Chapter Three

I lean against my counter tapping lightly.  Staring at my phone.  It’s 5:58 PM.  I have my first call with Dr. Weirdo in 2 minutes.  I’m very disinterested.  I don’t want to talk about it all.  I can’t even fathom how the fuck I got here so I highly doubt anyone can help me sort it out.  But I have to at least try.  I know this might be the only way out of this darkness.

Ring.

“Hi John.”  “Hello Tarah, how are you?” “Never better,” I grumble sarcastically.  And so it begins.  The conversation is surprisingly effortless and he is surprisingly interesting.  I have an immediate ease not having to look someone in the eye.  I feel that I can be more open, honest.  I listen intently as he tells me a bit about his history, losing everything to ultimately find something better.  He explains emotional addiction to me – codependence.  It is clear, that what I have fallen into is this.  

We talk very little about the ‘now’.  Him.  He wants my history.  The back story.  I presume it’s to understand how I may have ended up at the now.  How I’ve ended up entangled in him.

“So tell me what happened to you around…let me guess?  Age 14?  Because something happened and there’s still a 14 year old girl standing still inside of you.  Your reactions are coming from her.” Holy shit.  This guy is good.  I didn’t need to think about it.  I’ve always known that everything changed for me at that age.  “My father lost his job, my family ultimately lost everything we had and he became an alcoholic.”  This wasn’t news to me, or anyone in my life for that matter.  I have always been open about everything about myself.  Well, until him.  This intrigued John.  This he could work with.  

He pegs my traits to a T.  Apparently I’m ridiculously text book and exhibit many of the symptoms of an adult child of an alcoholic.  Such as:

...guessing at what normal is.

...have difficulty in following a project through from beginning to end (not with work but with anything else).

...judge themselves without mercy.

...have difficulty with intimate relationships (for me it was with men).

...overreact to changes over which they have no control.

...feel that they are different from other people.

...are either super responsible or super irresponsible.

...are extremely loyal, even in the face of evidence that loyalty is undeserved.  

The last one stops me.  Extremely loyal, even in the face of evidence that loyalty is undeserved.  Him.

"Tarah?  Are you still there?" Oh shit.  I snap myself quickly back to reality.  To John.  "Yes, still here.  Sorry," I mumble.  "Tarah, this is a process, not an event.  It took a long time for you to get this way, it's going to take awhile to unravel it.  Remember, process, not an event."  I make a mental note.  "What's important for you to remind yourself right now - because you are emotionally vulnerable is to Act: Not React.  Write that down, Tarah.  Make that your mantra over the next few months.  Because every time you're reactionary, you take a step backwards." Is it possible for me to take any steps backward?  I'm sitting at the bottom of a fucking well.

"So, what do you think?  You up for the challenge? Would you like to continue with this?" he asks.  I stare intently at the wall.  I like him.  He's a nice soul.  He's honest, humorous, self aware. I have to believe in something right now.  Anything.  Even a door knob.  Maybe he can be my doorknob.  "I'm up for it," I say mustering up every bit of internal gusto that I have.  "Good" he replies.  "How's Monday at noon?"  "Works for me," as I make a mental notation to block a conference room.  "I'm going to call and check in on you every now and then Tarah.  You don't have to answer the phone, I just want to remind you that you are wanted, needed and loved."  I groan.  This sappy shit might be the death of this relationship real quick.  "Don't worry, I won't pick up."  He laughs.  "Bye John, talk to you Monday."

Click.

I open my fridge, pull out the wine, fill it to the brim and take a large swig.  I feel a bit better; lighter having talked, having taken a step to help myself.  Maybe there's hope.  I sit in front of my computer and update my screen saver to be scrolling text in bright red.

ACT DON'T REACT

I scan my email.  Nothing.  No word from him.  I glance nervously at my phone.  Silence.  So much silence.  I can't bare another day in the office tomorrow.  Pacing.  Waiting.  Looking.  I email my boss.  There's an 'emergency' back home.  I need to work remotely.  I grab a duffel bag, throw some clothes in, grab my toothbrush and my keys and I leave the silence behind me. 

I text Amelia.  "Leave a light on for me, I'm coming home."

Chapter Two

I sit in front of my computer.  I have my first appointment with Dr. Weirdo tonight.  What do I tell him?  Where do I start?

I’ll Google a few things.  That’s a start.

Codependency (or codependence, co-narcissism or inverted narcissism) is unhealthy love and a tendency to behave in overly passive or excessively caretaking ways that harm one's relationships and quality of life. It also often involves placing a lower priority on one's own needs, while being excessively preoccupied with the needs of others.^[1] Codependency can occur in any type of relationship, including family, work, friendship, and also romantic, peer or community relationships.^[1] Codependency may also be characterized by denial, low self-esteem, excessive compliance, or control patterns.^[1] Narcissists are considered to be natural magnets for the codependent.

Shit.  I was done at unhealthy love.  Shit.  I think of him.  Shhhhh.  I say to myself.  Calm, Tarah, calm. 

How will I tell him where it started?  Where did it start?  I drift off into a daydream staring out into the sunlight.

I rush for the elevator.  My hair, wet and sticking to my head.  I jump in, he’s there.  Just he and I.  Fuck.  “Morning Ms. Cammett,” he says quietly, calmly with an inquisitive stare, looking me up and down.  “Morning,” I say to the Iceman housing the corner office. 

He’s tall.  He’s wide.  He’s 6’4” of confusion.  Mystery.  He isn’t modern. He is dated but still powerful in his tone.  He wears Ralph Lauren shirts firmly pressed and has Fred Flintstone hair but there is something about him that makes me tingle with familiarity.  I don’t know him but I feel an aching energy that connects me to him.  As if perhaps, I’ve known him for a thousand lifetimes before. He makes me itchy. 

I stare in silence as the elevator brings us up, trying to think of something witty to say.  We’re close to our floor and there it is, “Tarah, that problem that you talked about, well, I’d like to help you with it….” he says, OHMYFUCKINGGOD.  I swallow a stone.  Milliseconds become hours.  He heard.

The evening before we had all gone out for drinks after work.  People were in town.  It was a reason to drink.  He came.  The Iceman.  I had too many drinks and I was rambling on to a coworker about my dilapidated marriage, over before it began.  But more importantly, I was rambling on and on about the fact that I hadn’t had sex in over six months and I was horny as hell.  He was there.  Observing.  Listening.  He always does that. 

Holy shit.  That’s what he’s referring to.  He?  Me?  I mean, he’s like older and powerful and I’m just me?  Did he really just say that?  He did.  I guess he can, cause he’s him and all powerful and shit and I’m so confused.  I’m staring straight ahead.  I can’t make eye contact.  Palms sweating.  Parts tingling.  The elevator doors open, without a thought, without one look, I take one step out, still staring straight ahead and unconsciously say, “Just name the time and place.”  And walk away.  I feel his smirk burning through my back. 

“What’s up gorgeous?” flits through the air and I’m instantly snapped back from my memory.  A sideways grin happens across my face.  “You say that to all the girls,” I snap back looking up at his sandy blonde hair, dancing blue eyes and mischievous grin.  “Nooooooo….” He retorts, leaning over my desk with an okay-so-I-totally-do look on his face.  I love this boy.  My Quinn.  Over the couple of years we’ve worked together he’s become such a close friend.  Always saving me from myself, reminding me that I’m still young and that there’s still hope.  He’s the only one here that knows.  He’s my lifeline. 

“Come to the city tonight.  Get trashed with me and the water polo boys.”  I roll my eyes at him.  He’s always trying to get me away from ‘him’.  “I can’t – I have a ‘thing’,” thinking about Dr. Weirdo and making quotations in the air.  “You always have a ‘thing’,” he snaps back mimicking me.  I mouth the words, Therapy while using my thumb and index finger to form a gun shooting at my temple.  Good he mouths back.  He knows how much I need it.  “How about this weekend then?  Come and crash for the weekend.  We’ll see some music, I’ll find you a hottie, be your wingman.  C’mon!”  He’s pretty hard to resist.  He always makes life seem so easy.  He’s always trying to show me a different way.  “I think I’m running away this weekend.  I need my ocean."  He nods approvingly.  He prefers me to be far away from ‘him’.  He sighs with resignation.  “Fine.   Lunch then?  Diner at noon?”  “Yes.” 

I love our time at the diner.  It’s my only escape from that place from the torture.

We order the same thing every time.  I scoff down a cup of chicken noodle soup and a grilled cheese; he gets breakfast and chocolate milk.  He’s such a boy.  It’s the most I eat these days so I let myself indulge.  I look at him.  “You look like shit,” I grumble.  He grins.  “It’s the stripper.  She stopped by after work, which was 4AM.  I haven’t had much sleep.”  Ugh.  I hate the Stripper.  He’s so smart.  So witty.  So deserving of someone with a brain cell and not bubbles popping out of their mouth when they speak.  But he’s recently divorced and this is his coming out party so I give him a minimal eye roll, stare and pray internally this pattern won’t last forever as interesting as it makes for lunch fodder.  “Have you seen him?” I whisper looking down at my plate.  “No.”  I shrink.  Where the fuck is he?  “Has he reached out to you?” he asks.  “No.” I shrink again.  Quinn gives me that, he's-an-asshole-but-you-already-know-that look.  I look away.

This is the longest he’s gone.  I haven’t seen him, I haven’t heard from him, he’s avoided the office.  My stomach wrenches and I fight every urge to run to the bathroom and vomit.  I can’t unravel myself.  It’s all around me.  

I glance at the waiter and do the universal check please look.  Lunch is over.  

Chapter One

“Tarah.” I look up, startled.  “Hi Ken, what’s up?” I say to the kind executive hovering over my desk.  A sweet man.  Always smiling.  “When you get a minute can you pop by my office?” “Sure,” I respond having no idea what he wants to chat about.  Likely a marketing program or something of the sort for partners. 

I finish up whatever it was that I was doing and go to see him.  At the time I was working for a small, informal start up.  Open door offices, 20-somethings everywhere.  I had sort of fallen into the gig.  I was a therapist by trade, turned bead store owner in Burlington, VT, turned lost in translations in Stamford, CT where I ended up by shear acts of fate with my then fiancé.  I had gone from a world of bong hits, tapestries and beads to a corporate start up to help pay the bills.  Lost would be an understatement but we do things for love, and so there I was.

I peak into his office and knock quietly on his door.  “Hey, is now good?” I whisper?  “Yes, come in, shut the door.”  Hmmm.  I sit down, notepad and pen in hand.  Ready to strategize.  “Tarah, I’m worried about you.”  I look around, shifting uncomfortably in my seat.  “I’m not sure what you mean, Ken?”  I had thought none of it was obvious.  I mean, I'm the happy perky girl in the office?  I’ve always prided myself as being a chameleon.  I can fake a smile better than most.  “You’re disappearing in front of me,” he said.  “Look at you, you’re skin and bones.  I’ve been watching you disappear for months now.”  Really, I thought.  I mean, yes, had I gone from a size 10 to a size 4 in a matter of a few months.  Sure.  But I had poised it all as the Atkins diet to which I was experiencing tremendous results.  I thought I had them fooled.  I just can’t eat when I am stressed and ‘stress’ would mildly put what my life had become.

I sat there stoically but his kindness and concern and the fact that I could no longer mask the darkness broke my will.  Tears began to stream down my face.  “I’m not in a good place, Ken.  I haven’t been for a long time.”  “Are you physically ok?” he asks.  “Yes.”  “Well, then how can I help you, what can we do to fix this?” “There’s nothing you can do.  I can’t talk about it.” And I couldn’t.  What I was involved in, what was happening.  It was left behind closed doors for only me and another to discuss.  It was dark and chaotic and it was breaking me day by day. 

He sat there quietly.  Lovingly.  Worried.  I sat there crying as he handed me a tissue.  “Tarah, will you talk to someone?  I have a friend.  Someone who can help you.  If you can’t talk to me, you have to talk to someone.  You’re disappearing Tarah.”  “Maybe” I whisper.  Do I need help?  Can I really not fix this on my own?  Can I really not unravel myself from it?  I look down at my shrinking skin, feeling my empty stomach roll.  Feeling naked with the knowledge that I can no longer hide this.  Feeling lost.  So fucking lost.  Ken quietly scribbles a name and number on a piece of paper.  Hands it to me and says, “He can help Tarah.  Just please think about it.  I’m here if you need someone for whatever it is that’s going on.  I mean that.”  “Thank you,” I whisper and scuffle quickly out of his office. 

I rush outside, sit on a bench, inhale a cigarette and think.  Everything had happened so fast.  All of ‘this’.  These are things you don’t plan.  Choosing a path.  The wrong path.  I think of him.  I change my thought.  Focus Tarah.  For Christ’s sake.  Look at you.  I waver between disbelief, concern, embarrassment and denial.  Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to talk to someone?  I hadn’t been able to talk to anyone.  Not my best friend, not my sister.  No one.  It was all inside.  And all that I was keeping inside was conveying itself through my physical being.  It was eating away at me.  As he said, I was disappearing.

I go back inside.  I walk to the bathroom to wash the smell of smoke off my hands and I stare at myself in the mirror.  My eyes, dark.  Sullen.  Large almond pockets sitting in the midst of a face that was blank, weak.  How could he love me and think this is beautiful?  I reminded myself that I made a stellar chameleon and stroll back to my desk.

After a few hours, I ducked into a conference room.  Cell phone and this strange persons number in my hand.  I sit in darkness.  I was thankful for a room with no windows.  I take a deep breath and dial.  “This is John,” says the gentle elderly voice on the other end of the line.  I sort of stutter a bit, “Hi..erm..this is Tarah…”  “Tarah, I’ve been hoping you’d call, Ken’s told me all about you.”  What the fuck could he have told you?  We barely know one other, I think.  I’m sweating.  Face flushed.  Pissed.  Annoyed.  Sad.  “I really don’t know what to say,” I mumble.  Which was true.  “Well let me talk for a minute and you can listen.”  I like this.  Someone taking charge.  “I’m a bit of an unconventional therapist.  I focus on addiction and codependency.  I’m a recovering addict so I can understand the depths of addiction.  Both emotionally and physically.  ” Note to self to Google codependency.  “I’m here to help you.  Talk things through.  All I ask is throughout our work you believe in something.  Even if that something is a door knob.  I need you to believe in something.  We will have one hour sessions via phone as many times a week as you need.  I charge $100 an hour.  I don’t take insurance.”  Hmmm….via phone?  Interesting.  Hadn’t tried this before.  I might like it.  Not having to look someone in the eye.  Not having to show someone my truth.  This might work.  He asks me some questions about my life, my being, my situation.  I answer as minimally as possible. In truth, the guy was freaking me out with his openness and honesty.  He had me summed up in a matter of minutes and I had spoken so little.  “So Tarah, would you like to try this?”  What could I say, I needed help, and I needed to talk to someone.  Maybe this guy was it.  In the very least I didn’t have to look him in the eye.  “Ok, let’s give it a try,” I grumble.  “Perfect, how does Thursday at 6PM work for you?” Great, I think.  I can smoke butts, drink wine and get therapised.  This is getting better by the minute.  “Perfect,” I grumble again. 

“Tarah, are you going to let me love you?” he says kindly before we hang up. What type of god damned perverted freak is this?  I stand stupefied, staring at my phone.  “What!?” I yelp.  “Are you going to let me love you?  Because it’s clear right now that you can’t love yourself and until we can get you there, I’m going to need you to let me love you.”  I soften.  Makes sense.  Kind of.  Weirdo.  “I’ll try.”  “Good, speak to you Thursday.  And Tarah, remember, you are wanted, needed and loved.”  Click. 

And so it began.  The fixing of Tarah and the revealing of him and me.

Sunday Meandering Thoughts

Age is irrelevant my ass.

I hate when people say that cliché shit.  You’re only as old as you feel and what not and not.  Here’s the thing.  I feel 23 on most days and mentally definitely feel more comfortable vibing there but I’m not 23.  I’m 37.  I have a god damned frow brow crease thingy for Christ’s sake.  It’s legit.  So….yah, I’m getting old and regardless of what I tell myself, it’s the evitable. 

Can I hang with the cool kids, talk pop culture, crack witty jokes, tweet my ass off….sure – but here’s the difference between 23 year old Tarah and 37 year old Tarah.  1.  I see absolutely no reason to stay up past midnight unless I’m having a deliriously fun time.  Nothing good ever happens after midnight (well some things….).  Trust me. 2.  I have a mortgage.  Nuff said there.  3.  I no longer look 23 when I wake up.  It takes hours of adjustment to light for my eyes to remotely make a formation that resembles someone that is awake.  4.  You can’t bounce a dime off my ass anymore and my tits are like a National Geographic cover – and both those things alone in my 20’s got me VERY far.  5.  I have a deep propensity for not reacting.  Reacting to everything in your 20’s creates most of the fun.  Hence, my life isn’t nearly as entertaining.  6.  If I eat more than a salad I have to run 4 extra miles at the gym and do 80 Zumba classes to burn it off (so I haven’t actually done a Zumba class but I hear it works).  In my 20’s, I drank about 8 cans of Coke a day alongside fried salami and cheese sandwiches weighing a solid buck 10.  7.  You couldn’t pay me a million dollars to ever do a hallucinogenic again.  I’m far too smart.  I won’t elaborate on what I did in my 20’s.  8.  Things hurt far more in your 30’s because you’ve lived through a lot and life and lives become more and more important.  9.  In my 30’s I have to give a shit what people think of me.  For my godchildren, for my career.  In my 20’s….I didn’t.  Whether I should have or not, it was liberating.  10.  Finally, I live my life as if there’s still a chance that I will have all of the things that I wanted: aka a child….and there’s a really good chance I won’t but that’s what happens when you think you’re still 23 and the world is your oyster – closing doors for opportunities perhaps you should’ve thought about for a few more seconds before closing.

So, what are the good bits about being older?  Well, there’s a hefty ration of things that suck but a few things that make it all worthwhile are: 1.  Calm and Forgiveness.  A lot more calm and forgiveness.  2.  Being able to afford a mortgage.  3.  Being ok with going to bed before midnight and resting securely that you’re not missing a fucking thing.  4.  Having ‘been there’ and giving advice with absolute confidence.  5.  Having National Geographic tits that make for lovely late night fodder as you and your lover try to slap each other across the face with them.  6.  Selflessness.  I don’t care what you say, you know nothing of this until your 30’s and serious shit starts to go down and except for rarities, nothing serious happens in your 20’s.  7.  Blowing off the gym because you’re totally cool with enjoying life instead recognizing that laughter and love creates a far greater high.  8.  Those rare moments when someone tells you that you’re beautiful because you’d almost forgotten.  And, for a moment, you feel like you’re 23 again.  9.  Crying once and moving on.  Not crying for days.  10.  That if I decide to have a child, I have a million options – most of which don’t include a white picket fence and a tuxedo but I’ll kick ass with nonetheless. 

I wouldn’t change my 30-something-year-old mind for my 20’s but at times I wish I could go back with all the knowledge I have now.  I would’ve made for one stellar soul to contend with.  Now, well now I just waffle between time and space, telling myself that it’s all ok.  I am, after all, still that girl.  Regardless of the shell that now covets her.

And there you have the ramblings of my mind this evening.

Thanks for listening.

Flames.

-->

We all have angels.  They come in forms.  Beings, moments, things, persons.  Angels.

Today my angel was there when I awoke.  He sat there as I purged thought and consciousness.  He listened.  He handed me tissues.  He forced a hug.  He was there hours later as I purged material possessions.  He held bags open as I threw that which no longer held meaning.  He.  Was.  There.

As I sat there releasing moments of my life encapsulated in material objects he kept reminding me that I was beautiful.  It was impossible to hear.  I have been perseverating as of late on who I am.  I have no sense of the now.  I want the version of me back that was before him.  I keep digressing.


Fuck.


I want  to offer something good.  I wish I was deserving.  I can only add NorthFace to the fire and hope the flames burn him away. 



 

Regards

I have none.

Discarded like a stranger.
Disregarded as he fucked a friend.
Empathy has escaped and I can only scream at him in my dreams for not listening.  I had warned him in the moonlight by the river.  He never listens.  Listened. 
He heard only his own darkness and appeased it.
So I offer up a cup of truth.  He was not magnificent.  He was worse.  He was the embodiment of everything I never hoped he would be.
He was.  He no longer is.  To me.
He missed the window.  I had left it open for a bit.  A sanctuary if he had chosen to turn around.
He didn't.  He chased dangling carrots instead. 
Through my markings, I tried to reach.  But you can't save the heartless. So he is left disregarded.  Empty.
I'd like to hurt him as much in return but I just don't have it in me.  I am not who he is.
That is why.
That is this.
That is all.

Bricks

I live in a big house.  It’s not a mansion of sorts but for wee old me, it’s big enough.  3 stories of which are not used except a kitchen, a bedroom and a bathroom.  I tell you this for a reason of which you’ll come to understand.  Read on.

Houses are symbolic of the self.  In the instance that you know me or actually read this rubbish that I write you’ve come to understand there are some pieces of the puzzle that haven’t exactly sorted themselves into the whole quite yet.  My house has been like this.  Rooms painted colors that I didn’t really vibe with, empty spaces and walls, things from my past that no longer suited who I’ve become etc. etc. – you get the gist.  A half ass ensembled structure housing me.  Get it yet?

This Fall I decided that it was proper time to work on the house.  On every level.  Existentially, physically, structurally….etc….etc…So, I embarked in a redecoration effort of the soul.  Material objects, as well as my conscious.  I enlisted the help of my BFF who has a flair for design and I enlisted the help of a therapist.  Two crucial elements in this process. 

I had come leaps bounds in a short amount of time – feeling as if I just might do this, and do this right.  Fix my house and all that lay within and then some.  I went sort of into a phase of riding on a euphoric high of rediscovery, hope, and excitement.  The world was my oyster.  I was changing the colors of my life.  I was getting there.  And…then…the fucking chair never came in.  This one chair that was supposed to complete the room.  The one chair that I needed to complete my ‘space’ – my now ‘being’, was lost in transit somewhere, lost in a state of coloring fabric and velvet undertones.  And then things came to a screeching halt.  The redesign faded quickly into a repetitive pattern of distain for existsence….

Stupid traffic jams of life. 

And then it hit me.  I had escaped all of the realistic undertones by riding on a high of things to come, not what was, so in essence, I was still…still.  My house wasn’t ready to be to finished because I was distracted from the real work.  Is this vibing?  My house wasn’t ready to be finished because I wasn’t even close to being a ¼ of the way there yet.  It wasn’t about the structure of walls; it was the structure of my humanity that was still in process.  Until that was done, the chair would never come.

I didn’t like this.  I rebelled like a motherfucker.  I did stupid things.  I am an impatient soul.  I can’t help it.  However, I then grew tired and stopped.  I got back to the foundational work.  The most important bit to build this ‘house’.  I slowly covered gaps with cement to make it stronger.  I allowed myself to be in it.  One step forward, 5 steps back. 10 steps forward, 3 steps back.  Life.

I got the call on Friday.  The chair has been shipped.  I think I’m ready for that room to be complete now.  There are 3 more rooms to go that are in process.  By the spring, I think it will be a beautiful place to be. 

Make sense?

Thanks for listening.