Impasse, continued....but it's not really an impasse anymore...

...more of a precipice.

My brain is a little mangled lately. A thousand apologies if I make no sense.

I went home this weekend. Home being to Alabama, the land of banjos and bare feet.  Which is funny considering the only banjo I’ve heard lately was outside the Starbucks down the street from my apartment. In L.A. And everyone wore shoes while I was home.

For my faithful readers, you know why I left. You know why I don’t go home much. You know the arrangement.

But as “home” goes, I was “home” (i.e., in Birmingham) for roughly 12.5 hours. My dad picked me up from Birmingham International Airport (which is only international because it flies to Canada and Mexico) and drove me directly to Dothan, AL, which is a small town about 45 minutes from the Florida/Alabama line. Through what my mother lovingly refers to as “Boonholler.”

My grandparents live in Dothan. In the same house they’ve lived in since as far back as I can remember. On a gravel street 500 feet from a church and 100 from a ditch. I’m painting you a picture here.

About a month ago, I got a phone call from my dad saying that doctors had found “a mass” behind my grandfather’s pancreas. A chest x-ray, two billion tests, and two doctors later, the diagnosis was metastatic lung cancer that has spread to his lymph nodes, and apparently, to his pancreas as well.  He’s dying. My sweet, generous, smart, quick-witted, selfless grandfather is dying. He’s Old South, he’s got his flaws. But we all do, and his are vastly outnumbered by his wonderful traits.

We Steel Magnolias don’t bend under pressure, see. We dam it up behind “business.” We do what needs to be done and we feel it “later.”

Well…hello, “later.”  

I can feel the emotions walled up behind the “business” dam about to break through. It’ll be cathartic when it happens. And if you’re with me when it does, there’s nothing you can say or do. Just be there.

Anyway, I cooked, and I cleaned and I helped my grandmother get from chair to chair to bed, and to walk. My grandfather has been taking care of her roughly forever, and she’s a handful. But he can’t do anything for her now. The radiation he’s on has made him weak as a kitten, he has no appetite, and he has a walker now because his strength is gone. They have help, but not enough. My grandfather’s stubborn though, and it took quite a bit of persuading to get him to acquiesce to further help from home health care. I went through the medications and told my dad what they do, what not to mix them with, and which ones needed refills. And when my grandmother was…difficult, my dad and I shared some looks that were equal parts laughter and annoyance, and they conveyed a message to me. “You’re an adult now. You have a place here.”

But what my faithful readers may not know is this: All of the sexual abuse from my brother happened in two places. My dad’s old house, which he doesn’t live in anymore, and…my grandparent’s living room. We used to sleep there when we were kids because during the holidays, the house was full, and there was no other place to put us. So after everyone was asleep, that’s where he molested me. And that’s where I pretended it was happening to someone else, like most survivors do during their attacks.

If you feel sick, I’m right there with you.

But, here’s the thing. Most survivors of sexual trauma, once they get out and get help, choose to avoid the place of their trauma, all reminders of their trauma and they get away from their attackers. Because there’s enough going on in their heads to remind them, they don’t need concrete things to do it for them.

I had to go back to that place. They’ve changed the carpets, rearranged the furniture, and I slept in the room that my dad usually slept in during the holidays when we were kids. In a bed. And I was safe. No one hurt me. 

And to be quite honest, I didn’t really think about it. I had a few moments of “That’s where it happened. Huh,” and then I moved on.  I had other things to think about. And I didn’t have flashbacks. I didn’t have nightmares. I slept like a rock. And I didn’t get anxious. I didn’t and haven’t had any panic attacks. We’ll see if one hits in the next couple of days, but something tells me it won’t.

When I got overwhelmed (largely by the fact that I was there to say goodbye to my grandfather) I snuck out to smoke, under the guise of “making phone calls.” Sometimes I did make phone calls, but mostly I just needed to get out of the house. For those of you that answered them, even if we didn’t talk about it, I am eternally grateful, just for your voice. It was a lifeline.

And nobody said anything about my brother, until I got to my mother’s house in Birmingham on Sunday night.  My mother hesitantly told me he and his wife were expecting. I told her I was happy for them. And then we didn’t talk about it again.

I took some pictures from my grandparent’s house, some of my brother when he was a kid, some of him and I at my high school graduation. I was trying remember…remember the good things and trying to make peace with the monster he was, to reconcile with the adult he is now. He was always really sensitive and easily hurt, and was really, really just looking for someone who would “get” him. And nobody ever did, because he was such a sick kid. I haven’t talked to him in 5 years, obviously this makes reconciling with the adult difficult. He’s apologized and recognized what he did. He was a sexual abuse victim too. Most kids that offend have been molested also, so that should come as no surprise. He’s been through therapy, I’m told. He’s grown up.

But I realized something: I’m not angry anymore. Not at him. Not at my parents. Not at what happened to me. What happened to me made me who I am today, an honest, tough, street-smart, insightful, imperfect being, who loves fiercely and fights for what she wants, and what she believes in, even when it gets her in trouble. I like who I am today. And I wouldn’t be that without having gone through what I went through. I wouldn’t be the girl you guys love. Who knows who I’d be, maybe I’d be better, but you know what? I’m ok with what is. Not what could be.  I fuck up, I recover, and I move in a generally upward and growth oriented direction nonetheless. I always say recovery is a zig-zag line. Not always forward, but never back.

And more importantly, because of that, I’m not scared. I have no reason to avoid the trauma or the triggers, anymore. There’s very little left to talk about. It would appear that I’ve worked it out, for a large part anyway.  That doesn’t necessarily mean I can have him in my life. But it means I’ve got less of a reason to keep him out now. There is no danger. And I’ve forgiven him.

Don’t go thinking it’ll be all sunshine and roses and hugs. But I’m willing to look at having a different “arrangement,” now. There’s a kid coming, I’m going to be an aunt. And I don’t want THIS bullshit to carry forward to the next generation. “Yes you have an aunt, honey, but you’ve never met her because…”

No.

I’m at the edge of a cliff, an edge I’ve been inching towards for a long time. The drop is long, but jumping is better than just standing here.

I have a few letters to write.

I may just be kinda healed, ya’ll. Time will tell.

Surrender is an exit.

To be continued…again…