Last New Year’s Eve I watched the celebration across the world.
From my bleak and lonely hospital room, my window held a distant view of bursting colors in the sky. I vowed then I’d be anywhere but where I was for the actual beginning of the New Year. I guess I can at least say, “I’m not where I was.” Geographically speaking, of course.
I teased my friend James that for 2010 I’d meet him in New York City for some serious celebrating. I hope his wife and him get the chance to go. Unless I can manage the great escape I’m pretty much stuck.
I spent almost 4 weeks in the hospital at the beginning of the year. That’s the longest I’d ever been and I almost went crazy. I came out knowing how wonderful freedom was. The smell of smoggy air never seemed so magical before.
I spent a week savoring the knowledge of remission. I searched my soul on the beaches of Corpus Christi and realised it would be so easy to start a journey and walk away from everything I knew. I wanted to. Something inside me changed. I’d sit watching the sunsets I’d missed and I’d cry at the beauty. I cursed the Cancer that wanted to make me run away from everything I knew and loved. I felt a new power radiate within me. A determination to make myself stronger. I felt I had many more things to do. And there was a fear that drove me. It was the fear of knowing Tomorrow is never a promise.
I returned home vowing to pour all my energy into my writing. I’d made a promise to myself and I intended to keep it. My battle was over, I had fought the great fight to the end. This final season would close the chapter of school. I’d be my best or I’d go down trying.
It was my best. And it was worth every bruise, elbowing, and burn I received. I let loose the warrior in me and had fun. It wasn’t about winning, it was about finishing. It was about walking across the stage with my head up and my smile telling the story of how awesome life felt.
There are a lot of lessons in life and I think I suffered most of them throughout the year. Love can stink but it’s also an awesome thing. Prejudice lives and if I could smother or strangle it I would. It affects everyone but unless we stand up to it it’s not going to back down without a fight. Heartache is around every corner, there’s no way to prepare for it. We have to ride it out and hope for the best. Shedding tears doesn’t make us weak, it gives us strength to go on. To every beginning… there’s an end and a new beginning. Everything has a price, nothing we receive comes freely. Know what you’re willing to sacrifice to get it. Life is truly awesome.
I guess I packed a lot of mischief, mayhem, and laughter in all those months. I feel like I accomplished many things. I suppose what I wanted most was quality. I don’t think I’d want to change anything, because even through the heartaches the quality of what I experienced was primo. So in that respect I don’t have regrets.
Did I have happiness? Yes. Did I lose my smile and the laughter? Sometimes but I always found it again. Were the tears worth it? For every tear I was given the brilliance of the sunlight, so yes, they were. Did I find the rainbow? In every friend, most definitely.
That’s a lot of rainbows. It’s been an awesome year.
In A Deep and Dark December
Am I ever going to see the sun again? Am I ever going to get on that flight home? The airports are canceling flights this week and that means our flight home on Saturday morning is canceled. Maybe we should put up permanent residence here? 
I didn’t sleep last night. Not last night. Just like three years ago. I’m wearing the same blue night shirt, laying on the same pillows, thinking about the same things. I wasn’t surprised when the bright sunlight came in through the curtains, telling me that the dawn had come. The snow clouds soon choked out the sun, casting a haze over the sky. The snow storm is more than ten hours away, but the clouds have completely covered the sky.
I think back on the night, three years ago, and the tears don’t even come. As hard as I try, I am jaded from the scene. I cannot cry about it anymore. I’ve exhausted all angles of what happened three years ago, and I can no longer find myself guilty of anything wrong. There is no reason for my sorrow. There is no reason for my tears. So why couldn’t I sleep last night? Were the ghosts of one of a thousand regrets walking the halls, scratching on the door to the bedroom? What did they want? The answers?
I am tired now. I think sleep will come. I have my morning meds to take, and then it’s off to bed, to sleep away the day. Sleep like I did three years ago. I have forgiven myself, so I can repeat my past. I can re-enact it every year and try to change what I do. Change the past so I’m not forced to remember how it really is. Take a few blue pills to erase the memories and numb my brain. Become a living corpse, walking the halls with those ghosts late into the night.
But I cannot lay down and sleep.
I don’t deserve to sleep.
No matter how many of those blue pills I take, I cannot erase the memories I want erased. They pick and choose what parts of my brain that are permanently gone, and I have no choice in the matter, except the choice to take the pills. Those memories I want gone haunt me. Perhaps they are the ghosts that keep me awake at night?
The most haunting is what she did and said before she died. What my little PoRo said to me before she died. When she became sick with cancer the first time, she was happy. She said cancer was nothing and when she got well we could be a family again. Momma wouldn’t cry anymore and daddy wouldn’t be ‘away’ as much anymore. She got well. Then she relapsed almost a year ago. This time it was different. She was sad before we even took her to the doctor. Before the diagnosis ever came. After the diagnosis, I asked her why she was sad. Surely a second battle with cancer wouldn’t scare her.
What she said made my heart ice over… “Momma…I’m not going to make it this time. I’m going to die, and there’s no Rainbow Bridge, there’s no misty field surrounded by mountains where we play while we wait for you and daddy to come. When I die, I’m going to be gone forever, and I’ll never see you or daddy or anyone ever again and they’ll never see me again.”
Those words hit hard when I woke to the silent house, when PoRo was gone forever. “…I’m gone forever and I’ll never see you again…and you’ll never see me again…”
Those words don’t bring tears to my eyes. Am I immune? Has my soul dissolved in a beaker of acid? Or will they just scratch at my door late at night on the eve of December 28th, 2010?
Over Christmas, I visited PoRo’s grave. I brought her blue flowers. She loved blue flowers, though blue wasn’t her favourite colour. Her grave was decorated. Kids from her class had been by to leave stuffed animals, letters, someone had left her a can of Pepsi, propped against the cold, icy marble stone which bears her name, the dates, and her favourite Lord Byron lines. I knelt down in the snow, the coldness immediately radiated up my knees and through my shins and legs. I brushed some snow aside and laid the flowers on the slushy ground at the foot of the stone. “Merry Christmas, PoRo…Where ever you may be. Momma still loves you,” I whispered. Her daddy approached me from behind and told me it was time to go. I wasn’t wearing a coat, I wasn’t wearing gloves, I had walked most of the way there, in crocs, no socks, the snow had soaked the legs of my jeans through. How long had I been kneeling there? I don’t remember the walk back to his car. I don’t remember what he replied to me when I asked why he didn’t bring his little girl something. A blanket, a stuffed animal, didn’t he know she was probably cold and scared down in that dark grave covered with snow?
I recovered, eventually. I slept for a few hours. When I woke up, I played with my Christmas gifts. I ate candy. I frolicked in the snow with what’s left of my family. But the ghosts returned. PoRo hasn’t even been dead a year, but she has joined the ghosts that haunt me on this eve, and forever will.
Tonight is a special night. Check back tomorrow to find out why. I’m updating from my iPhone and it’s really tedious to update from this keypad. I don’t know how Liz did it! /salutes Liz
Everything on the site is fixed. People should be able to comment, the EC widget is back in business, and hopefully the spammers are debunked for the time being.
I spent two hours working on this, so now that it’s done, I’m exhausted, and I want to get some sleep. Good night everybody! Leave me tonnes of comments!!!
Christmas Hangover
I apologise for the comment problem. I’ve logged a complaint on the official forum, but I think I might have corrupted my data base. I don’t particularly want to start over with a new data base because MT isn’t the only thing that runs off it. If I have to do that, I might as well go on to WordPress. 
The ground outside is still covered in snow. My husband found an old refrigerator box from somewhere, and we actually got in it and rode down the snow-covered hill in it. Of course, we wiped out at the bottom of the hill. 
We had a pretty good Christmas. Even the dinner was ok, after the disaster. My husband asked me to hold the turkey bag, and he was going to drop the turkey in. I knew that was a bad idea. The turkey went right through the bag and onto the dirty kitchen floor. Of course that was my fault. I knew that wasn’t a load-bearing bag! The turkey tasted pretty good, though, once it was done. And yes, we washed it off.
I got some pretty good presents. The best being the plasma TV. My husband finally got over the fact that plasma screens will give you lead poisoning, since none of us died from using laptops or the flat-screened computers. I’ve told him for the last few months that we’d be more likely to die of lead poisoning from my closet lab, because it’s actually lined in lead, but I guess experience is a better teacher than I am. I also got a DSLite. Over all, it was a good Christmas. I’ve posted some pictures at the bottom of the entry in case you missed the Flickr post.
The roads must be pretty slick out there. I seen the mail man try to turn around on the street and his back wheels were spinning on the road. He tried several times to back up. He could go forward pretty well, but not backwards. A pick up truck pulled up behind him, and after a few seconds, the people in the truck got out and helped push his mail cart backwards and he got off the street. I wonder what he’s going to do if that happens on another street? Maybe those people will follow him around and help him out of the ice. *laughs*
The snow on Christmas Eve:
My Christmas presents. Yes, I’m watching Saw VI on my new TV.
Candy Red liquorice Scottie Dogs. They’re delicious!
We dyed some pastachios red for Christmas, and the red powder dye is all over my fingers and now keyboard and mouse. Oh well. I have some big news, but I won’t reveal it until January 3erd. It’s just that good.
I'm Weird
It’s snowing outside. It’s cold outside. Yet here I sit, with the air conditioner on, hotter than hell.
Jamie aka: The being known as Wonder Girl, 30, mother of four, wife to one, she is a senior biomedicine student who is learning to fit in in the world around her. After nearly three decades on this planet, she still doesn't know where she belongs. Best friend of Matt, sarcastic, spoiled, apathetic, kutie brat, babe. Just your average woman, living in a not-so-average world, surviving by her incredible super power of being able to see right through you while
accomplishing more tasks than you ever thought imaginable. She is the being known as Wonder Girl and she is speaking, I believe. More? Aren't you brave!
