Being Em
It has been a tough year, after which I have arrived in hell. There is no escape in sight, only reality. While there are elements of my past in my present, writing my master's thesis while sitting with my family in the intensive care waiting room waiting for Dad to emerge from his coma is nothing like trying to finish my dissertation in Dad's hospital room while Dad floats in and out of consciousness. The experiences are qualitatively different. Once Dad decided to embrace life in 1997, he was able to work on getting stronger and live a 'normal' life. Now, he is getting weaker with every passing day that he spends in the hospital. It has been more than two months since he was admitted for congestive heart failure. Although he spent a few days of this time at home and another few days at a rehabilitation center, he has spent seven weeks lying on his back in a hospital bed. His bedsores and rigid limbs are markers of time. Dad is still very much alive. Last night it struck me that he is a prisoner in his own body. While it is working less efficiently, the doctors are keeping him alive with IV insulin, a peg tube that pumps nutrients directly into his stomach, oxygen, and a handful of medicine that needs to be given in specific combinations at designated times throughout the day. Unfortunately, he is lucid enough to know when his diaper needs to be changed, that he might not walk again, that he is living his worst nightmare. He sleeps because he is exhausted and because he can. Once again I find myself questioning the benefits of Western medicine. When does enough really mean enough?
How do you know when it is time? They always say that you just know.
Last Thursday evening I arrived home to find two voicemail messages. One was from my mom. The other was from my uncle. Neither one told me to travel to Atlanta, but the fact that they both called to tell me about their day with Dad punctuated the severity of the situation. Before I hung up the phone, I decided to travel to Atlanta as quickly as possible. Independently, my brother and sister made the same decision. With my move scheduled for the next weekend and Dad's condition being so uncertain, I pushed up my move date a week and went ahead and moved to give myself the freedom to stay in Atlanta as long as I am needed. Moving quickly meant I had to scramble to find people to help. Many of the friends I had lined up to help in both Baltimore and Ithaca the following weekend were out of town this past weekend. One friend found a woman in Ithaca willing to help a stranger move. Two others dropped everything to offer their time and physical strength to help me load the truck. Sherrill worked with my boxes of books and offered dried apricots and lavender soap, which Julie and I found in Ithaca after we finished unloading and arranging my furniture into my third floor attic apartment. I feel deeply moved to be the beneficiary of such loving care.
Julie and I returned to Baltimore in my car that Julie had driven behind the rental truck to Ithaca. Feeling too exhausted to turn around and drive to Atlanta the next morning, I ended up spending two nights instead of one in my empty apartment in Baltimore. Although I was not willing to trade my freedom and private space for a comfortable bed, I cannot say that those two nights I spent sleeping on my yoga mat spread over the hardwood floor were either comfortable or restful. Did my downstairs neighbor wake up every time I knocked my elbows against the floor? While in Baltimore I made the necessary arrangements to shift my work environment from my office at Hopkins to Mom's house in Atlanta. I left yesterday morning and arrived in Dad's hospital room last night, twelve hours after I started my drive.
As I drove down interstates 95 and 85 and caught up with my mom, sister, and good friend Kay who lives along the route, I tried to process my feelings and think about what lay ahead. I was prepared to help Dad die, to tell him that we love him, will continue to look out for each other, and will be okay whenever he feels he is ready to go. Based on the reports I received from family members' visits the previous day, it appeared that there was little life in him. Everyone had told him that I was coming. I knew he would know I was there. In that moment of realization (even not-outwardly-acknowledged realization), I wanted to communicate my message.
When has an anticipated moment ever unfolded as imagined? I walked into Dad's room, gave Uncle John a hug, and greeted Dad. "Hi, Ems!" he said with a smile. Clearly, he was doing better last night. While Josh Groban played on my computer and the lights were dimmed, my uncle and I talked. We shared our conversation with Dad when he awoke from his dreams and gasped for oxygen after experiencing sleep apnea. The mood was light as I teased Dad and he responded with a smile. It feels good to be home.
In the past few weeks I have been thinking a whole lot about love: familial love as my family reaches out to and for support as we try to make sense of my dad's deteriorating condition, love between friends as I touch base with people I care about before leaving town and work on shifting my role in a few relationships from one of caretaker to partner-friend, and the potential for romantic love as I come to terms with the part of me that desires an opportunity to explore an intimate loving relationship with another woman. With respect to the latter, I feel frustrated by my inability to make forward strides. While I would like to figure out a way to meet more single lesbians, the crux of the issue is deeper. I believe that I have already met a significant woman, someone about whom I have not been able to stop thinking since I met her last August. She, Dawn, returned to the woman she was dating prior to our meeting, so she is not available. Nevertheless, I find myself fantasizing that someday she will be single and we might have an opportunity to get to know each other better. If it were possible for my body parts to go to war, my mind would have killed my heart long ago. Intellectually, I refuse to compete, long to change hats from the pursuer to pursued model, and believe that my best course of action is to soothe my emotion. Intuitively, I recognize the potential, but understand that the only course of action available to me is to travel within myself to work on illuminating my dark places. I have spent so many years feeling scared to reveal my feelings to the appropriate people. Life is too short for me to continue doing this. Last fall I told Dawn how I felt. Maybe it is time I say it again for myself ten months later to acknowledge that my feelings are real before I embrace my present challenge of fostering my self-confidence and trusting that it is not too late to find a partner even if the person isn't the one I have already labeled as being the best candidate. The fact that I am moving once again for work makes me want to reveal to the world an ounce of the passion I try to keep bottled. Isn't love what makes the world go round?
Once we appreciate that the most rewarding moments in life often occur after we abandon our daily routines, why do we hold so tightly to these routines?
Tuesday morning I witnessed the Venus transit from the lens of a powerful telescope that was erected on the steps of the Science Center. I had a hard time motivating myself to get out the door and jog the short distance to the Inner Harbor; however, I was grateful for the effort once I saw the tiny, pea-sized planet move across the powerful sun. It was a remarkable site that I have been thinking about all week. It reminded me of the week last August when Mars traveled so close to Earth. Both events touched deep chords inside of me that prompted me to evaluate everything that is important to me.
Among other topics, I have been pondering the impermanence of goodbyes. It seems that people are constantly floating in and out of our lives. The people with whom we share the most tearful goodbyes are usually the ones we see the most often. I have always found it difficult to predict who will remain a significant presence in my life. However, the relationships to which I give the most room seem to be the most sustainable. How and to whom does one say goodbye? I no longer know.
I am not really sure how to think about my pending move. It feels very abstract. Because I will continue to maintain both personal and professional contacts after I go, real closure does not feel possible. Maybe I will feel differently at some point in the future. Nevertheless, no matter how connected to Baltimore I feel at present, my task is to adapt to the change. A new chapter is beginning whether or not I feel ready.
Spinning round and round with my feet on the ground in a wide stance as they stretch from Ithaca to Baltimore, I feel the earth moving below me. The world is turning, faster and faster. The quickening that astrologers have been talking about for months feels like it is here. Change is in the air. With the groans, screeches, and lurches that old machinery makes when it is started after sitting idle for long periods of time, I am observing positive growth occur in both myself and those around me. It is exhausting, revitalizing, and totally unexpected.
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Tonight I am going to step outside my comfort zone by attending my first lesbian-oriented event in many full moons. I feel less self-conscious wandering alone through a crowded developing country marketplace than I feel putting myself in a situation where I am surrounded by lesbians. I suppose some of the discomfort that I feel has to do with being single. It seems that there is a lot of truth to the joke about lesbians arriving on the second date with a U-Haul. For years I have felt like an outsider, trying to find a way to break into what has felt like an exclusive group of women. Shortly after coming out of the closet, I did my best to rub the fog off the windows of their clubhouse so I could see how they live in their natural habitat. Later, I settled for interacting with women who ventured into the open world. Recently, I have turned my attention inward to embrace in myself what I desperately have been looking for outside. Nevertheless, I still crave contact with lesbians, especially ones like me. The lesbian community den remains an enigma to me.
As my time in Baltimore winds to a close, I feel fortunate to have this opportunity to enter one den. Two friends put me in touch with another woman who is looking for a companion to attend a concert. I am excited about the invitation, but feel nervous about the idea of sitting with and by default being perceived to be coupled with a woman I have never met. It makes me laugh to discover how much more concerned I am about appearances than I realized. This is good for me and a wonderful reminder that I am alive. It has been a very long time since I last went on a date. If nothing else, tonight should prove to be interesting.
