A Natalie Observed

Tag: love

  • 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.

  • In the Shadow of Your Cypress

    I have been avoiding you. I do not want to write. I unpinned your text conversation so I do not see your face every time I open my messages. I removed the rotating photo widget on my home screen. I want to share pictures of Dottie on Instagram so you are not immediately visible in my feed. I started watching Southern Cham from the very beginning. I would rather watch overprivileged adults from Charleston fight with each other than be confronted with how much I do not want this to be my life. I am analyzing who has what personality disorder (most/many), who has a substance use disorder (most), who would have gone to FYRE festival (Craig and Shep), and who comes from families that owned slaves (several). I would rather waste my brain on reality tv than remember I cannot discern if I lost my way because of you, or if I have actually been lost my entire life.

    Losing you has allowed me to connect with a part of myself that I am confident has always been broken. There is a part of me who comfortably and whole-heartedly gaslights myself into believing things will improve. This part fights with another part of me who knows things absolutely will not. Sometimes I wonder if you died so I could finally admit that I really have no confidence in my ability to make decisions for myself, that I worry I wasted my life hoping I could have the fairytale despite never actually having the skills to obtain it. I keep trying to learn, to apply what I gained from last time, and yet I consistently return to the same pattern. I see it. I repeat it. I break. I try not to repeat it. I see it. I repeat it. I break. It is crazy-making.

    I know all the things to say to myself for comfort. Natalie, you did the best you could, and you are doing the best you can. You are getting help. You are smart. You are a good therapist. You have a big heart that believes what people say. You also struggle to understand when behavior does not match someone’s word becuase you were not taught that skill. It is okay it feels like attempting to learn a foreign language to learn how to discern a liar. You were gaslit and chaos created isolation and confusion. Mental illness and alcoholism were not your fault. Falling in love with someone who hurt you does not make you incompetent. It is okay to feel shame. This is all normal. You are normal.

    I talk to myself the way I would a client. I do not understand why my ability to have compassion for others is stunted when it comes to the compassion I have for myself. I say the things and even know the things, but I never believe them. Trauma is the splitting of an experience and sometimes, as a result, of identity and emotions. I know the dichotomy of what I am experiencing is trauma. But which trauma? My parents divorce? The boyfriend who became a heroin addict? The spouse who came out trans? The partner with a mental illness who lied about his alcoholism and then died? None of these situations were things I asked for. And yet Part of Me assesses that I am the common denominator. It is very hard to not feel like I am doing this (motions to life) all wrong. That I missed a turn somewhere. Sitting in that feeling, the one that feels responsible, shatters me.

    The mental gymnastics I am doing to get through every single moment of every single day are completely exhausting. I am so tired of feeling tired. Of wanting an escape but never finding one. Right now, I wish I could completely delete you so that I do not have to constantly talk myself into the narrative that believes my life will improve, that it will not always be this way. I want to plan my entire life so I know there is something to look forward to, but I am scared if I keep not thinking about you, you will haunt me. I feel haunted enough. I am stuck. Who wants to write and reflect when they are stuck. I am avoiding you.

    A few weeks ago, Dad and I went to watch the Oscar-nominated short films at The Pageant. You would have loved The Pageant. It is cash-only, no reservations, and just about as Chico an activity as you can get. You would love the weird, indie movies they show, the way the audience interacts with each other, the Godzilla mural, and that you always see one person you know. The second short film by an Iranian director brought me to tears. It depicted a couple who spotted a whale on the beach. She starts to take a bucket of water to try and save the whale, but he returns to the ship offshore, leaving her. We then alternate between her and him as he proceeds to go in and out of PTSD flashbacks from the Iranian war. We see her struggle to keep the whale healthy while worrying about him. You see him feel shame and embarrassment at not being able to help her. I felt like I was watching a movie about us, a story about two people so lost in his trauma, she almost drowned.

    Watching In the Shadow of the Cypress is the first time I experienced with what it felt like to be in a relationship with you since you died. I am so curious what you would have thought of it. I think you would have liked it as much as I did because it showed how I imagine things felt for you. I think you would have liked the artwork. I learned later it depicts a father/daughter, not a couple and I feel a bit silly for not realizing. Also, I cannot find it to watch online so I am confident I misremembered the plot. It won best Animated Short and I whole-heartedly agree with that choice, as magical as the other films were.

    There. I did it. I faced the reality of you dying again. I am going to go back to avoiding you now and watch who does not get married on Love is Blind. I have been in the shadow of your cypress long enough.

  • Party Tricks and a Birthday

    My latest party trick is having a panic attack when I am surprised by the sound of sirens or see a gurney. I have you to thank for that. Last week, I was in the nail salon when a patron lost consciousness and hit their head. I did not see what happened but heard the thud of an untethered head hit the floor. Fifteen minutes later, an ambulance came. No sirens alerted me to anything going on, so it was business as usual for me as the technician buffed and shined my destroyed nail beds. Then I watched them roll the gurney in and I felt my chest tighten as images of you on a gurney flashed into my mind. Do I take my backpack with me? When do I call your dad? Who is going to clean up all the medical supplies strewn all over our apartment? Your vomit is still on the floor by the dining room chair where I found you. They said they got a heartbeat, which is good, right? The image of the banana bag hanging from the hook in our living room ceiling flashed in my brain as I watched two EMTs help a young woman onto the gurney. Tears welled, pooled, and fell down my face.  I just need to make it through this appointment. Box breath, Natalie. You cannot hyperventilate and have a visible panic attack in public. Is this really happening? Fuck. I did not know I would have PTSD flashbacks like this.  I called my mom afterwards because I needed someone to know I had a panic attack when a woman needed medical attention at the nail salon.

    The next day, I explained to my dad what happened over lunch at Burger’s and Brews. We sat outside as the temperature hovered around 64 degrees Fahrenheit making Spring feel touchable. Not five minutes after I explained the panic attack, do I hear the sound of sirens coming from behind me. Chest tightened, heart raced, tears poured out of my eyes. The image of me talking to the ambulance driver as I sat in the front seat about how strange this all was. People really do pull over when the lights and sounds are on. I have always wondered. I said that to the ambulance driver and explained to him that I am a therapist, that I understand what I am going through would come back to haunt me. Dad held my hand as I closed my eyes and tried to catch my breath. Picture the box, Natalie. Out, …2…3…4… Hold, … 2… 3… 4… Inhale… 2… 3… 4… and so on. I think it lasted five minutes. Part of me feels validated that my dad witnessed it. I am not being dramatic or making my situation worse through a story. I hear sirens from behind me and have a panic attack. That happened. It happened a couple weeks ago while on a walk with mom and was happening again at lunch. I have data to validate an experience. I am not crazy.

    Tomorrow you would have turned 42. 42. I always felt a tremendous responsibility and honor in making your birthdays a big deal. We took trips or had nice dinners because I think it mattered that you knew how much I loved that you were born. That you came into my life. That you existed. And then there is this year, the first time I mark your birthday after you died. I do not know what to do. It feels too soon to have composed some poetic idea for how to mark the day.  I researched beach vacations because we loved the beach together and I would love to have an experience of my anxiety melting into the rhythm of ocean waves. I pondered Disneyland because you would have wanted me to experience that kind of adrenaline joy. Financially none of that made sense. I cannot afford the time off given the six weeks I have missed since you died. I ordered a carrot cake from Mim’s Bakery. I Googled “what to put on a dead person’s cake” because I do not know what to say. Heather suggested a quote from your favorite author, so I looked up Gabriel García Márquez quotes as I know he was one of your favorites. There is always something left to love. I feel like a fraud because I have not read the book. I am terrified of discovering it has some meaning that is not what I am making of it. Also, only having the wherewithal for a cake feels substandard. This is not representative of how I feel about you, but then again, nothing right now feels adequate. You are having panic attacks multiple days in a row, Natalie. A Cake is enough. He would have loved a cake.

    That said, for you there is always something left to love. Even in the darkest moments of this experience, there is something left. Parts of you are here with me still as I wrestle with how to be a human in the wake of your absence. I know it is because of you I will learn the depths of what I am capable. What a gift you were and are to me. For all the complications of this story, at least that piece I know is real and true. I am not crazy. You existed and mattered. 42 years later and you still matter a great deal. I wish you were here so I could tell you all this, but you are not because you died. Tomorrow is your birthday, and we are not going to dinner or having a celebration because you died.

    What the fuck?