Tales From This House of Cards

There’s something about hearing the words, “It’s not you, it’s me,” and, “I hope we can still be friends.”

Something dies inside.

A little hope, a little happiness, a little innocence…they all fly out the door. And you’re just stuck their like a fly on a fly trap, watching it all happen and there is nothing you can do about it.

It doesn’t help if there is little warning. It doesn’t help that it’s on the first day of Thanksgiving break, effectively ruining the rest of the holiday. It doesn’t help that you liked that person with a part of your heart you hadn’t shared with anyone else before. It doesn’t help that you had been warned that this *might* happen, and you chose to dive in headfirst anyway.

Sitting in that parked red pickup truck in front of a little house strung with lights, hugging your coat around your chest, simultaneously wanting to flee and tie yourself to the chair so that she won’t leave you, that’s when that little thing dies.

Love, I guess. Lust? Like? I don’t know. It hurt, regardless.

And then, you have a week to prepare. Or ruminate? You choose both. So you prettify yourself and allow yourself to flirt and make plans with a girl you barely know because that’s what everyone’s telling you to do, you hold your chin high and you strut into the room you know she’s in and then it all falls apart and you just stand there looking like an idiot, a dumb idiot, until you flee the room, collapse into a chair in your psychology class, and cry silently as your professor talks about relationships.

There are five stages of grief, this I know. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. I deny. I am not angry. I bargain, and I am depressed. Acceptance comes in little fleeting moments.

This is young love, hmm? The kind you tell your children about. Or don’t talk about ever again, because it was a month. A month. So it doesn’t count, right? So why does it hurt? It hurts. It would be easier if there was a fight or something. Damn it, you have to stop ruminating. But it hurts. It hurts.

It is four in the morning, and I am up because this night, it has been magical.

I mentioned a crush earlier. A crush on someone about whom I had a slight inkling might feel likewise. We began talking more and more, three hour IM sessions and meeting to “run lines” when it just turned into more talking about everything and nothing for hours on end, quick dinner conversations and short dog walks. And then, the text. “I really want to get to know you more. When can I see you next?”

I brought my cat down and we hung around the dog yard, with a boy on my floor who has two dogs, and we talked about love stories and exes and futures and how to stage punch people. When She left to fetch her dog, I spoke in hurried and excited whispers to the boy and to another girl on my floor who came with her dog, about whether I was obvious in my liking, whether She liked me, too, whether we’d be cute together. Giggles and nods and She came back, and we talked some more about those same things, those same deep things and funny things that equally made me smile, but I couldn’t stop smiling regardless. I was nervous, I was excited, I was curious. She touched my arm and I sucked in a breath.

I like This Girl.

It was one thirty in the morning, the boy was hungry, and so we all went to part ways. As I headed to the door of my dorm with the boy and the girl, She stopped me, asking if I wanted to go on a dog walk with her. I agreed, and off we went. We spoke of poetry and plays, dreadlocks, memories, embarrassing moments, MC Hammer, dancing, music, all while finding murals painted onto the pavement of four-way stops in the historic and quaint communities surrounding campus. We walked through a community garden, spoke with a drunk man who was quite close to jumping off the overpass, She handed me a gerber daisy with a spicy scent, and I could not stop smiling.

We approached my dorm, and I thought about how to end this night. This beautiful, beautiful night. As I turned to say goodnight, She leaned down to pet her dog and asked what I’m doing tomorrow. After I reply that I’m not really doing much of anything, She wanted to know, in a quiet little voice, a bit cautious and shy, if I’d be willing to get hot cocoa with her. I agreed, She beamed, told me She’d call me tomorrow, then, we said goodnight, and as soon as She turned her back and I was inside, I pumped the air and shrieked with happiness. I spent the next two hours talking about the future with a girl on my floor, and it was lovely.

It was natural, it was beautiful, it was romantic, it was right. It was magical, the only word I can use to describe a night that, if things go amazingly and I marry her one day, I will be PROUD to tell the grandkids.

Ah, the magic.

I am finding myself in uncharted territory.

I have always had crushes on girls, but I’ve never validated them beyond, “oh, it’s just a ‘girl crush.’” Now that I’ve come out, these can be validated, and it’s beyond odd.

For the past year, I haven’t had a crush on anyone. I’ve considered dating random people, guys and girls, but it hasn’t gone anywhere because I’ve talked myself out of it before anything began, namely because my only reasons for considering dating them were that I was inherently desperate. Others have had a crush on me, but I’ve blown them off. I’ve even delved into online dating, which was awkward to say the least.

But now.

When I came out, I considered if there was any girl from my school that I would consider dating. There’s Lauren and Olivia, who are dating and both of whom I really like, but not like “that.” That’s it. There was no one else.

And then.

Lauren mentioned her once, when listing off all the gays of our school. Her name is Haley. I hadn’t known she was gay, though I was curious, and she’d begun talking to me more and more.

I thought about it, thought about it some more.

And decided that I liked her.

Not in an “oh my goodness, she’s so hot I want her RIGHT NOW,” but in a “she’s smart, attractive, funny, nice, and I’m pretty sure she likes me, too.”

And now it’s all that I can think about.

I love crushes because of that rush they give, but at the same time, they are quite distracting.

QUITE distracting.

I’m going to attempt to make this brief, because I don’t want to dwell on really any of it, except perhaps the good parts. Consequently, I will probably rant about the good parts, and offer one or two sentences for the terrible parts.

Let’s start with the bad parts.

I had a conversation with my parents about my sexuality. It went horrifically wrong. They threatened to cut me off, both financially and personally.

I had a terrible flashback. I was sitting in the college president’s office, and looked out into the hallway and realized their walls were exactly like those of OCGH. Pale yellow, with a white molding border thing in the middle. It sent chills up my spine, and I had to suck in a breath and look away and start thinking of something else and focus on the present.

My foster cat is not working out. As the shelter I am fostering her from is no-kill and keeps the cats in a variety of huge rooms with outdoor patios, lots of toys and cat towers and beds, and a good amount of human attention, I think she’s happier back there. So I’m getting another foster cat, one who is not a formal feral like the current one.

And now the good parts.

I haven’t cut in about a week and a half.

I am making more friends. I am now pretty involved in the Queer-Straight Alliance, and as a result all of my new friends are from that group. They are fantastic, and lots of fun.

Two of those friends I’ll call Lex and Annie. They’re dating, and are awesome, and they have been incredibly welcoming to me. Just last night, after a terrible phone call with my parents, I mentioned something about it on facebook, and Lex texted me to ask if I was okay. Half an hour later, there was banging on my door, and when I opened it, there was a cookie cake with the words “Yay for Gay!” on it in huge frosting letters, and this huge bag of absolutely random rainbow themed things, like Skittles and Sour Patch Kids and a Lisa Frank coloring book and crayons and silly string and glow sticks and those capsules that when put into water inflate into foam creatures.

I also learned that I am going to Los Angeles in a few weeks with Lex to attend an LGBT awards event with lots of big-name celebrities, and the school is paying for the entire trip (air travel, hotel, food, tickets…)

So. I must say that all of the good parts outweigh the bad parts. I truly am blessed, even though it isn’t with a good family. 

As I was walking downtown this evening, on my way to a dinner of Mexican food with two others, I passed a heartbreaking, when not baffling, sight.

A woman was standing on the edge of the road, seemingly as though she were about to cross, though she was about ten feet from the cross walk, and no cars were in sight. She simply stood there, dressed in a short grey skirt and tattered over-sized white t-shirt, clutching something I couldn’t quite make out. Her short, sandy hair was unkempt and stuck out in all directions. Her eyes were wide and had a certain intensity to them, and honestly she appeared crazy.

However, as I came closer, I noticed something.

The woman was covered in bruises.

I have honestly never seen someone with more bruises than this woman sported. They covered her arms and legs like polka dots, some larger than others, all an ugly blackish purply blue. I caught my breath, my stomach dropping.

And then I continued on my way.

If I’m being honest, most people who know of me believe I’m crazy, that kind of crazy. I do have a temper, and I wear my heart on my sleeve. I’m opinionated and not afraid to share those opinions, and I do, unfortunately, hold grudges. Jokes are often made at my expense, sometimes by people who claim to be my closest friends, laughing about how I’ll probably kill someone because I’m “so obsessed” or “so psychotically angry” at them.

A situation like that happened last night. A friend brought up something she didn’t appreciate about me, and then quickly changed the subject. As I’m already a bit annoyed at and hurt by her for some things that have occurred just recently, it struck a nerve. I didn’t have a chance to defend myself. And I called her a couple of unkind words, and went about seething.

She, of course, acted like nothing had happened. We were in the lounge area of our dorm, and some friends joined us for a TV show viewing that happens every week. Of course there was tension, and when the friend tried to correct me on something, I struck her down. A few nervous laughs swept across the room, and someone mentioned something like, “Damn, Chaya, you’re in a bitchy mood.” They went on like that for quite some time, and it continued after I left, and into the next day.

As another example, my eating habits are often scrutinized and judged by pretty much everyone. I will be the first to tell you that I have food trauma thanks to my mother and OCGH. If I do not have food readily available to me, I grow anxious. Because our cafeteria is only open certain hours, when they are open, I scarf down far too much food, hoping it will tide me over. In addition, I’ll smuggle food out and hoard it in my room. I’m working on this, but it is an issue. And it’s an issue no one really seems to care about beyond judging it.

And then, my cuts. I’m far too dramatic, far too over-emotional, or, that’s what seems to be the general consensus. Never mind that I have depression, never mind that I have a whole history of things that get triggered almost ever day. Never mind that I am working on healing from this.

Finally, most individuals seem to judge my relationship with my family. Or lack thereof. As though my relationship should be healthy and happy, overlooking the constant abuse that left me with bald spots, split lips, bloody noses, bruises, gashes, and scars, for the first eighteen years of my life. Overlooking my mother’s bipolar, of which I’m often the target. Overlooking my parents’ statements that should I ever be honest about a few different things, I will not be welcome back in their home, and barred from contact with my brother. Overlooking my father’s rage. Overlooking their abandonment and denial and apathy toward the sexual abuse I’ve experienced and the abuses of OCGH. Overlooking the apathy and denial of my extended family.

I often feel like that woman beside the road. At first glance, all anyone sees is crazy. They fail to look deeper, to see those bruises, to see that things might not be as they seem. If they did, their perspective might change, their mind might change, their heart might change. They would see the truth, instead of the convenient facade.

I wish people didn’t seek the convenience, the easy way to view the world. Perhaps it’s my love for psychology, but quite truthfully I strive to see the deeper meaning to behaviors, to see the heartache that often causes the pathology of “bad” behavior. I seek the truth.

I urge you, challenge you, dare you to seek the truth.

I have one bandaid.

Should I cut?

Or use that damn bandaid to cover a previous cut?

How pathetic has my life become?

My perfectly constructed new life is crumbling.

I want to scream, hit something, hit someone.

Use that damn bedsheet that I’ve tied, untied, tied, and untied again so many times.

I think sometimes that my life is just a sick and twisted joke to God.

I hate this.

Panic attack.