A Natalie Observed

Tag: family

  • Presence

    I feel like I am looking into a kaleidoscope. Every turn I make I see new silhouettes, new refractions of color against the tiny mirrors. As time passes, the sun changes the shapes. Is that a rainbow or the feeling of you?

    I do not know how to write about this, the complexity and the layers to the experience leave me wanting more words to describe it. A dainty, brunette woman around my age wrapped her arm around my waist while at the Gang of Four show on Friday. She needed to move me from one place to another so she could reach her group at the front of the stage. I can feel it now, her hand sliding from my left hip across my back as she parted my dad and me so she could continue her journey. I watched her touch everyone in my line of sight the same way so I know I did not misconceive the feeling. Time slowed down. Why did she touch me like that? Do I still have my things? I felt for my purse. Still clasped. I do not know why anyone would steal from me at a show like this. Then, a memory of you touching my waist poured itself into my body like wet, heavy sand. People do not touch my waist without permission. No one has touched me like that since you did. I shattered.

    Outside the trains don't run on time
    He believes it's not coincidence

    Jon King reminds me why I am at this show, to see him and this band. To see the energy he has been bringing to vocalizing post-punk anthems since 1976. This is the first time my dad is seeing Gang of Four after listening to them contour his young adulthood. This is the first time I am seeing a concert like this with my dad, as an adult child hanging out with her adult dad. As an adult in my life without you. We are in San Francisco at the Chapel. Only 500 people are experiencing this tonight. I want to be here with them. But I am having a panic attack. Because a woman touched me around the waist and no one has touched me there since you did. No one touches my waist without permission.

    I got this demon on my back every day
    It’s the hope that will not fade

    Tears stream down my face and I close my eyes. I feel my heart reverberate in my chest as music folds around me like the fog this city is famous for. I feel both cold and warm. I feel my sore feet anchoring my body to the Earth. I flex them to give relief to their screaming. I feel my stiff legs wondering why I am still standing after a Peloton workout and 15,000 steps. My body can do amazing things. I am breathing. I count to four and inhale. I count to four and exhale. I hum the words I do not know and remember you cannot have a panic attack while singing. I do not know all the words the way I wish I did. I make up words.

    Blinkered, paralysed
Flat on my back
My ambitions come to nothing
What I wanted now just seems a waste of time
I can't make out what has gone wrong
I was good at what I did

    I cannot stop the tears streaming down my face and I wonder if I need to go outside. The cold air would feel so lovely. But people would see me. And I do not want to tell them why this is happening. Explaining your death to strangers is a gamble I do not have the bandwidth for. Why would she touch me there? No one has touched my waist since you did. No one touches my waist without permission. If I go outside, my dad will know something is wrong. It is not that I do not want him to know. I am not afraid to show him I am shattering, that the kaleidoscope is stuck in a rotation I cannot stop. But I do not want to ruin this once-in-a-lifetime experience for him. The members of this band are in their late-60s and early-70s. Two of the original members have already passed. This is their last tour. To see all of Entertainment! played in its entirety is a privilege. To be here in this city, at this venue, and with my dad is a gift. They say one of the quietest places on Earth is in the Hoh Rainforest in Washington State. They say when you are there you can hear the trees breathing. I am striving for that level of presence. I want to bathe in my own wonder of how my life got me here. I want to feel it all.

    I also do not want to ruin this once-in-a-lifetime experience for me. I battle on. I am so angry another woman did this to me. Girl Code died. And yet, I do not want to let her win. To let grief win. Because I want to hear the trees breath. I want to feel this music in my body and notice how the audience is the same age as my dad and wonder how long these grown men have worn that matching pair of perfectly crimson pants. I want to feel anything other than what I have felt for months. I want to remember what it is like to not feel consumed by your absence. Why did she touch me there? I am in a room full of people and in an experience entirely alone. No one has touched my waist since you died. No one touches my waist without permission. Keep singing, Natalie. You can’t have a panic attack when you’re singing.

    Look at me, ain't I fine
Brand new me, dig my mine
I parade myself

    The show wraps with an encore of Damaged Goods, played already in the first set, but again for us. A second bite of tiramisu. A replay of Sound of Music. A second chance we often miss in living. A second chance I am not getting with you.

    Sometimes I'm thinking that I love you
But I know it's only lust
The change will do you good
I always knew it would
You know the change will do you good

    This is when I have the thought I scribbled down in the Notes app of my phone: Is “total presence” the blessing of your death? I feel so acutely aware the moments of my life are passing by, that I am doing what I need to do to survive them. I feel robbed of my hope for Gang of Four because a woman I do not know touched my waist without permission. I am angry another woman did this to me. I know, I know she was probably high on something where touching feels appealing. Yet, even with that generous interpretation of her behavior, she should not have touched me without permission. She robbed me of my first time letting someone touch my waist since you died on my own terms. She took something important from me I can never get back. I do not know how to make that make sense. The kaleidoscope keeps changing the shapes of your shadow, of your light. Is that a rainbow or the feeling of you?

    I experienced every second of that show as best I could. I stayed in it. Present. I saw a couple grow closer together as they bobbed their heads in unison. I observed the blonde in front of me get looser with each refill of her wine. I saw Hugo Burnham’s smirky grin as he banged on his drums despite breaking his leg and cancelling a show a few days earlier. I got to see my dad the way he probably was before and even just after I was born, a once upon a time 20-something wondering with awe how he got here. My dad also tries to listen to the trees breath. We are the same that way. What a beautiful life indeed.

  • Grief Goblins

    Tonight I finished the third season of Lincoln Lawyer. We started it when you were alive, finished the first episode but did not get further. I really enjoy this show and I so enjoyed hypothesizing the scenarios for the ending with you. I know the cases will all come together, that the cast of characters and a pug will figure out how to get the innocent person saved. But I never know how the saving will unfold and am always pleasantly surprised.

    As another intense cliff hanger ended the season, I felt the strongest urge to know what you thought about it. My brain imagined asking you. Tears started to form in my eyes as I felt the missing of you, the intense empty space where you used to sit on our couch. Then, at the exact moment I registered how much I missed you, I also felt a feeling that caused my heart to heat up and I knew immediately what it was. I felt the feeling of love and the glow of adoration for you. I have not felt that feeling in so long, I think I forgot about it. It was… everything. The brightest, softest and briefest light. I tried to sit in the feeling but as brilliant as it felt, it faded, the grief goblin taking his fill.

    Registering the warmth, I started crying in deep sobs disturbing enough for Dottie to come lay on my chest and start incessantly licking my face. She somehow knows the distraction will help me to catch my breath, to start focusing on breathing. I do what I do when she does this and start counting breaths in and out, keeping rhythm while I pet her so I can attempt to relax both of us. It works.

    Lately during my Peloton workouts, I start sobbing on the bike, mid-workout. I cannot really figure out why, although I know it makes sense that it is happening. The crying is never at the same time, during the same style workout, or triggered by something said. I’ll be climbing some hill, out of breath, sweaty, and trying to beat the fastest person even though I never do, and an overwhelming feeling of sadness consumes me. And, no, I am not describing a feeling that believes “this is so good I am crying”. My crying is a feeling whispering in a mothering voice, “this life has been so incredibly difficult for you. And that part, the part of it being so difficult is really, really sad.” I find this entire experience confusing. Why while working out, during my endorphins capture, is my body releasing the darkest of feelings? I cannot even work out without Grief saying hello? Really?

    I told my therapist today I have a very strong instinct to feel this experience I am having, that I do not want to biohack my grief. There are so many somatic therapies that could and probably eventually will help me heal the trauma living within me. But part of me just knows I need to feel all of this, to study its impact on me, to learn what my body can do to heal itself and help me through this. Sometimes I feel like that is positive side of losing you, even though that feels incredibly horrible to say. Is there a positive side of any of this? If there is, it is that I am getting to know myself in a way I never would have without you dying. It is humbling, to say the very least. I told my therapist it is ironically the least anxious I have ever felt. Go fucking figure.

  • Five Seconds

    I keep trying to remember the details of what happened when I found you on the dining room floor, but I cannot remember it all and it is frustrating. I walked in, I found you on the floor. I called emergency services. I told them you were not breathing, my name, and my address. The first person transferred me to another person. I told the new person you were not breathing, my name, and my address. It seemed like a waste of time to repeat myself, but there was no time to question it. The person on the phone talked me through how to do CPR and counted with me as I pressed as hard as I could on your chest. I remember them telling me to speed up a bit and I followed their guidance. I remember hearing the sirens. I remember Dottie’s scared, shaky body under the dining table. I remember the man standing with me in the kitchen documenting every action taken on a laptop. I remember all of our furniture strewn about the apartment, part of the coffee table in the kitchen and another part behind the couch. I remember the dining table shoved against a wall. I remember one paramedic opening our windows to let in the cool November air.  I remember them hanging an IV bag from the hook in the middle of our ceiling. The hook was used for a blanket fort, I explained to everyone in the room who could hear me because for some reason I felt I needed to explain a hook in the middle of the ceiling. Cringe.

    I remember your vomit still on the floor where I found you. I remember them calling out to each other as each round of CPR and electric stimulation to your heart completed. I remember questions about what I knew about your circumstances. I remember listing out all your medications and health conditions, your age, and family history. I remember telling them the things I knew about the timeline, that you had been depressed and anxious with the election, that you were drinking more. I remember telling them sincerely I was not aware of any drinking other than the half-empty pint bottle on our dining table when I found you. That the amount of alcohol I found did not make sense for what I was seeing. I did not know then how many bottles I would find around our home when I moved. I did not know you lied to me as much as you did.

    I remember texting my mom, dad, Heather, and Randy that I found you not breathing. I remember one paramedic yelling down to someone in one of the two fire trucks that they had recovered a heartbeat, that they needed a gurney. I remember my mom calling as I told a different paramedic which medications you were taking, that I was sure you took them because I checked the pill sorter and Friday Morning was gone. I remember sending my mom to voicemail and texting her that I could not talk. I remember seeing Scott, our apartment manager, standing in the hallway and him mouthing to me “is everything okay?”. I remember telling him things were not okay. I remember a paramedic telling me they would need to take you to the emergency room, that I could ride in the ambulance. I remember debating whether I needed to grab my backpack or not and deciding to take it with me.

    I remember so many things. So many. But I do not remember how emergency services got inside our home. Did I let them in? If I let them in, that means I stopped CPR on you. Would that have happened? Did I stop trying to save you to let other people try to save you? Did I leave the door unlocked? It does not shut without the deadbolt, and I cannot imagine a habit I formed after eight years of locking that door did not happen on this day. But then again, I do not remember letting anyone in. So maybe I intuitively left it unlocked. Maybe they let themselves in through magic EMTness? I do not remember the seconds after I stopped CPR and someone took over. I remember them bringing you from the dining room to the living room, but not how they got to you. It bothers me. I wake up in the middle of the night and think about it. How did the emergency response team get inside? It could not be more than five seconds of time. Five seconds that continue to haunt me alongside everything else.

    Recently during a session with a client, they processed how nice it was to sleep separately from their partner. As they detailed the deepness of their sleep, the ability to read instead of watch television, I asked questions to help them develop more insight into the benefits of sleeping solo. Then, with the sharpness of a shard of glass, a flashback of you reaching across the bed to touch my shoulder as I tossed and turned interrupted my focus. The heat of tears filled my eyes. I pinched my arm with my fingernails, attempting to refocus on my client. I took deep, intentional, counting breaths. I could not feel the depth of how much I missed you while in session with a client. I could not start crying. I am a therapist, and this moment with my client was not in any way about me. I recovered, and nothing gave away my human, grieving, unideal moment. I did not miss a beat in my questions, in my reflections, in my mirroring. But it happened. I felt you right there in the room with me. And I missed you. I missed us. The way we knew the other was not sleeping well. The way we reassured each other we were not alone by touching the shoulder. A comfort in the night. I miss it.

    My last touch with you is touch you were not alive for. I do not know how to rectify that with my present reality. I run through what happened in an attempt to grasp it, like capturing pathetic fireflies in a jar, but my jar has holes. I keep hoping your death will settle in so I can feel anything else, but then I get stuck in five seconds I cannot remember about the last time we touched. They are five seconds I may never remember and it feels unfair. I want a rewind and replay option. Instead, I sit here as a cool breeze brings relief to warm temperatures to which I am not yet acclimated, wearing a Sierra Nevada t-shirt you got me from a delivery driver while at The Duchess. How am I here, and you are this entity that only exists in my memory? My memory minus five seconds. It is maddening.

  • Muscle Memory

    Last night, something funny and endearing happened on Big Bang Theory. I’m watching the series through because I have never seen it and I need dumb, low-stakes television. I turned to see if you also thought it was funny, my brain tricking me for a split second into thinking you were seated in your usual seat on the couch, but you were not there. You died. I lost language as I gasped for air between tears, attempting to recover from the impact of Grief Whiplash punching me in the gut. It took 93 days for me to look for you in the same room, a sadistic muscle memory and a refreshing reminder that I was not always devastated by you.

  • Bend

    When I cry, Dottie jumps into my lap and lays her chest on mine, her paws at the exact points where I imagine my lungs process oxygen and release carbon dioxide. This causes me to catch my breath, the pressure of her paws activating my Vagus nerve as tears fall on her tongue. It is never very long before my sobs stop. Dottie then moves off of me to sit guarding me diligently from a different angle of the room. I wish I could convey to Dottie how much it means to me that she is here dealing with me. Let this stand as an official note of my gratitude, not that she will ever know it.

    I canceled my workday on Tuesday because I could not stop crying. Before logging in for my own therapy, tears fell down my face. I knew at some point I would need to cancel work to cry, so I guess I have done that now. I described to my therapist how it felt to pack up mine and our life in five days. I explained how the sun was out for the entire trip until the last day. I expressed an incredible and inadequate amount of gratitude for my mom and Phil helping me. Then I sobbed as I described how stupid I felt finding the first, the second, the fifth, and the tenth bottle of vodka hidden in my home. Ten found in my home since the day you died. Ten. As I sit writing this in a new apartment in a new state, I still feel like I will find them and noticed I brace for impact when I open a drawer. I hope that stops.

    Yesterday, I had a massage with the masseuse who also does Reiki. She described feeling a lot of confusion as she focused on my heart chakra. “Yes, that’s about right” I muttered choking back tears. I am so confused. I feel like our relationship was not real. I can tell myself all the logic of why you hid so much alcohol in our home, of why you concealed it from me, from yourself, but I still feel like an idiot. While you lay unconscious in the hospital room, I told your family I thought things were getting better, but now I know just how much they were not. A bottle of vodka hit me in the face as your father and I pulled your clothes out of the closet to sort them. A bottle was hidden behind the recipe books. In a backpack. In a jacket. Under the bed. In a hat. In another hat. In the sock drawer. Your bedside table. Between couch cushions. I feel crazy. When was all of this happening while I lived and worked from our home?

    I am jealous of those who lose their loved ones, and they get to be angry because they died. Because the illness won. Because… insert any reason not related to killing yourself through alcohol overdose into the blank space here: _________________________. I hate myself for feeling jealous or admitting it. Loss is profound, unique, devastating, and breathtaking for everyone. I know that. I keep wondering if you even loved me or was I the gullible optimist who provided somewhere safe to stay? Would we ever have created our own family? Gotten married? Found happily ever after? I do not see how any of that would be possible with the secrets you kept and my senseless naivety. You died, and now I wonder these things. What would it be like to not have to wonder? I will never know. You will never ever be here to again reassure me the way you used to. Instead, I sit here with Dottie on my chest, trying to remember how to breath so I can mitigate another panic attack.

    I set aside your clothes I thought would make an interesting quilt. Your dad helped me go through your closet and told me stories about the memories he had with you in the clothes he knew. The bike race here. The camping trip there. A shirt from your mom’s race. A New Orleans Saints t-shirt. A Loyola sweatshirt. Shirts with bright bold patterns like you liked. Shirts I bought you. Shirts you kept that did not fit. They are sitting in a box marked “KLEENEX, SHEETS, ETC”. I am too angry and devastated to consider making something in your honor yet. I trust that this feeling will evolve, but right now, it is smothering me and I hate you for it.

    To quote Middle Kids song “Bend”:

    I am one bend away from a break

    I am one step away from the precipice of crazy

    I am holding all the pieces in place

    But maybe you’ve got to break me to see what I’m made of