I will never forget how warm the sun felt on my skin, how truly glorious the sky was, so bright and blue, cloudless with promise, as I stood in an open door balcony looking down at the city just beginning to wake, soft noises becoming louder, as the country’s people brewed their coffee and started their breakfasts, children being drawn from sleep and cotton sheets, as toasted bread popped from machines and butter blistered, ready. It was going to be a truly amazing day. I was thinking that the morning you were trying to leave me, not just leave our relationship, no, leaving the world. I was going to tell you about this beautiful place. It is even more beautiful in person, I would have said, and I would hear the smile in your voice as you would ask why I was leaving you behind again, making some comparison to a lonely old dog sitting by the front door, waiting for the sound of a motor, a car door, keys; something to signal their joy was returning home. We would both laugh, because you knew I wanted you here with me more than you probably wanted to be beside me, which was a lot, we both understood; but we have been together long enough to know this is our life and you come when you can, and I always return home. This was what I was thinking, the hot water at my lips, warming the ceramic cup, the moment you thought you closed your eyes for the last time. Or at least, you were hoping you were leaving. That had been your plan. A quick, painless exit, only it wasn’t so fast and it hurt the hell out of us all. I’m not sure the pain will ever end.
The phone rang from inside the hotel room and I was surprised, because it was early where you were. I was going to wait another hour before I called you, and even at that, I was thinking I would wake you, because it would be earlier than you usually get up, but I, having already showered and dressed, would need to head out to the streets below and go to a series of meetings that were important, always important, and I would prefer to walk as much as I could because I didn’t only want to see the city, but I wanted to feel it, smell it. A therapist some time ago advised me on a technique to manage panic attacks, something I was more riddled with then, and though I don’t remember the full sequence, the idea was to use all of your senses to block the panic, and it went something like this: name five things you can see, name four things you can hear, name three things you can touch, name two things you can taste and of course there was one more step, which has always escaped me; but it didn’t matter, because if I truly engaged in each step, I was better by taste anyway. So the final step wasn’t necessary.
At some point, I began doing this randomly, even in the absence of panic, to ground me into an environment and thoroughly experience it in all of its forms. We had been traveling together, early on in our relationship, when I caught you watching me. Your eyes on my face, questioning but fascinated, pulled me from the practice that was so automatic then, I hadn’t even realized I was doing it, and you said “where are you?” You asked with a smile because wherever I was, literally or figuratively, you wanted to come with. That was us. With anyone else, I would’ve lied, said I was thinking about something else, but I preferred when you were with me, even when navigating the maze of my mind, so I told you. “I see large green fan like leaves, I see a table cloth that is near the same color as the wood beneath it, I see a bright red cocktail on a blue napkin, I see a waiter with stubble on his chin, I see a pink flower in a small vase,” I paused, did you think I was insane? You smiled. “ I hear the birds singing in a tree, not too far off. I hear the waves hitting the rocks outside. I hear people laughing at the bar. I hear a car starting.” Another pause. “ I feel your knee next to mine, I feel the condensation on my beer bottle, I feel the course paper of this menu.” Your eyes are still on mine, gentle. “I smell the salt air. I smell coffee. I smell gardenias.” Finally, fully trusting you, “I taste the sweetness of the candy you gave me before we left.”
We talked about it then. You knew about the crippling anxiety I dealt with after my father’s death. You didn’t need to do the practice, having never been afflicted with this neurosis, but still, there were moments when we walked somewhere, when our talking went quiet but our minds buzzed, you would stop, stand still, turn to me and say with the dramatic flair everyone loved in you. “Quick. What do you smell?” And we would laugh but we both always answered. I loved this about you. I loved everything about you.
Except this.
“Hello?” I said, smiling, waiting to hear your voice, already feeling a little flighty in my stomach, something that amazes me still, that the thought of hearing you still gets me giddy.
Only there was yelling.
“Hello??” I couldn’t make out any words. Whoever it was was screaming and panting and moving, the phone moving in and away so the words were clear, jumbled, muffled and then absent. My mind raced. It was the house phone, not your cell. My heart plunged and I closed my eyes to concentrate, it worked, the blocking out of all the visual input. If pulling in your senses could stop an emotional freight train, blocking them could heighten it. It must be the maid. Trudy was there, early, but she sometimes did that if she had to get her kids from school. “Trudy!” My voice was firm, direct. “Stop talking.”
She did.
“I am here, ok, so try and take a breath and then as calmly as you can, what’s happening?” I was gripping the phone, turning in circles, my eyes still closed, and I was holding my breath. Trudy could be excitable. My first thought that maybe it was one of the dogs. Sometimes they got out. Maybe they ran past her before she could get them. I could see them, running, guiltily thinking they charged her, hoping to see me, coming up the path behind her, and they ran, maybe straight out into the road….
“Miss, Miss Celia…” Trudy’s voice broke again, she moved the phone away from her mouth and I could hear speaking but not at me. “It’s Miss Rebecca..”
I could hear more voices in the back. “Trudy, what about Rebecca?” She didn’t answer. “Trudy, can you give the phone to Rebecca? Can I speak with her?”
I was rubbing my head with my hand, feeling make-up roll along my fingers, leaving streaks. I would need to redo it. My mind swirled. Was it a fire? No. I would have gotten an alert on my phone. Had a pipe burst and you were somewhere beneath the house trying to fix it? I imagined rivers of water flowing through the kitchen we just renovated and I got angry at the flash memory of that plumber who was a little too shady to my liking, but you checked his work and you have some knowledge about these things so I let it go.
“She no breathing, Miss Celia, she no breathing.” Trudy broke into tears at this.
“Who, Trudy? Who is not breathing? Is Rebecca there?” My mind couldn’t accept it, you know. I didn’t know who wasn’t breathing, but it never occurred to me that it was you. You, so exuberant, so FULL of life. You are the sun, I used to say that to you. You are the sun and I am the moon and the dogs were our stars.
“Miss Rebecca is not breathing. It’s what I’m trying to tell you.” She pauses. “Here, wait, wait, he tell you.”
There is rustling, scrapping of fabric against metal, as the phone changes hands. A new voice is at the other end. It’s authoritative, calm, the kind of voice that has learned to remain calm in any kind of situation. The kind of calm doctors, police officers, lawyers, and of course MEDICs have to have. I know this kind of voice. I know the calmness means nothing.
“Yes.. Miss?”
“This is Celia Roberts I am the wife of Rebecca Byrnes. What is going on?” My eyes and fingers are clenched. I do not want to hear what he is going to say. I want to jump , run and hide, because I know before he says it , it is not good. I know before the next breath and the words that follow, it will not be good. In fact, I know it will be awful and I can feel as I stand in this beautiful hotel room, as morning is just starting, with all the promise it created, in this city of love; my life will never be the same again. And I am weak, weak to my bones. You always say I’m the strong one. You have the muscles but I have the fortitude, but I am shattered right now and I need this to not be real. Oh God, please don’t let this be real. Please wake me up right now, because I can’t do whatever it is that I will need to do. Please God. No.
“We responded to a 911 call this morning from your housecleaner of an unresponsive female found in the home. She has been identified as Rebecca. We have begun resuscitation and currently we have a pulse but I would urge you to come to the hospital.” He paused. “You need to come to the hospital.”
“Wait. Wait” My hands are up to block him but he cannot see me and I can tell by his voice, he is moving and he doesn’t want any questions. I don’t care. “Was it foul play? Did someone hurt her?” I don’t know why I ask this. There is no reason to suspect this but what else could it be? And who would do this?
My hands are shaking and I wrap one arm around my waist to hold me where you should be, because you do when I am scared, and my arms aren’t enough, and I need you, and I am not prepared for what he is about to say.
“No ma’am, there were no signs of foul play that we can see.” He pauses and I can hear him moving outside because I hear other people talking and I hear doors opening, and closing, big doors, truck doors like fire trucks and ambulances and without being there, I can see the scene. They are taking you. I didn’t know you already wanted to be gone. “We observed some pill bottles by the bed. We are taking them to the emergency department for their assessment.”
“What pills? She doesn’t take any pills.” I am insistent because I understand how mistakes are made. People are in a rush, they get careless. Things get missed. There were no pills.
Only there were.
“Ma’am. You should meet us at the hospital.”
And with that he hangs up. The cordless phone goes dead. It is probably in Trudy’s hand that is shaking like mine. Trudy watches them take you. Trudy saw the pills. Trudy knows more than I do and I am your wife. I know we all have secrets. I never knew you could hide it so well. Or was I so blind?
In a blink of an eye, I see you laughing as you put my luggage in the back seat. We had made love the morning I was leaving. I can still smell us on your lips and on your fingertips as you touch my face and tell me to be safe and come home. I always do, I say, and I always will.
Was the plan for me to find you in the bed we just shared our love in?
I need to book a flight. I need to cancel my meetings. I need to think but my hands are still shaking and nausea is rising up and I can’t do any of this but I have no choice. I will call the team, but what do I say? Medical emergency. That’s what it is. I can say that without my voice breaking. I am making lists. I can send over the presentation. Jarby won’t do it as well as I can. No one will. That’s why I am so good at what I do. My mind races. I see blurry. I feel faint. I am going to throw up. My heart races.
Name five things you can see. Four things you can hear. Three things you can touch….
I don’t want to cry. I promised myself I wouldn’t, but no amount of planning, sitting in cramped seat on an airline I never fly because I hate the seats and I hate the snacks, pretzels, a whopping five in a bag that wouldn’t fill the hand of a toddler, packed in like steer waiting for slaughter, with people who are smiling, talking, and laughing like the world is ok (It’s not); could prepare me for the sight of you covered in tubes, with your arms strapped to the bed rails, which for a moment was sickly comical because you liked that sort of thing when we first started dating, only this isn’t funny and it isn’t kink. Your eyes are closed and there’s a tube in your throat and there are nurses with serious faces and doctors with murmured voices around your bed. I want to scream. I cannot.
Instead, I cry.
It’s my shaking shoulders, the movement that wasn’t there and now is, that caught a nurse’s peripheral vision, and she turns to the glass doorway, and steps toward me. She asks me my name and nods when I say it and then the murmured voices turn to me and I am engulfed in a sea of blue scrubs and I am told that while you are stable, you are not out of the woods. They talk tests. No brain damage, good. Abnormal liver function, bad. Potential for multiple organ failure, very bad; but you are responding, good. You are a fighter, they say, but over the next few hours I would learn you threw in the towel, and I am just beginning to understand the side of you I never really knew.
After a few hours of watching you breathe in a darkened room, humming of machines surround your head, IVs drain their tentacles in your arms, drip, drip, drip, a nurse tells me I should go home and try and get some sleep. I nod like it’s a possibility, both of us knowing it’s not; but I get a sense they need to do some nurse things and I am in the way. I kiss your hand that is still strapped to the rail, in case you get agitated, they say, agitation is common when coming out of these things they assure me. They never said the agitation would consume both of us, and each would face battles and stare in the abyss in our own separate wars.
I am shaking when I get into the Uber. Exhaustion covers me like a storm, cold, brittle, careless, and I can’t count five things I can see. It is so beyond that now. The thought strikes me then, in my endless frailty, if I leave now, will you leave, too? If I’m not there standing by you, commanding you to stay by some sense of obligation for promises made and re-made over time, will you just go? The thought makes me want to jump from the car and run back into the hospital, but I cannot. I don’t have the strength to move and I am aware, fully aware, that you can leave me at any given moment, and you might, because words are meaningless and promises are rote when the soul has lost its fervor and everything fails in its wake.
The house is dark. Bottles of furniture polish and window cleaner are still out on the table. Trudy must have left when you did, not wanting to sit in this curse any longer. I can't blame her. I drag my luggage to the bedroom and turn on the overhead and it pierces the black like a needle, angry but insistent, and when I walk over to the bed, I see what I have been told and I know it’s truth. Pills. They are partially dissolved, bits and pieces of pink and chalk powder, dried to the linens in the vomit that defied your plan and raced fiercely, unwittingly, from your stomach and through your teeth as you collapsed, listless, almost without life, on the mattress.
It isn’t a dream. They aren’t wrong. You did try to end this life.
I think I’m shattered, but at the same time, I get incredible bursts of optimism. I am overcome with intense fear, as though I have actually been physically assaulted, cut with a knife by someone else’s hand, and I am bleeding internally, waiting for my mind to stop, my body to collapse, my heart to give out as surely it must being a victim of such a grievous injury; but then there is a denial, an attempt at healing, like scar tissue does after a trauma, it goes to work, stitching tendrils, joining microfibers, preserving life and I become stupidly euphoric with hope. My brain insisting It’s all going to be ok, because I am too fucking weak to accept, no it isn’t. It is NOT going to be ok. And this volleying back and forth consumes me in absolute despair to a low I can’t even look into and then subsequently shotputs me into an unjustified faith.
I was going insane and it was only a few hours in.
I couldn’t remove the sheets from the bed. I couldn’t put them in the washing machine. What if that was the last part of you I would ever have?
I passed out on the sofa, the dogs on either side of me. They wouldn’t go in the bedroom. They waited outside, watching me with their dark knowing eyes, feeling the pain I couldn’t express, waiting to support me in the confusion that would follow. I wondered as I lie down, setting pillows for me and them, did they watch you go? Did they know what you were trying to do? Could they hear your suffering heart when words weren’t spoken? Did they listen to your breathing turn low, your heart rate almost cease, your mind begin to relax as you released your grip on what held you here on this Earth, as those of us who need you still clung on in white knuckled ignorance?
They know I am hurting. They both curl themselves in tight balls, one by my chest and one behind the bend of my knees, their weighted heaviness and soft snores ground me in a way they know I need, but I feel lost.
I have always been prone to escapism. It’s been my greatest trick, a survival skill, polished and quite worn, serving me since my youth. I couldn’t physically escape the infinite loneliness I felt as a child. I was never really liked by my family. It was never stated, of course, that would probably be so egregious even my folks knew better, but I also knew I didn’t fit in, either. I was a nuisance. I was too loud. I wasn’t funny. I tried a hundred different ways to be better, trying on behaviors like barrowed clothes, to find a match that was agreeable. The one that stuck was invisibility. They liked me best when I wasn’t apparent. But while my insignificance worked for them, it blackened me. I found in time that I didn’t have to stay in that nondescript place. I found that within my mind, I could go anywhere. Absolutely anywhere and more than that, I could be anyone. I could have powers. I could fly. I could be whatever I wanted to be and there was no one to judge me or cast doubt or criticize and minimize who I was. I was free. And I was loved.
I close my eyes now and I can go to that space. I can be anyone and I can go anywhere.
My favorite place to be is hiding under sheets with you. We discovered this place the last day of our vacation several years ago. We were hours away from boarding the plane that would bring us back to a reality neither of us wanted to rejoin. I was moody. You were at a loss.
I rolled over, let one leg slide out from under the linens and sighed, and I was ready to get up and start the process of leaving that place, that peace, that heaven; when you suddenly grabbed me and the sheets and pulled me close into your curled body, cocooned by cotton and warm skin; and the smell of you and your closeness thrilled me, because you, in that space, hidden, protected, preserved, was all I wanted and needed. We giggled, pulled tightly into each other, my forehead in your shoulder, your breath and fingers in my hair, and I remember thinking, this is love.
For a moment, we are there. I am holding you and I feel you against me, laughing, your legs between mine, my hands on your back, your hair along my shoulder; and we are there. The thought makes me so happy, I start to cry.
I think I cried for an hour before my eyes burned red and my cheeks were course with the salt from my tears and I finally succumb into a numbness, as vast as my loneliness, and fell off into sleep, the dogs snoring beside me.
When you came out of your medicinal stupor, you looked like you had seen a ghost. I wondered if you had or if it was just the surprise of still being here that startled the color that had returned to your cheeks back into a pallor. It was with a certain kind of wonder, not quite awe and not quite horror, that you looked at the faces of the nurses at the sides of the bed. You’re back, was all the nurse said, with a smile. She didn’t say “welcome back” because I guess maybe she knew, you might not be thrilled with the outcome. Maybe you had hoped to be gone and she knew she had to let you know that you were not on some astral plane but instead back inside a hospital room, your life still shackled, like a pillory in feudal times.
You blinked a few times and looked around. I felt a breath catch in my throat as you looked my way and smiled. You smiled. Tears came to my eyes and I reached out for your hand because I was so glad you were back. For the first time I think I fully exhaled, but it was short lived because in the days that followed, I would become haunted with fear that you were only temporary. The smile was not reliable because I’d seen it just the day before you did this. Your kiss was a lie because I felt all of you when we came together the night before; that night, I would come to find out, you were already planning to break free. I could look in your eyes and see my future but you stared back seeing only hours of yours.
They were gentle, earnest, but firm when they talked with you about what happened. It was a team that came into your hospital room that afternoon, doctors, nurses, discharge planners, medical social workers, the psych lead, and me. They advised you of the drugs they found in your system. They told you how you were found and who brought you in. You stopped looking in my direction, then. I was sitting beside you and I felt you shrink into your seat, trying to make yourself small, like a child that’s been scolded, and I wanted to hold you then, hide you; put my arms up and push them back with my hands and make them leave you alone because I could feel your vulnerability and shame, though their voices were calm and nonjudgemental. You had been found out and you sat there, still in a hospital gown, with the back tied but not closed, as they exposed all of you, like reading from your diary in front of the entire high school, while you sat motionless, eyes down, wishing to disappear. I did not want this for you and I couldn’t see how it was helpful, although, in time, I learned that accountability was the only way to step into self-worth. It is something we would both struggle with.
They developed a plan which we both agreed to, because, honestly, neither of us knew what to do. I was afraid to bring you home. I was afraid of what you might do. You were afraid to come home, because you, too, were afraid of what you might do.
It would be twenty one days inpatient. They needed to detox your system from the pain killers and sleep aides you had been using to self-medicate your despair for the past several months. It needed to be medically supervised they said, because you had placed yourself into a medical numbness, one that would recede over the next few days, exposing the pain and depth of emotion you have been so desperately trying to avoid, and that put you at high risk, they explained, because experiencing it all together, in the waves in which they would come, would certainly make you want to leave again. The only way over was through, the social work said directly, and you would need some help getting through.
At some point I stopped listening. I was too afraid for what this would require of you. If you hadn’t been strong enough to face it before, how were you suddenly supposed to have that fortitude now? I didn’t believe in you anymore. I was afraid that they did. If surviving the emotional tides was difficult alone, how were you supposed to wade the tsunami with so many eyes upon you, evaluating your progress, assessing your commitment, measuring your aptitude. It seemed impossible and you looked so incredibly small. This woman who was my whole life was actually quite slight. I never saw this before. Had I seen it, had I been able to accept and appreciate your diminishment, might everything be different?
I thought suddenly of that angler fish that was found swimming to the surface some months ago. What a strange and rare occurrence to see something grown from the darkness come to light. It had been quite a reckoning. The scientists feared it was an omen of something torrential occurring at the depths of the ocean. The fish was the proverbial canary in the goldmine warning us. The empaths saw her as one who wanted more than the shadows and the darkness.
“But somewhere far beyond my sight,
there burns a thread of golden light.
I chase the glow, I break the night
-I just need to see the light”.
They imagined she left her home at night so no one could stop her and she swam for weeks guided by an inner need, untouched by any unforeseen predator, so that on her final day, she could see the sun.
What was so remarkable about her, though, was how tiny she was. Not much bigger than a golf ball. It was that understanding which made the story so much more compelling. A tiny fish created hope.
As I watch you now, I can only pray you are the same. Can you do what she did? Even if it takes weeks, even if you go slowly, can you stay focused on the light?
Papers are signed. I bring a suitcase of clothes for your rehab stay. You are going this afternoon. They don’t wait. There is nothing else to consider. I hug you and all I smell is hospital detergent and sweat. Your hair is flat though you’ve combed it. I can’t read the look in your eyes. They are just as blue as they have ever been, but I don’t believe anything I see in them. I’ve been so wrong before. I love you, I say into your ear, and I mean it. I want to cling to you and beg you to come back to me, but I don’t because I know this isn’t about promises to me. I know you need to make promises for yourself. Will I know the person at the other side of this?
They tell me I need therapy as well. It will be necessary to deal with all of the emotions I will face as these days turn into weeks. I am afraid some of this is my fault. I am afraid that when we both take a microscope to ourselves, our lives together, we are going to see viruses, illness, toxins. What if getting healthy means losing you? I need to be ready to accept anything. I am suddenly full of fear.
Name five things you can see, four things you can hear….
I took some time off of work. I did remote projects. I attended meetings. I provided guidance and insights, encouraging where encouragement was needed, admonishment where redirection was needed, cajoling when it needed a bit of both. People were careful. I felt exposed, not in the way of being naked, deeper than that; as though they could see right into me, the blood flow through my veins, the restlessness in my mind, the quiver of heart. I hated it and yet when I saw a brief look of compassion, of true understanding, I found I needed it. I hadn’t realized how incredibly isolating it was to live with the agony that what you valued most could be taken away and there was nothing I could do about it. Powerlessness is an old hat I had thought I had long tossed. It was an unwelcomed companion throughout my childhood, but it pushed me to create a world where the decision making became mine. I was in most ways the navigator of my life; creator, manifestor, trailblazer, but in this, with you, I feel impotent, vulnerable, defenseless. I have not escaped that lost child. I have only adorned her in costumes and make-up and placed her upon a stage where at she acts, delivering lines she has learned, evoking emotion she has become erudite through the meticulous observation of others. I feel a fraud. I wonder, when they look at me with those gentle eyes, is that what they see; and too kind to expose me at my most fragile, they take to solemnness of expression not needing to deepen the burgeoning wound.
I have been to therapy several times throughout my life and had experienced different degrees of success with it. It is only possible to go as far as the heart is willing to release and the mind can surrender. I was expecting to talk about you, about your mental health, your “illness”. It was a safe place to start, projecting outward so the professional could see what I hid within.
We looked back at our relationship. She asked where we met, what drew us together. I appreciated the respite. I was too raw to get into anything too intense, but thinking about seeing you that first time, there I could reside forever. I can still see your eyes, your smile. I saw you first and I watched you as you moved from the inside tavern to the outside patio area, walking with friends. The music was loud, heavy and yet strangely seductive, and I followed you stepping from the dark grey cloudiness of the building to the clear twilight outside where small lights delicately hung in string from trees, and awnings, danced around you like sparklers in July. There was something in your face, the slope of your cheek, the tenderness of expression that captivated me immediately. I hadn’t realized I was staring until I was struck by your smiling back at me, eyes on mine, your body shifting to more fully face me. I felt my cheeks redden and I smiled back, no longer the tracker, now the mark; and you started walking toward me, holding my eyes, my heart quickening at each step, until you stood before me, hand outstretched, an ease about your shoulders, and with a voice that would bless my life from that moment on, you said “Hello, my name is Rebecca”, and I placed my hand in yours and knew I had found THE ONE.
THE ONE.
“What does that mean?” The therapist smiles as she says it. It is a light question. It’s meant to be in the vain of all the previous questions. An easy volley back and forth as we get to know each other. Before we get down to this issues. I realize in retrospect that this is jumping fully into “the issues”. I realize in retrospect that what I unearth in answering this questions says a lot more about me and the role I played in what got us to where we are. And it is WE. We are both in this. We both have our parts.
It always starts with the physical, doesn’t it? At least, it has with me. I found you incredibly attractive. I liked the way you moved your body. I liked all of it, the length of limbs, the smoothness of skin, the tone of your muscles, how they supported and flaunted your bones. I loved the thickness of your hair, how I could run my fingers through fibers like rope. I loved the way you smelled and how you tasted. It was as if God had reached into my dreams and created you, cell by cell, just for my liking. I loved your voice, the lift and fall of sounds as they came from your mouth, and I loved what you had to say and how you expressed your ideas. You were as a wonder to me as you were physical matter; both tactile and marvelous.
That was the incredible first year. Then, my façade failed me. The anxiety set in. The passing of my father left me in an emotional whirlwind. My father and I had been somewhat estranged most of my life. He saw my gayness as a mental failing, a kind of genetic heresy, of biblical proportions. I always had the sense I just didn’t matter to him and then in shocking twist, I gave him a tangible reason why. For many years I despised him, but I desperately needed approval from him; he was my dad. Before his passing, we began to exchange letters. He told me about himself, about his childhood, about our extended family. It was a safe place for him to start, the science of ancestry, and we grew a tenuous kind of trust.
And then he died.
I never got to say good bye. Nothing was ever settled. No explanations provided. I would never understand why he didn’t accept me. I didn’t want to feel so unlovable, so damaged, so objectionable. It was a curse.
I barely slept. Why the panic came at night, I don’t know, but it came, without fail, like the changing of tides and the phases of the moon, pulled from the darkness, just as my eyes closed, my heart would race and I felt like I was going to die, tortured with menacing thoughts, a dry throat, steeped in sheer terror. Night after night after night it came without abatement.
I needed help. I found it from a psychiatrist who provided medication, patience, and recommendations. Five ways to stop a panic attack. It worked.
You had been away at grad school. We fell in love the summer before you started. I was too afraid, too ashamed, for you to see me like this. We talked daily. I sent funny texts and sexy memes. I kept this to myself.
It worked.
Until that night in August. I had been using my 5 steps regularly, even when I didn’t need them. You understood I had anxiety. You joined in on my steps. We laughed.
I hadn’t had panic in months when I started to fall asleep, I was exhausted. It had been a brutal week at my new job and I was overworking, over extending, proving myself. You held me as I started to drift, but then, I felt a give, like the lid of a Jack in the box, a wheel was turned, a spring gave, and out jumped the clown, his face warped with eyes that were too round and too large and lips too red in an exaggerated “O”; and I couldn’t breathe. It was out and I couldn’t pull it back in. I sat up, bolt right. I thought I might start screaming. I wanted to run, jump out of bed, run down the hall, out the door, down the street and scream out everything that was clawing inside of me; but I knew, in a deeply horrifying way, that if I screamed, I might never stop.
You sat up in bed, you looked at me, touched my shoulder, and saw it all.
At first, you refrained from speaking. You just started breathing. Deep inhales, prolonged exhales and then you said: “I see the curtains moving slightly in the window. I see the glow of a streetlight parting the leaves of a tree. I see the red stripes on the blanket on your lap. I see the book beside the bed that you haven’t read in three nights, the place mark still set. I see the glass of water beside the bed.” Your voice is so kind, so gentle, so patient. I have never known this kind of compassion. This is when I knew, I really knew, you were my ONE.
Together we shared what we heard, and then what we smelled. The tides within me subsided. When I looked at you then, I have never loved a human being more than I loved you at that moment. I never in my life felt so loved by another person. You saw my blackness and stepped in anyway. I was afraid things would be different after that. I expected to see a wariness about you as you stood cautionary as to what I might become next. I was wrong. You didn’t need to talk about it. You understood it was a thing, a moment, not all of who I was. Like indigestion or menstrual cramps, it happened, it sucked, but it was temporary and in no way indicative of the kind of partner I could be with you.
In you, I found a safe place. I loved with you with all of me. I felt healed in your arms, I felt seen in your eyes, I felt sexy in your kiss, I felt whole by your side.
I am crying as I relay this to the therapist who is leaning slightly forward, her eyes understanding. She doesn’t speak but lets me sit in this feeling for a while. It’s why I’m here.
But I am afraid to love you now. That is the awful truth I’ve been hiding since all of this began. You have loved me magnanimously and I am terrified to reciprocate. For the first time since I saw you across that bar, I don’t want to need you the way I do. You are my life and I am petrified, because I am not complete as a person without you. I am the fraud I have always believed myself to be. I have never realized how you shielded, emboldened, and made me me, and without you and all that you are, I will slip into the abyss of inconsequence that I am at my source.
There is silence in the therapist’s office for a bit longer. Without trying, I start to notice that I can hear the murmurs of voices through the wall. This hall is a row of rooms and therapists who share space, side by side, and though diluted by sheetrock and wood, I can glean emotion, partial words and it makes me feel vulnerable because someone else has heard echoes of my tears and my shame.
When she speaks, it is with the same firmness framed with compassion that they held for you in the hospital. “Well, that’s a hell of a lot to put on someone, isn’t it?”
I don’t bother to hide my tears at that point. It would be akin to hiding nakedness with a napkin. I was exposed and it was best to accept that, it was the only way to move through it.
The therapist slides a box of tissues toward me, speaking carefully as she does. “I think we need to consider a new concept,” She said holding the box still as I pulled a tissue from it. “From here on out, we are going to use radical accountability.”
I nod, because I don’t know what else to do. I am broken, I realize, and for the first time in my life, the pieces of me, the bits of scraps, tarnished with time, discolored with wear, scatter about me, shreds on the floor, flecks on my clothing, blemishes upon my face. It’s what I’ve always known and what I have always feared, having them splayed before me, showcasing my weaknesses, and now that I’m here, in my greatest fear, the peak of my humiliation; I realize I can go no lower and in that, I feel the mildest relief. There’s nothing left to hide.
The therapist looks up, slightly over my shoulder for a moment, gathering thoughts I think, when she stops then looks directly at me, her eyes patient. “When there is imbalance in a relationship, there will always be a certain degree of fear. It’s as if you are tethered by a rope, one end in your hand, the other end in Rebecca’s, and there is a part of you that lives in the fear that Rebecca will let go. She will leave you and in letting go, you will fall, slip and slide away, because you haven’t learned to ground yourself. You’ve put all of that on her end. She holds the stake. She holds steady while you watch at the other end, hopeful, but scared; and you are continually looking to her, “don’t drop the rope, because if you drop the rope, I am done for”. But, what if you focus instead on the truth that you are holding the rope as well. You have just as much control. What if you focus on doing everything you can on your end, to keep the rope steady. Radical accountability is just that.
“One of the most powerful connections you said you have with Rebecca is that she is the first person who made you feel loved, right?”
I nod, another tear slides down my check as I consider this.
“You just spoke of a time where you felt, you knew, Rebecca loved you. When she helped you through your panic with ease and with compassion.”
I nod.
“I want you to think about that moment. Get right to that moment and then I want you to step inside of it. I want you not only to think in your mind, but I want you to feel it. Feel that moment. Step right into it.” She looks at me kindly. “Close your eyes and go right to that moment and feel it. FEEL IT.”
I do. I sit and in an instant I can see your face. I see your warm eyes. I can see your smile and the white teeth beneath the stretch of your lips. More than that, I feel you. It starts as a warmth in my chest and it spreads, thick, and for a moment all I am is that moment. I want to stay there.
“You feel that?”
I nod, more tears through closed eyes.
“Celia, Rebecca isn’t here. She’s not creating that. That feeling is in you. More than that, that feeling IS you. That’s the love that exists within you. Rebecca is not here to magically create it. It’s yours, and in truth, it always has been.” She pauses to let that thought penetrate. “Rebecca only showed you what was already there. That’s what our partners do. For good and for bad.”
She sits back in her chair, crossing her legs, and I exhale a long deep breath.
“From here on in, we focus on what’s within you. You are all that you need, Celia. You just need to believe it and start living like it.”
Therapists make everything seem so doable.
Several weeks later, I am deep in my practice of accountability and I believe I am getting better. I must be, I think, because when I sit down today, I notice the therapist is holding a paper. I can see the words across the page. There’s a small catch in my throat, because I recognize the handwriting. I used to joke you had the penmanship of a serial killer. It is so precise, each letter meticulous in curve and turn, it said a lot about you and at the same time, gave nothing away.
The therapist handed me the paper. I look down and I need to fight the immediate and powerful urge to hold it against my chest, trying to pull any part of you that still clings to the fibers of the paper into me, where I can keep you, forever.
She notes I haven’t read it. I see the tilt of her head and the tightest squint of the eye. She doesn’t know how desperately I just want to hold you and this is all I have.
“Accountability is the cornerstone for most of the therapy work we do. Accountability makes you focus on what portion of any situation, any relationship, any dynamic, is yours, and what parts belong to others. It also helps you own the impact your actions have on others, in all the ways we as humans try to avoid owning that.” She takes a breath, watching me. “In one of her therapy sessions, Rebecca was asked why she stayed. When things got hard, what made her choose to stay instead of trying to find an out.” She points to the paper. “That’s what she wrote.”
It was a simple white piece of paper. Written across the top, three words: WHY I STAY:
1. Celia
2. Blue
I smile at that. You weren’t supposed to have favorites, but of our two dogs, Blue was your favorite. I finally got the admission. He was a stray you found in Mexico, part menace, part Wimsey you would say when someone asked about his breed. He was as small as a softball when you got him. Now he was more giant meatball.
3. Trail walks at sunset
4. Coffee, Sunday mornings, music and Cee
5. I couldn’t bear the pain it would cause Celia if I left
I took a deep breath as I felt the tears come again. They came at least once a therapy session. I bring my own tissue now, the kind with lotion, so my nose wouldn’t chafe as much.
The therapist sat quietly, letting me cry. The tears came steadily, heavy at times, the way downpours will, and it wasn’t until my eyes were raw, red and drying that she finally spoke. “ As you read this, what were you thinking? What came to mind?”
My voice is shaking as I speak. “She didn’t write her own name.” I paused, feeling more grief than I had allowed myself to feel before. “It didn’t occur to her to live for herself.” The breath that follows is heavy. “I need for her to want to stay for herself. I can’t carry that. I can’t have her living solely for me or the dog. I need her to want to stay for Rebecca.”
The therapist nods knowingly and a small smile comes to her face. “She’ll get there.”
My God, I think looking out at the sunshine through the trees in the window behind the therapist, I hope she does.
The days turn to weeks and I am getting ready for you to come home. I decided to completely redecorate the bedroom. I threw all of the old sheets out along with the duvet and purchased an entirely new set. It’s a blend of Egyptian cotton, the kind you like, and I went with neutral colors contrasted with a dark blanket, to better hide the dog hair. I aired the entire house out and got different infusers for lavender and sage, two scents you enjoyed when we were away at the Spa in New Mexico.
It looks fresh, it looks clean. It’s new slate, unblemished, ready for new memories.
Three days later, I threw the whole set out. I go back to sleeping on the couch.
You said you weren’t ready to come home. There is a retreat in Alaska that you have heard about while you were inpatient. Three months of eating well, meditating, developing a higher spiritual awareness is the goal. I am happy for you. Really. You wouldn’t have chosen this kind of thing before. But I am wretched at the thought you don’t need to see me as badly as I need to see you. You are doing what you are supposed to be doing. You are living for Rebecca. You are putting her first. You are making her worth staying for.
I smile during the zoom call when you tell me about your plans. You will be leaving in two days, three days before your inpatient stay is planned to end because you need to be in Alaska just as the inpatient work is ending. The therapists agree you are ready. You look good. You sound healthy. No, you don’t need me to send clothes. It’s a minimalist retreat and you can take what you have.
“I love you, Cee”, is what you say before the zoom call ends and I sit and stare at a black screen for about twenty minutes, completely unable to move.
One of the practices I had started in therapy was the act of “filling my own cup”. I couldn’t help the eye roll when she said it. It was so rote, so tired of an expression, so archetypal for advisement that I was ready to argue for my money back when she looked at me and said “yes, it may be all of those things, and yet it WORKS.”
The rules were simple enough. Whenever I missed you and I was looking to you to fill something within me, I had to try and meet the need first. “Empower yourself. Be accountable to you,” she said. I was starting to hate that word.
It did insufferably work.
When I found myself wanting you and after I found ways of sustaining myself, I began to write you notes of gratitude to let you know how much I recognized the hundreds of ways you loved me. Today, after a particularly devastating day of managing a client who could be at best be described as barbaric, I wanted nothing more than to sink in your arms. I thought to when you would make up a voice for said barbarian and concoct a story where I was clearly in the right and he was clearly in the wrong and he would have no other option but to apologize and slither into some recess of humiliation never to show his face again. I would feel vindicated, validated and humored. “Thank you for those stories, Rebecca, you made so many dreadful days bright, and doable, and worthwhile. I never told you how much those evenings meant to me. I am now. Thank you.”
I would take those small cards and I would mail them to you, nothing else said. I wasn’t sure you would get them. There were no cell phone or computers at the retreat and they tried to minimize outside distractions. There was a very real chance, they might never be received, but it was important for me to try.
This is how I passed my days. I kept you near but I let you go. I knew I was more self-reliant. I knew I had learned to appreciate my life as it was and I knew I would be able to accept whatever you decided after the three months away. I didn’t need therapy anymore. Like you, I was ready to be me fully.
It was cloudy, overcast and drizzly the day I received your note. I held it in my hands, staring at the powder blue envelope, your handwriting as perfect as ever across the front. I didn’t want to open it. With it sealed, it could be anything I wanted it to be. Once opened, I would need to accept whatever reality you chose for you. It had been seven weeks. You still had five weeks to go before any decision needed to be made.
I took a deep breath as I opened the envelope and pulled out the small folded paper.
“Cee- I know this has been a long journey for both of us. I would really like to see you so we can talk. Could you come to Alaska? You can email the workshop of when you can arrive, they will pick you up at the local airport. I hope we can meet soon. I love you, R”
I wanted more. I wanted some kind of promise, some kind of guarantee, but there are no such things, so instead I went inside and opened my laptop. I had a flight scheduled in three days. I emailed the retreat organizers. I notified my team of my limited availability for those days. I arranged for the dogs to go to camp. Then I went outside, lit a fire in the chiminea, and watched the flames jumping up against the ceramic walls, freeform and wild, and I thought of you; and I wondered if I should be celebrating you home or preparing to let you go, as you made your own way, spurring and reaching into the world, like the fire, held only by the confines of your mind and the willingness of your spirit.
It was a water taxi that brought me to the dock at the base of the retreat center.
Alaska was cold, wet and windy. And very green. Lush greenery was everywhere. The trees of all shapes and sizes filled the horizon and grass grew waist high along the banks. Even the rocks were covered in slick green moss like a giant emerald had shattered in the atmosphere above and particles of green floated from above, casting color across everything it touched.
You were standing on the dock when I stepped off. For a moment I was overcome with uncertainty. I wanted to run to you, to grab hold of you, to kiss your face and feel your body, but then, no; maybe that wasn’t what I was supposed to do.
Seeing my hesitation, you tipped the boatman, took hold of my luggage in one hand and reached for my hand in the other. You smiled at me and there was no doubt in the smile. You had lost weight, not a worrisome amount but enough that your face looked slightly different. You hair was longer, shoulder length, pulled back in a small ponytail. Your walk was as confident as it had always been, the cadence perhaps slower, but the sanguinity of your movements was all you.
You led us to sitting area of sorts, covered by a great canopy, where we could look out across the water without getting pressed by the elements.
You placed my luggage by a long bench and guided me to sit beside you.
We sat for a moment, silent, and I watched your eyes look out across the water so I turned my gaze there as well, suddenly feeling quite overwhelmed being next to you after all this time. You looked so much like you, like nothing had transpired, that I felt frightened that perhaps I couldn’t trust what was right before me.
“I want to come home,” you said, still looking ahead at the water.
I tried not to cry. I held your hand tighter and I turned to look at you, less afraid at what I might see. “I want you to come home.” I said simply but my voice was full of emotion, it made you smile. “I know how to love you now, Rebecca. I didn’t know how before. I am coming from a place of loving you not for what I need you to give me, but for honoring the space that I provide for myself.”
Your eyes mist a bit. “Celia, loving you has never been a burden to me.”
I nod. “I guess I just want you to know that I would never want you to experience the darkness you have had to experience, but it wasn’t in vain. Not only did you find you in this, I found me. I found love. Real love. I want to share it all with you.”
You smile as you reach down into a bag by your leg. You pull out all of the notes that I had sent you. “You already have.”
You smile and pull me into you. I rest my head against your shoulder and I feel you breathe. These inhales and exhales have been the tides of our days. I feel at peace, the kind of peace I haven’t known. I watched a bird swoop down to lightly touch the water only to suddenly take flight again. I felt connected to it all. Water. Air. Flight. Freedom. Serenity.
We sat together when I felt your smile against my forehead. I didn’t need the practice anymore. It had been weeks since I had bad anxiety. This was for us. For our peace.
Your voice was light as you spoke, the smile never leaving.
“I see a ripple on the water where a fish just surfaced. I see a branch dip up and out as a bird flew off. I see a boat just almost out of view. I see a fisherman working on a net.” You pause just a moment, “And I see my future before me as big of a promise as this sky before us.”
