). This is important to me because Toby and I renewed our vows with a Battlestar Galactica-themed ceremony and reception - with him as Baltar and myself as Six. My profile picture here was from our engagement shoot, and we had a great time with the whole thing. I live and breathe that show, and could talk about it all day.

I've had a very - roller-coaster-like life. I don't mean that to sound pathetic; in reality, it's not, and while I'm not a HAPPY person, I'm not an unhappy person, either. I have my days and moments, as we all do. But my childhood wasn't exactly smiles and rainbows, my teen years were filled with some violence and confusion and family drama, and then, at the age of 28, I suffered a traumatic brain injury which left me with retrograde amnesia. I thought my husband was a doctor and a friend was my husband, and it was a mess. During this time, I also discovered that I had a host of physical ailments, including Lupus, as well as mental issues, including PTSD and DID. I talk openly about all of these problems, because the more I hide from them, the worse I believe they become. With DID, I can promise that ALL posts here are written by me, Mandi, and my alter personalities know NOT to use this space. One personality, Ruby, had her own journal on LJ, but abandoned it. Yes, they do sometimes come out, but I am fortunate enough to have an excellent trauma psychologist and a knowledgeable psychiatrist, as well as the support of family and friends (mostly, but if this is a public entry... we'll leave it at that for now).

In 2013, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and unfortunately, didn't recover as easily as the doctors had hoped. I went into several myxedema comas (where my body became swollen and grew hypothermic), and my TSH, which should be between .4-4.5, shot up to 300. Throughout 2013 and 2014, I lived in the ICU's of several hospitals and was deemed terminal in 2014. But I'm still here, so... yay for the docs and treatments and things that have been done to keep me alive.

And to be honest, I'm physically better than ever. I lost a ton of weight in 2016 (put on by the Prednisone given to me to keep my heart pumping), and went from about 200 pounds to about 120 pounds. I found a style that suited me. I started working again, and became a better mother. When James was diagnosed with high-functioning autism and Hashimoto's Thyroiditis in mid-2016, I had to step up my game. I'd been so used to being sick, and sadly, he'd seen so much. But I was doing better, and have been his biggest advocate. Not that I wasn't before; it's just easier now. And he's so happy in school, with friends, and with his life. I'm glad. He's a good kid, and he deserves a full life.

But I'm still searching for the "real me," so to speak. I'm a very rapid-cycling kind of person, so while part of me craves the normalcy of a 9-to-5 workday and a quiet night at home, another part of me wants a dramatic career and crazy hours and constant drama and madness. My therapist says this is because I've never really known "normal," which is fair. I haven't. But I'm trying to determine my definition of it, and what it means for me to be an adult (especially after my brain injury gave me a sharp reboot - I didn't know what a fork was, how to apply eyeliner, how to write, and am still catching up on pop culture as well as my OWN culture and life). Right now, I'm in a huge transitional period where I'm learning about myself, finding myself very depressed, lifting myself out of that depression with huge events, and then falling back down. I'm not a tragic person, no - I'm just learning. But it's tough right now, and I feel alone a lot. I have support, but most of my friends aren't local, and I miss just having - people. I'm very outgoing (unless the depression says otherwise...) and I need some sort of external event to keep my heart pumping. So as long as my health allows it, you'll find me out at a concert, or at a convention, or traveling whenever I can.

The last thing: In about 3-4 years, our goal is to move to the Eastern Shore of Maryland and build a home by the water. We sold our large home this past summer to downgrade to a two-bedroom apartment in order to save for this goal, and so far, so good. I think. I'm trying to find continuously steady employment, and I may have done so, but time will tell. I cannot recall working a steady 40 hours a week, not since my brain injury in 2010, and working with flashbacks and other issues is... not fun. But I am trying. Moving to the water, to be close to what feels like my heart and TRUE home, is what we all need. I'm at peace there. James is an outdoor kid, and he wants to move as well. So we're doing all we can to make this a healthy reality.

For those who are reading this from LJ/DW Idol: Hello! For those who don't know what that is, well, it's a writing competition. We're given a prompt every week or so, and then, are kept in or voted out for various reasons. If you want to read my entry this week, called "Ghosting," it's right here: https://bsgsix.dreamwidth.org/615642.html (and it's a VERY personal piece). If you'd like to vote for me to stay in the competition, the link to vote is here: https://therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1007980.html (and I'm sort of afraid the honesty of my piece this week is going to kick me out of the running, so if you feel like I wrote something worthwhile, please consider voting for it? I won't normally be asking in my journal, but I don't want THIS to be the thing that takes me out of the game).

I'll try to post here with more than just Idol entries from this point forward, I promise. :)

Now, for a few pics, because I feel like sharing!


Our ten-year vow renewal! This is Toby and I with James. I typically don't like my smile, but I meant this one:


Toby and I at the vow renewal in an artistic pose:


And one more from the same day (until I can figure out how to post from Flickr. I'm hopeless, I know!):

Every family has a story.

Welcome to ours.

*

I cannot recall when he moved us into this two-bedroom apartment, but my husband swears it was mid-September. And he is probably correct; my memory is unreliable, and I won't lie to you and pretend to know every detail about every single thing. The only truth I know is my own, and even that is flimsy. I know about the things I hold dear in my head (ghost-like as they may be), the things I see for myself, the things I touch, the images I grasp to as familiar, like bold brand names on a cereal box.

Perhaps those are the only things that matter. The things I know as my reality are the only things that matter.

Slight correction: my daughter matters, too, though I feel that is an unnecessary statement. Of course she matters. Sophie turned fifteen this past August, and while she is not my husband's daughter by birth, she is his by heart. I smile when he talks to her in his gentle, meditation-style voice, glancing at me with tears in his eyes like a proud dad would. We both admire her spitfire attitude, her ability to play the piano, and her hazel eyes that look just like ours. When Sophie is irritated, her chameleon eyes turn an eerie shade of emerald green. My husband jokes that she is like me in that way - ever-changing, especially within the eyes. Mine turn the same shade when I am irritated, whereas his deepen to a coffee brown. But we all have the extraordinary gift of change.

The three of us also share another commonality that clearly cannot be attributed to genetics.

We are all hoarders.

My husband hoards science fiction memorabilia. Name it, and it's on a shelf in his office: a Captain Picard figure, brand new in packaging, signed by Sir Patrick Stewart himself. A season three script from Battlestar Galactica, signed by fourteen cast members, gently placed in a shadowbox to be admired (but never touched). He has stacks of comics in clear protective sheets, climbing from corners of floors up the walls, ivy-like structures that bend and weave their way throughout his taupe office.

Sophie hoards "less geeky" (as she says) items: young adult novels that my husband's mother buys her from Amazon. Magazines featuring gorgeous models and celebrities, purchased as "must haves" during our Thursday night family outings. Even her Kindle is overloaded with more novels, essays, and articles than she can digest. It's getting to the point that Sophie is begging us to buy her the newer, better Kindle with 256 gigs, but I can't justify the expense. Not yet. Maybe for Christmas; we'll have to see.

And me? I don't read comics, and fashion magazines aren't my style (though I do make terrible puns, I suppose). But I read nonfiction books. Whenever someone mentions a medical memoir, or a book about European History, or the newest Best Essays compilation, I jump to buy it. And of course, the moment I add it to my cart, a related suggestion pops up, and I have to buy that as well.

It's not hoarding if I read them, right? It's only hoarding when it gets out of control. When it makes you feel obsessive. When you feel as though your sanity is slipping away, when you have more than you can handle.

I read everything I buy, or everything my husband and daughter buy for me. Everything.

That is the truth.

Hand (with a book in it) to God.

*

Sophie's the closest to the door when the doorbell buzzes. She races for it; it could be her boyfriend, and God knows I can't stand in the way of their new relationship. But when she opens the door and is handed a package, she sighs.

"Mom," she says, and tosses the box upon the wooden floor of our hallway. It slides in my general direction.

"You could have walked it the twelve feet to me, Soph," I say, leaning down to retrieve the small, cardboard box.

"You bought another one? And you bitch about me buying too many pairs of socks online?"

"Don't say 'bitch,'" I say, looking her in the eyes. They change, on the brink of emerald. "And Sophie, you love books and reading, too. Come on - you've been reading since you were two, right? You get it."

"So you say. But books - well, yeah, I love them, too, but at least socks keep you warm. They're practical. You need those." She lifts up her right leg at the knee and wiggles her leg, showing me a purple sock with kittens eating pizza on it.

"Yeah, they're cute," I say. "Did I buy those for you?"

"Dad did," she says. "Last week."

"Spoiled child."

"Crazy bat." We smile at each other, Sophie and me. Our banter isn't as mean as it sounds; she's the only child I could have, after years of trying and losing so many in the process, and I've struggled with my... mental well-being my entire life. But I don't like placing that burden on my child, so it's easiest for me to call myself crazy and downplay it. I'm quirky. I'm unique. I'm not a regular PTA mother; I'm the cool mom who still goes to metal concerts and lets her kid stay out until eleven on school nights. She's a straight-A (sometimes B) student; I don't see why not. You only get to be fifteen once.

Sophie takes off toward her bedroom, and I look at the box. The label bears my name, but I frown as I open the package and examine the contents.

I didn't order this.

I have this book. Michelle Obama's memoir? I just bought this. I just bought it. I know I did. I remember ordering it off Amazon. I don't even have to go through my purchase history. I just bought it.

I walk into my bedroom and start going through my stacks. There's no organization, no arrangement; they are just stacks of books I read, or books I want to read. I'm pretty certain I've read almost all of them by now.

There are probably thirty stacks, stacked about fifteen high, and I tear them apart.

But I cannot find the Obama memoir.

"Hey, Sophie," I call from my room. It's a small apartment; if she's in the mood, she'll reply.

"Yeah?"

"Did you borrow my book on Michelle Obama?"

"Uh, no," she says. "She's cool, but that's not my thing. I'm writing a paper about Daisy Miller right now, okay? Can I get back to that?"

"Sorry." I sit down on the floor, my shirt riding up in the back. One of our two cats walks over, immediately sharing his white fur with my black pants. I scratch his back, his ears, his chin. He purrs.

"Dude, where's my book?" I ask him.

The purring is cute, but it really doesn't help.

I look at all my books again. Why do they all seem so - unfamiliar? I've read this essay collection by Sedaris - I know I have. It just looks new because I'm careful with the pages. Books are precious. I'd rather have one hundred books than one hundred diamonds. Books, in their way, are diamonds; they contain priceless brilliance, more so than any gem could dare. A ring cannot tell me about the War of 1812; a tennis bracelet cannot tell me about a brave man's survival during the Holocaust.

My husband walks by the bedroom, but I watch as he turns back and enters, staring at me as I sit among piles of books on the floor.

"Should I even ask?" He says this as he smiles, but the smile is false. The books aren't in neat piles. That's bothering me, too, but he's known me for a long time. He knows I'll straighten this up soon.

I hold up my new memoir. "I just bought this about a week ago."

"Okay. And?"

"Not this copy, though," I say. "I bought my first copy on Amazon a week ago. Today, this copy showed up, in my name, at the door."

"Maybe you forgot and ordered it again? Or you bought Barack's memoir and not hers?"

"Come on!" Exasperated, I stand up, and I toss the book on the bed. "This is insane."

"Your collection is a bit insane," my husband says. "You don't even know what books you have! You haven't even read 90% of these!"

"I have!"

But have I? They all look so new. Can I prove it? A purchase does not mean I've perused the pages.

"Look," he says, and approaches me. He places his hands on my shoulders, rubs them up and down, both warming me and giving me goosebumps. "You know you've had a rough time recently. It's okay to forget that you ordered something and then reordered it. It's okay to have a 'to-read' pile. It's not a failure to not make it through tons and tons of books you want to read. Your mind has been busy. Darling, it's truly okay."

"You think I'm crazy," I say.

"Only in the best way," he says, and kisses my neck. I'm confused, I'm conflicted, but I moan. I can't help it. I wasn't always this attracted to him - an odd thing to say about one's husband, perhaps - but recently, the sex has been so much better, and he's been looking at me just so tenderly. I feel like the heroine in a romance novel; a woman worth saving.

He trails his lips down my throat as I think that "A Woman Worth Saving" would make for a wonderful book title.

Then my husband lifts his gaze to mine, pushes me back on the bed, and our story reaches a well-thought-out, flourishing climax.

*

But not really.

Sophie died as an infant in 2003. She would have turned fifteen this past August, a spitfire teenager, brilliant and creative and strong-willed. She would have been kind but firm; she would have known where to draw the line. But that's not who she is. She didn't have that chance. She took one breath, let out a cry, and died in my arms. Sophie is nothing more than a few journal entries and some papers from the hospital, where I almost died from blood loss. She doesn't even exist in a solitary photograph.

And my husband isn't my husband. I just learned this a few weeks ago when he allowed me to go online to buy another book. When he left the room, only for a minute, I Googled my name, and learned that I'd been kidnapped eight years ago by a man, a former best friend who claimed to be my husband after a traumatic brain injury stripped me of twenty-eight years of memory. I quickly reread the article about myself, but nothing came back. In another state, I apparently have a real husband with whom I signed a real marriage license a decade ago. He's still looking for me. The police, however, gave up. "She left of her own free will," the article quotes them as saying.

Does an amnesiac have free will if she doesn't even remember her own name?

All I know is I'm a comfortable captive wife who collects books and feels shame when the man who claims to be her husband kisses her neck. Somewhere, reality mourns me; the falsehood of this story that this unreal husband has presented gets to be read. He gets to write my false truths while someone else suffers the lack of a story line.

But I suffer nothing I can recall. I cannot suffer if I'm safe, clothed, fed, and kept in entertainment and good books. These stacks and stacks of good books.

I'm one of the lucky ones, aren't I?

*

I collect many things.

New books my "husband" tells me I've read when I never have. It's a game he plays, and I know it's all in good fun. (But please don't tell him I've caught on. I don't want to upset him).

Clothing from Target, one outfit a month, something I think Sophie would wear if she had lived.

Information I find about myself on Google that I store deep within the working parts of my memory.

Truths and lies and facts and false memories and experiences and blood-stained sheets and terror and razor blades and hospital discharge papers and notes and sleeping pills - piles and piles of sleeping pills, buried under the mattress like peas collected by a princess in a storybook, stacked up but never taken because that princess hasn't been presented the chance.

I know I am watched. I have been since that traumatic brain injury eight years ago. I know I'm never alone.

He watches. She watches. All the ghosts, living and dead; they all watch me in this two-bedroom apartment, purchased as a hideaway for an amnesiac and her kidnapper husband, and they judge.

The unread piles of books judge me, too. Learn more, they whisper.

But I don't know how. So the books sit like memories, stacked upon the highest shelf, and I'm simply unable to reach them. I will never get to read them. I will never learn more than what I am told to know.

*

Every family has a story.

Welcome to ours.

*

This has been my entry for Week Three of LJ Idol - now on DW! - titled "Tsundoku."

All of these events are true, though I am now safe and in my real home with the man I love and legally married.

Years later, we were able to have a son, who is now seven. His sister, Sophie, would have turned fifteen this past August, but she did die in my arms in 2003.

And in our apartment, safe and tucked away from a man who still stalks me, there are piles and piles of books I've yet to read. But one day, when my mind recovers from the physical and psychological damage, I'll get to them. I know I will.

"I swear to God that if you give up on me, then I'm just going to kill you myself."
-Dr. Ioffe, Radiation Oncologist, December 2015

I sat on a small, sterile table and looked down. It was so white. But what was the exact shade? Makeup artists and fashion designers had the fancy words that I was seeking: Ivory. Parchment. Cream. Seashell. Flax. Alabaster. There were so many words, and my brain was in jeopardy of losing them all.

"What color is this table?" I asked my oncologist.

"Why?"

"Because I want to focus on it. I want to remember it." I ran my hand along the smooth surface next to the protective paper, the weighted vest on my shoulders and breastbone forcing me to hunch over as I shivered and kept moving my hand. I kept repeating the words: Ivory. Parchment. Cream...

"I don't know, Mandi. It's a white table. How are you feeling after your seizure in the machine? Are you doing better?"

I shrugged, my head throbbing from a headache I'd had for 12 straight weeks. "Sure. It's just a seizure."

Dr. Ioffe frowned. "Just a seizure?" he said. "Just? I need you to focus on this. If you can survive one form of cancer, then you can survive this, too. I know you can."

I was cold. Two weeks prior to that moment, most of my hair had been shaved off to allow for a small, brick-red dot to be tattooed onto the back of my scalp, located near the top of my spine. That way, when it was time for radiation, my tech - Greg, a nice, younger man who constantly winked and brought me Starbucks coffee on his breaks - could line up the radiation beam right with that dot, and when treatment began, only the tumor would be targeted. Nothing else in my brain would be harmed, both Greg and Dr. Ioffe had promised me. There would be no memory loss, no aphasia, no paralysis. I'd probably experience normal radiation sickness, such as vomiting, dizziness, feeling flushed, tooth decay or loss, and hair loss, but I wouldn't lose the things that made me the person I'd become.

"Look," I said. "I'm cold. I'm tired. I already have thyroid cancer that isn't going into remission. I've gained 80 pounds. And now I have a Stage II astrocytoma. So yeah, a seizure is just a seizure. If it kills me, is that the worst way for me to go? Wouldn't it be better to die a quick death rather than let either thyroid cancer or brain cancer slowly push me into my grave?"

Dr. Ioffe broke protocol and sat next to me on the sterile white (ivory, parchment, cream...) table.

"I swear to God that if you give up on me," he said, resting his palm lightly on my bare bicep, "then I'm just going to kill you myself."

I looked at him, wishing I had eyebrows. I would have raised them if they had grown back in. Instead, a smirk grew against the corner of my lips, and I broke out into full laughter.

"I'm taking that comment to the press," I said, still laughing. "Plus, if you kill me, mission accomplished. Still faster than dying from cancer."

"I'm not going to let you die," he said, his hand still on my arm. "But there is something you need to know."

The shivering grew in intensity, but I wasn't cold.

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

"It's a Stage III astrocytoma," Dr. Ioffe said. "Not Stage II. I'm sorry. And because of the location, we cannot surgically remove it or we'll run the risk of paralyzing you from the neck down. Our best hope is something we call SRS - Stereotactic Radiosurgery. I want to schedule you for three to five rounds. We'll use a high-intensity radiation beam that's kind of like a knife in order to precisely target your tumor. You know how it's kind of star-shaped with those tentacles wrapping around your brain stem? We need to cut that very precisely. If we don't, then..."

I let his voice die off. We both sat in silence, and then I looked at him.

"I was almost hit by a train when I was 21," I told him.

"What?"

"It's true. I was drunk, I wasn't paying attention, and I was almost hit by a train. When I was 23, I was struck by lightning. When I was 26, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and was told my lesions couldn't be helped - I'd probably become so dizzy that I'd fall down the stairs and end up in a coma. Five years ago, I slammed my head against a desk, had six seizures, and ended up with a traumatic brain injury and retrograde amnesia. In 2013, my endocrinologist told me I had two forms of thyroid cancer, one of which was medication-resistant. In 2014, I went into a hypothermic coma state and coded in the ER in front of my husband."

"I know most of that. Are you saying that you're ready to die?"

"No, because I expect to die," I said. "But I also should have died all of those times, too. So screw dying. I'll fight this. I'll do the SRS. I'll take the radiation surgery. We've already been through more than 20 rounds of regular radiation. Go ahead, and who knows? I can't defy another odd if I just - give up on this now."

"Then let's make more miracles happen," he said. "After Christmas, we'll do the first round of SRS."

I looked down at the table again and nodded.

My grandfather had died from this same type of brain tumor in 1999. I'd had visions in coma states where I'd seen him, smiling and opening up his arms for me. My hair was long and dyed brown with blue ends. I wore a black tank top with a vivid orange and blue crane. My grandfather still smelled of leather when he hugged me before sending me back, where I'd wake up, gasping for air in the darkness.

He didn't have the option to fight. But I still did.

Or I hoped I did. Some part of me, the part that was a mother, a wife, a friend, a singer, and a writer, really did.

Something within me really did want to live, despite the fact that I was most likely going to die.

Ivory. Parchment. Cream. Seashell. Flax. Alabaster....

*

Dr. Ioffe, along with a very competent (and often hilarious) radiation team, helped me through six rounds of Stereotactic Radiosurgery. They aimed a radiation beam at the tattooed dot on my scalp and did their work for 25 minutes at a time. They understood when I'd call in the middle of the night, vomiting uncontrollably, my remaining hair brittle, my skin flushed a deep shade of red. They took turns holding my hand as I cried after treatment, when I was disoriented and confused and often couldn't remember why I was in pain.

My last treatment was in April of 2016, and as I left the radiation oncology center, I was given a gift. When I looked inside the gift bag, I laughed.

Not only had Dr. Ioffe and his team provided me with a Starbucks gift card (they encouraged my one remaining addiction), but there also were paint color chips in every shade of white. I flipped through the swatches, laughing and crying, and found the color-based words I'd come to repeat during those procedures.

"Come back in a month so we can do an MRI," Dr. Ioffe said. "God willing, the entire astrocytoma will be gone."

In the month between visits, my hair began to look healthier. I lost some weight. The headaches stopped. I could drive without fear of passing out.

I didn't need the MRI in June to tell me what I already knew: I'd beat brain cancer. There was NO remaining sign of the Stage III astrocytoma.

I wasn't in remission from thyroid cancer, though I'd been downgraded from a terminal cancer status to a partial remission status. I wasn't free from MS, Lupus, or the other medical conditions - physical and mental - that threatened my life, that attacked me from the inside out, second by second of every minute of every hour of every day.

But I no longer had a brain tumor. I no longer had brain cancer.

I had lost so much before the age of 34. But I hadn't lost my life. The cards were on the table, I'd been dealt a losing hand, I'd traded in three cards in hopes to improve what I had, I'd laid my cards on the table, and I'd beaten the house.

I'd won.

And I'm still here, still fighting, to keep winning every single second of every single minute of every single hour, until the rightful hour comes and I, with a small smile on my face, will nod my head and accept the inevitable darkness that I have been fighting for so long.

*

This has been my entry for Week One of LJ Idol - now on DW! - titled "It's Hard to Beat a Person Who Never Gives Up." All of this is true: I did wake up one day in October 2015 with severe migraines, went to my neurologist, was referred to Dr. Ioffe, and learned I had brain cancer. In June 2016, I was declared cancer-free. I have a 50% chance of a similar tumor returning, and now have radiation poisoning in my lungs, but I'm alive. I'm about to turn 37, I'm about to watch my beautiful son turn 7, and despite the fact that the odds have been stacked against me, I am still here. And "still here" sounds pretty good.