What Happened: Part 1
Below is a piece of writing I started a while ago that I want to share. March 2023 my life blew up and I want to share what happened since and how I arrived where I am today. Not all in one go, but you know. I might touch on the prequel events eventually, but for now I'm focussing on the journey I was thrown into (luckily).
CW: brief unaliving mention
I landed the day before what would’ve been our 3.5 year anniversary. (“I’m sorry”). The contrast between 3 months of depression and weed and giving up on myself completely, to be walking to the airport parking lot with my mom as she side eyed (wide eyed) me, “Where d’ya think that came from?” when I told her I was recently diagnosed with ADHD and C-PTSD. (She knew I was suicidal and did not reach out to me.) I chickened out and told her “They include generational trauma from ‘residential schools’ in the testing..” - my knee jerk reaction was to not make it her fault, but something that happened to both of us (born from mother’s and father’s with a heap of trauma). Both sides inflamed with tension, anger, decades-long disconnections, secrets, and a whole lot of lies. To be honest, I hadn’t even googled C-PTSD, and I had been diagnosed a month earlier.
The night before the flight I stayed at my friend’s house. I remember noticing every detail so that when we talked again I would be able to describe the experience to him. That went away after a few weeks. At the airport the next morning I downloaded an astrology app (the pattern) that changed my life and helped me see the bigger picture at one of the most difficult times in my life. I felt like I had fell on my ass really hard off a bicycle, like when I was a kid, and nobody around cared or showed concern for me. That inner wincing of pain, sour in your gut and cheeks almost. But instead of my ass it was my soul. Every cell in my body was cringed up in pain after being abandoned by the person I was in love with. My cells were deeply, deeply afraid of the possibility of the truth being exposed by being left like this: I am unlovable.
A guy I used to “date” (he never took me to dinner lmao) from Halifax ended up sitting with his girlfriend, a friend, directly behind me on the flight. They had been visiting Toronto for the weekend. I had said hi to them after security, when I was putting my shoes back on. I could see that my friend had been crying. She said it was a fear of flying but I knew better, I could tell something was wrong between them. The C02 monitor my ex had recently bought at my request loudly beeped before take off. I think the C02 was above 2000. I was one of the only ones wearing a respirator mask.
“There’s a long one???” when I warned my Mom of Long Covid.
As we pulled up to my Auntie’s, all she said was “this is where they gave me Covid last year.” - it felt like a tattle-tale. I was swollen, exhausted, testing in the bathroom. March 20 2023. I heard my mom tell a story she had told me multiple times over Facetime: “I told him I’m your Mom’s Mom and she has to do whatever I say!” and they said “Wow!! Whatever you say???”. She took pride in co-parenting with her daughter over Facetime. If the boys “wouldn’t listen” or were “acting up”, my sister would make them talk to my Mom. I told her for years that it wasn’t healthy for either of them and there needs to be boundaries there. But mostly, all I can think of now is how *I* turned out from the influence (or lack thereof) of my Mother and my sister(s).
Since I didn’t know whether my partner was going to break up with me or not (likely yes but I didn’t want to believe it at the time). I felt scared being so far away from him. Like I couldn’t run to him or get to him by Uber. If I had to. If I needed to.
Auntie encouraged me to get really high after I told her I wanna get really high, and when my Uncle Don (who I refer to as Shrek, which I will be using from now on) came home, I started feeling flush from the attention and being overstimulated while sharing things about myself as we caught up. We hadn't connected since I had moved to Toronto, 8 years prior. I felt sincere pride in my intelligence when telling Shrek I had gotten 3 bingo’s in a row the last time I played scrabble. My first 3 words were bingos! There was something about the approval and respect of a man I grew up around that I had needed for so long.
Before my flight, I picked up my first ever Wellbutrin prescription. Almost my entire time at my Auntie’s, I woke early. I liked it. My whole life I had felt exhausted, like I could sleep all day (and sometimes did). I remember a love letter from my ex where he said something like "I love how you savour and need every last drop of sleep you can". Oh you're a fan of my depression fatigue? I used to think it was cute.
I tested negative for covid. Auntie took me to the beach. Rainbow Haven. I went there semi-frequently when I lived in Nova Scotia. It was a very quick drive from my house with my Dad and whenever I could I popped by the beach. The wind there wakes you up, helps you notice. My eyes were puffy and my face swollen from the months of stress. We collected parts of shells, fun rocks. The stones stuck in the wet sand on the edge of the ocean wore wigs of dark green plant life; I pet them. We bumped into my Dad's friends and their dog. Of course on the same day I landed in Nova Scotia I had seen an ex, an old friend from high school and now my Dad's close friends on a nearly empty, cold-ass beach. I took photos. I hadn’t packed much but I brought my 35mm camera and 8 rolls of film, almost as common and natural for me as packing a toothbrush for a trip. I thought I would only be there for a weekend. It ended up being 4 weeks. In my heated panic of packing, there is always an innate insistence within me that I should be documenting what I’m experiencing. I’ve been documenting my pain for so long, journaling since age 9. Artifacts of my past!
I imagined a potential daughter reading my journals one day. I didn’t necessarily ever picture myself having kids as a child but I knew that one day, there would be a family member that read my words and took on an entirely new understanding of myself and their family ties. I wanted that. I wanted my words to impact someone. I wanted some future person to care enough about me to want to read my journals with respect and love. Funnily enough I ended up becoming that future person that cares so much about herself now. How cute is that??
Hope everyone is holding on hope for this year, we need it!
XOXO Alyswan
