SEE WHAT YOU DON'T

You call me Skitzo-friend, I call you un-believer.

I see the rabbits fly; I tell you I see the rabbits high.

“No honey,” you say, “There are no rabbits there, just your mind playing again.”

But I see what I see, I know what I see, I feel what I see.

Because you cannot see it, I am mad. You label me you label you label me mad I bubble label bubble why do you label me.

Why must I conform confirm. I don’t want to be like you, I don’t want to talk like laugh like bend like be like, I don’t want to be like you. Why must I conform confirm.

There go the rats with giant fangs, great red eyes and bleeding fangs. Get the rats away from me, they suck me dry, they tear at my flesh. You don’t see it, but they come to me at night when all is quiet. Screechingly sweetly they come at me. You were not there, they came at me.

“And what do these rats do to you when they come?”

They laugh and play and then they play hard and when their teeth start to grow out, they eat at me, they eat at me, they eat at me…no…no…no…no…make it stop…

“There are no rats here, you can sit back in the chair. Come out from under that table, you are safe now, sit down, sit down.”

The pills again, again with the pills, red white blue and silver. I don’t like the pills. They dry out my mouth, they make me shake, the pills give me the twitch, they make me sick. Why the pills, enough with the pills.

The pills make me see what you see, hear what you hear, feel what you feel, laugh alike like alike like you laugh. The pills, you say, make me “normal.” But what is normal, and who decides what is normal and what isn’t? Just because I see what you don’t, you “little-brained-un-believer,” doesn’t give you cause to drawn me in misery with red white blue and silver, redwhitebluesilver.

You say that you are drowning out my misery, and yet I tell you this, you are flooding me with even more unnecessary m-i-s-e-r-y.

I do not want to be like you, I don’t want to be you. Why are you forcing my mouth open…no…no…no…no…choke…choke…gulp…gulp…gulp. Oh now I see you smile at me, you pat me like I am your dog; good dog, you say, good dog. The medicine will make you feel better.

Conform confirm I must confirm.

Why conform confirm affirm re-calm, who says I am calm, who says I was not calm.

Einstein, Emerson, Socrates, Jesus; you know I know we know…This thing they call “madness” you know, I know, it is not madness when we feel what they don’t feel.

I am the believer; you are the un-believer. I am the seer, you are the blind one. It is you that should be taking the pills, it is you that should be strung up to the metal rods, it is your brain I should be poking.

Let my brain alone. Let my being alone. You annoy me when you prod me like that. Let me be. Why don’t you let me be. I hurt no one, I harm no one. Let me to my ghosts, my rats that suck the blood, my rabbits that fly the skies, let me alone with my voices numerous as they are.

I like that they talk to me, I like that they sing to me. Let me with my world that is square and you can keep your world that is round. I am happy, I harm no one. Enough with your prodding, let me be.

I can draw in 3 dimension. I can sing in 4 dimension. I can figure atomics and make god and gold in cleverest ways wide and small. I can bend the waves, accost the vibrations, fold the wind and hear the birds. All of these things and many more, I and only I can do.

You have seen my paintings, you have heard my music, you have felt my power, you have watched my greatness, and every day you enjoy my creations. Enough with the prodding; let me be.

You call me Skitzo-friend; I call you un-believer.

Switch roles with me. Come into my world. Join my being. Come see what I see and I bet you much that you will never, after, despise me, my works, my dreams, my people.

You call me Skitzo-friend; I call you un-believer.

PECCAVI

There is nothing more frightening that being caught red-handed dipping your hand in the forbidden sugar bowl. There are many things I do not mind getting caught at because I have a life-saving theory that says that guilt and regret are man’s worst enemies, and as such, should never be given room in any sane life. If you are going to partake in an act of any kind; do it, enjoy it, forget about guilt and live a happy life. But it was now ten in the morning and as I fumbled out of the bed in which I had spent the night, I nearly tripped over the shoes carelessly strewn on the floor. I was nervous and mad, in such a rush to get out of there. I am a very light sleeper and the turning of the keys in the lock of the door had alerted me to the fact that “the room-mate” was back, I had been caught, my party had come to an end, alas reality hit me like the cold November breeze. There was a thick curtain between we, on the bed, and the roommate because, much as we had been enjoying ourselves, we knew that at some point we would have to break up the fun, and so we had erected a veil between us and the world.

As I lay perspiring from my light, albeit short sleep, I could almost hear the astonishment mixed with anger and confusion clouding “the room-mates” cognitive faculties; he was trying to understand what it is that he had walked into. I, on the other hand, pretended to be fast asleep as I planned my future escape; I had to get out of there as soon as possible or I would hate myself forever. As if reading my mind, “the room-mate” dived into the shower and I could hear water running but I was too scared to peel back “our” veil thinking he would spring out at any minute, see my face, and judge me for breaking all of the rules known to man. And so I lay there, and waited, and waited until I felt I could stand it no more, I had to run out of there as fast as possible. It was ten in the morning, the hall ways would be buzzing with dirty, sleepy, sexually frustrated Catholic boys and I did not want to be the focus of their hate. People tend to hate that which they want but can not have, and hating it, they focus so much energy on destroying it thinking that therein lies the solution to their paradox.

As I struggled out of the bed, trying to maneuver my way to the exit, I was polite enough to nudge Prince just to let him know that I was not just stealing out of his bed (which is exactly what I was doing), but running to safety. He was out like a log and the more I shook him, the louder he snored, so I threw on the few clothes that I had miraculous managed to slip off, slip on, and slip off again through out the entire night as I played hard to get, knowing full well that Prince would have in the end, any way he pleased. I dashed about the room collecting any incriminating evidence and trying desperately to leave as little of me as possible, it had been a great night, but I was not willing to dwell on it too much, there was so much involved and the web of intricacy was plain disturbing.

Prince was one of my students, my advisees, one of the kids I usually take under my wing, to nurture help and support. Prince was one of my patients! He came to me when he was dealing with problems in his relationship; the girl did not seem to be responding to his ever eager advances of love and undying faithfulness. She seemed to shun him and he was very depressed. I stayed up nights and weekends, talking him through the act of patience because, as I came to realize, patience was not a word he had heard of and it was going to take me a very long time to instill this virtue in him. But I was willing to do the work if he was willing to take the time to learn. He is one of a kind, Prince, not different from a lot of rich boys who have had the world handed to them on a plate by mummy, daddy, carer, underlings and followers. He is a very wealthy young man who has never had to ask for anything, let alone been refused anything. So, like a little child who cries when he is refused what he deems to be his by divine right, he was frustrated not able to understand why, and how a girl such as his girl friend, would not want to work at their relationship and obey his every command. It was clearly perplexing for him and that is the reason why he came to me; nobody else could stand his gigantic ego centralism, they all seemed to pass him on to the one they thought possessed the most patience…me. I am darn good at my job, saying the right things at the right times, so much so that I scare myself sometimes because I do not know how I got so good, all I know is that I have the gift of the tongue and I like to use it well.

With every emotional problem, ofcourse, there is the underlying issue of where the problem stems from. And with this, I came to find out that Prince did not feel loved by his mother who, he insists dotes on his sisters, and chooses to ignore him. Even though she would buy him the world in a second, he feels like he has been denied the hugs and kisses that his sisters have been endowed. His father, however, does not count in this because we all know that men don’t hug their sons, that is the way it has been since Adam and Eve and we are yet to see a shift in this mentality. With every case of mine, there is the temptation to reveal to my patient something of the traumatic life that I have lived, just to show them that what they are fretting over is nothing but cheesecake. But as every person in my field will admit, this strategy only falls on deaf ears because as long as a person has a problem they are revealing to you, theirs is the only focus in mind and none other; however dire and legitimate your life story, keep it to yourself or write a book or something, because it will not help the poor creature lying on your couch complaining about how bad they have had it. So I listened to Prince and I advised and taught him well, so well so that when I came back to work after taking a month off to enjoy the sunny beaches of San Diego, he seemed to be in better spirits, talking about a girl he was thinking about. It was good to see my work producing some good in a human being.

One thing about my line of work is that you get people coming to you with deep emotional revelations that they would never breath to anyone, trusting you with their lives that sometimes it can get a little unnerving knowing that you hold in your hand, the power to make or destroy someone. These people will spell their lives out to you in clear plain words, as long as you ask the right questions. And getting to their very core, they will open up wide, tear out a fraction of themselves and hand it to you, asking you to hold it, examine it, mend it and make them whole again. It is a very powerful feeling, almost akin to playing God, and hence the reason it calls for great dedication, diplomacy and professionalism. When the only way people can be near you, or be with you is when they are at their most vulnerable, then you have a role to play as a guide and protector, but we know that the world is not perfect and even surgeons do sometimes fall off the pedestal on which we are so eager to place them. I am a novice at what I do and I guess I am learning, and learning fast, about the Do’ and Don’ts of my line of work. I have no one but myself to guide me, hence the constant mishaps that I find myself in, hence the avoidable situations that I mistakenly get stuck in sometimes.

When Prince took me to dinner to thank me for everything that I had done for him, I was quick to explain to him that it was not me that had done the hard grind, it was him that had made the progress and all I did was ask the right guiding questions and slap him a hefty bill. That is really all there was to it; he paid me a lot of money so he could sit on my couch and I would listen to his problems, I could not think of a better life or a better job. Dinner was wonderful and all the while I could not help thinking how unfortunate it was that Prince could not get his “darling girl” to fall in love with him. He was clearly a gentleman, with good manners, spoilt, yes, but a gentleman none the less, and very generous.
Through out dinner we talked about his “intensive feelings” which he thought was his downfall with women. Ever since he was a young boy, Prince has always had such intense love that goes beyond mere like and adoration. He is, as his name resonates, a true Prince in his own right, born to love women and be a pleasure, as well as a companion to the female sex, and he did not have a problem with expressing himself until he came across a girl who seemed to find his endless love-confessions too much to handle. While other men were out trying to conquer as many females as they could lay on, he was trying to find someone to build a relationship with, and it had never crossed his mind that sometimes men like to have women for the sheer pleasure of it, and then kick them out of their lives at the dawn of day. It was very interesting to see the look of open naivety on his face as I revealed the secrets of the male underworld to a man who, I now realized, was only a child, in a great big world. It was endearing to watch and the more he listened, the more I felt a keen empathy for Prince because I could foresee total heartbreak in his future and I was too scared to tell him how dire his prospects were. There was a lot of work to be done and I was determined to teach him, as long as I was still getting paid.

Many, many, many hours later…

My head was pounding as I ran down the stairs jumping three at a time and nearly breaking my knee. I could feel the effects of that second bottle of wine that Prince and I had shared before we decided that we were going to make our own rules and spend the night together. But right ahead of me past the hallway, I could finally see my freedom, and yanking the door to the basement open, praying and begging that I had not been seen by anyone as I was sneaking out of the boys’ dorm, I headed past the dark allets of the basement and made it to the door leading to my salvation, I was back in the girls’ dorm. It was Sunday morning and everyone was sleeping off the effects of the previous night’s recklessness. In my room, I quickly undressed and noticed that I was wearing one of Prince’s shirts and had forgotten my blouse, my coat, and my laptop in his room, so much for not leaving any incriminating evidence to show that I had been there! But I did not have time to dwell on any of that, I had to be at a fund raising brunch in an hour, I would come back and deal with my mistakes later.

There are very few things I do not mind getting caught red-handed at because I have an open mind to a lot of the rules that judge and condition this life great big life. But sleeping with a patient is not one of those things I am very open about, reason being, it is wrong, it is so wrong it is just plain wrong. And what was more disturbing was the fact that this was not the first time it was happening. Good thing I caught this “madness” before any major scandal came to light. It only hit me the other day that Prince was not the first of my students that I was having “relations” with. And to make things even worse, all of these students, or patients if you will, had one thing in common; they all hate their mothers and complain about the lack of love from society. It is a funny thing really because all of this time I never realized that there was a common area here; I just thought that I was a woman with very loose morals, jumping into bed with her would-be-advisees due to uncontrollable urges, yet all this time, these men had this one major conflict in common.

Coming to this realization does not help matters much because now I am perplexed as to why I would feel greater empathy for men who have “trouble” with their mothers and why do I tend to attract to myself men going through this same sorry phase. I would not consider myself more nurturing than the next woman on the street, I do not believe I possess any special ability that sets me apart to be better able to deal with men in this situation; I am not maternal much, I do not possess any psychological attributes that I feel would be great weapons in healing sons and mothers. And you may be curious as to how the relations go…what happens after I leave their beds or they leave mine? Usually they just go back to being the same moody men that they were when I first met them; but this time, they are more immune to the so-called grievances that their mothers throw at them. Actually they come out of it quite renewed, but I am not sure how long this lasts because I am usually too ashamed to keep up with the friendships so I release them out into the world and wish them all the best.

I must get back to the roots of professionalism and as I mentioned before, I have no one to guide me and everything that I do is trial and error. Now I know that I can not accept a dinner invitation from any one of my patients, unless it is a female, this makes things more comfortable and less complicated. I also now know to watch out for the men with mother-son complex; they are trouble for me and my emotions; if I could understand what it is about their situation that makes me want to love them and make love to them, then I could curb this sick sexual transgression. But failing to find the root cause, I must stay away and pass them on to my other colleagues who are more than willing to take on the extra challenge.

And so it turns out the “the room-mate” did figure out that it was me that had spent the night with his once lonely and shy room-mate and the to this day he is unsure how a loner like Prince, could convince the brains as me, to share his life. He believes that Prince took advantage of me after the two bottles of wine, but I convinced him that if any one was taken advantage of, it was Prince and not me. As for the other dorm-boys, they were not as stupid as I thought they were. With the big love-bite on Prince’s neck and the loud-mouth telling of a couple of people that had seen me go into his room at eleven at night, people put two and two together, and everyone has their own version of events, and we shall leave it at that; Prince and I prefer the mystery that shrouds our friendship, we like to leave it to the gossips to fill in the gaps where they see fit.

PAINT ME PERFECT

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It is true, it is very true, we do not fall in love with the people that we meet, we fall in love with the image and the portrait that we create of them, it is “the idea” of them that draws us to them and not necessarily the “true-being” of them. This image is picture- perfect. That is to us, at least. We pull this portrait out of our infinite minds, not caring that this image is sometimes not even based on what these would-be relations have presented to us; merely, on what we would like them to be to us, on what we would like to change them into. And we spend our whole lives trying to change those that we say we adore, into that famous ridiculous painting we hold so dear in our minds. Once they fail to change to our specifications, we get mad, we complain, curse and start to argue, accusing these self-same people of changing; when actually they never changed, they are who they always were. Just because they failed to transform into what we were molding, does not mean that they changed, no one changed, the picture-perfect portrait reigned supreme in our minds, somehow we thought we could win, realizing that we can not have the portrait, we despair, rant, kick and tell the world, “ I want out,” moving on then to the next victim and going through the same cycle over and over, desperately trying to fit this idea of ours, this perfect costume, onto any one person we think might carry it best.

We do this through out our lives, in all of our friendships, relations and even mere encounters. This obsession to change “that which is” into that “which we think it should be,” starts very early on when we are babies. It starts when Mother and Father look at their little bundle of joy and go about trying to change Junior into a mini adult. It starts when Mother dresses you in a skirt that looks very similar to hers, sends you to the same school that she went to, rejects the friends that she can not figure out, and finally rejects that boyfriend who does not act like, look like, or reason like your Father. I think that from a very early age, we teach our children that life is all about altering the things around us into images that make sense to our finite minds, instead of taking those new and differing things, studying them, opening up our minds to their infinite difference and trying to incorporate them into our own lives. When we encounter differences in our lives, our innate reaction is to back away, then slowly approach, trying out our altering techniques to build the difference into something familiar. We are less ready to accept the unfamiliar than we are to accept the normal, the usual and the common.

And now I have to find away to relate all of this gibberish to the human relations that I was talking about in the first place. In attempting to find a partner with who to share our lives, we sometimes go for the one we are most similar to, the one with common interests. For instance, sharing the same fascination for art, working at Cross Word puzzles, being sporty, reads the same type of books, or listens to the same type of music. This happens at a less advanced stage, because after a while, we realize that the person is so similar to us, too similar perhaps, it is like living with your own self, or living with a twin. Whereas we felt that the person we are to spend eternity with should be in very real terms similar to us, we come to the necessary conclusion that the relationship is one big party of endless familiarity; too boring, too predictable, too much too alike.

Advancing on, we try to get someone who looks like, reads like, laughs like, or behaves like a fragment of our past. This is where, two months into the relationship, we realize that his favorite song is one of Beethoven’s renditions, the very same one that your father adores, this is where the aunts start telling you that she looks like your mother who passed away when you were too little to remember. This is where we fall in love with people that remind us of a once glorious past. But let me caution here; we do not do any of these things consciously, in fact, we make these decisions on a very unconscious level and it is not until the nosy aunts with their big mouths point it out, that we come to this frightening, albeit, sweet realization. It is the friends and the friends of friends, the people close to us, it is only them that can see the startling resemblance and the connectedness, we remain always unaware.

And from then on, I have no idea what level we get to, who knows why two people end up together, a lot of factors play a profound role in this life changing decision, like the looks of the person, their personality, their ability to care for us, our ability to love them, and so on and so fourth. I am no expert in relations and I never seek to be. But I know that many times when we take a turn at this “love-thing,” we go into it with all the best intentions known to man. With our best intentions we allow ourselves to be welcomed into the life of another, enjoying the newness, the attention, the fun games and fun times, oh so magical this whole “love-thing.” And then at some point, after we have settled in, unpacked our bags, looked at everything that is on offer, at some point in all of this new beginning, our innate selfishness sets in and we start to wonder if there is more on the menu than meets the eye. We are never satisfied with what is being presented to us, somehow we must have more, it is always about more and more. Man in inherently selfish in his being; did you know that when Eve was created, she took a stroll in the Garden and catching sight of her reflection in a little pond, she fell instantly in love with her great beauty, rejecting Adam’s advances because she felt no one could be more beautiful and wonderful like she was. If you do not believe my version of story, ask John Milton, he knows, he will tell you; Eve was so obsessed with her awesomeness and from that fallacy stems our innate selfishness to change every person we come across into something pleasing to us. Man is innately selfish. But selfishness is not a sin in and of itself; in fact, it can be a life-saver sometimes, more on that later…

After settling into our comfortable relations, we get uneasy, fidgety, panicky even and we forget everything that attracted us to the situation in the first place. What we never realize is that we have always had this picture of the perfect human, in our minds. I do not know at what age we sketch it out, but I have a feeling we start building the image right from birth. The perfect human is he who is not us, he that will provide our every need including happiness, joy, love, caring, the car, the warmth; she that will cook the food, clean the house, and raise the babies. He that will make you whole; she that will complete you. We get into every relation with the wrong idea, the false image, the mistaken belief that we are un-whole, and so need to be made whole by another, that we are unloved, and so need to be loved by another. The erroneous belief often goes unchecked and we set about trying to re-create, with such gusto, the picture perfect human. From suggesting things that the partner can do differently, to proposing a change of job, change of State, change of lifestyle, we never tire in our effort to try and change people into the false images that we carried with us when we moved into their lives. Instead of accepting the wonderful differences, we complain about them, instead of appreciating the dissimilarities, we crash them with all the force we can master. In the end, we destroy the very thing we are trying to modify, when the transition fails to please us, we get angry and hurtful, everybody gets hurt, there are no winners: just losers in association. There is no way for me to conclude this piece of writing, God knows I have been looking for a fantastic way to make my exit; like a solution, or a nice piece of advice, a famous quote, or a clever remark. What closing statement shall I use? I have no advice; I have no witty retort, no response whatsoever. All I have, I have said, that which I left out, you fill in the blanks, I am no teacher, no preacher, this is no lecture. It is what I see around me, these are the conclusions I make for myself, and there is no better way to use them than to share them. Happy Holidays Everyone.

THIS LOVE THING

So I think I am back to that same bitter stage, you know that stage where I laugh cynically at every kissing couple I walk by, sneer at all the “facebook” pictures with happy smiling boy-girl faces with an annoying status that reads, “in a relationship.” Oh I can not believe I am back to that same old song where I hate anything to do with happy people being “in love.” Just thinking about it gives me goose bumps and makes me want to throw up. But there is nothing wrong with being “in-heart” with someone, it’s nice, it’s sweet, it annoys me so much. And the reason why it annoys me is because, like always, I have only managed 2 months. Yes, two months, that is, eight week, a mere eight weeks is how long I have managed to do this “relationship thing.”
I am ashamed and very embarrassed with myself, every time I talk to people asking them how long they have been together, it is always a fabulously gigantic number like 3 years, or eighteen months, or nine years. It is always in terms of years, and how long have I gone in a relationship, eight…weeks. Oh, I weep at my pathetic case.
To be honest I do not know the last time I had a relationship, and by relationship I mean that you date the person and spend time with them for a little over 2 months, less than that and it does not count as a relationship, it is something else and we should come up with a name for it. I am not sad about my break up and this is by far not a weeping letter; by no means no, I am actually a bit relieved that I am not in the “relationship thing” anymore because now I can concentrate on other things; like hating everyone who is in love, and sneering at happy boyfriends and girlfriends.
I will never understand why I seem to be incapable of having a lasting relationship. Maybe it is because I never stay in one country long enough to build something solid, maybe it is because I have not found “the-one”, that is a sad excuse by the way; there is no “the-one” he does not and will never exist, period. Or maybe it is because I am too cynical when it comes to love. I am the most positive person you will ever meet, but when it comes to matters of the heart, I am the first to spit on love and roll my eyes during the romantic scenes of any movie, song or situation. Cynism, is my big problem. But no, maybe I do not have any luck in this “love thing” because even though I love being in a relationship, I find it limiting sometimes and maybe deep down inside I really don’t want to be in a relationship, maybe that is just the way it is.
But that can not be right; I do love being in love, in relationships, blah, blah, blah. I like all of those things and now I can not understand why my ex boyfriend decided to end things. I was going to break up with him anyway but I was not expecting him to break up with me, it was my job to end things, not his. Having said that, I do not see why he would want to break things off with me; I am beautiful, intelligent, too intelligent I think, funny, wonderful, loving, caring, clean, generous, loving, peaceful, loving, I am all of these things and who wouldn’t want all of this in life. There is nothing about me that I would consider less than perfect; I have the body of a goddess, the hips of Venus, the smile of Mona Lisa and the brains of Zeus. Why oh why would anyone not want me. If I was a guy I would fall madly in love with me and buy me the whole world. I would spoil me with all sorts of expensive gifts, take me on vacation and obsess over me, making love to me over and over again. If I was a guy I would adore me. But I am not a guy, and you know what, I still adore me. Even though this makes me sound a little too full of myself, I see nothing wrong with it, I do not care that “the” ex boyfriend doesn’t see the great person that is me, I love me and I have plenty of love to go around.
The sex, I will miss the sex, I will miss the sex more than anything. It was not just sex, it was “making love” and I truly believe that every time we made love, he and I became one whole person and spirit, the sex was admirable, even I didn’t know that I had it in me. Oh the sex, the night-long sex… But there is an advantage here; at least now I will not have to wait anxiously for my periods. At least now I will not have to worry biting my nails nervously, holding that pregnancy test with shaky hands and waiting for that negative to appear; that is the most nerve wrecking moment in any woman’s life. That is, any woman who is not trying for a baby and who sure-as-hell does not want a baby…just yet. For help you God should that little blue or red mark read positive or “pregnant” then you can bet there will be a flood of light hitting your face as you watch your whole life crashing down on you while you sink and think and wonder what you are going to do next. Anyway, I won’t have any of that anxiety, and that is a freedom that I will enjoy fully, unless of course I get seduced by one of only 2 people capable of seducing me in this life; #213 and Coldwell. I should be fine unless one of these two men steps up to me and works his magic, and then I will be in trouble, but I will try hard to resist. I am a master at resistance; it can not be that hard. But for now, yes for now, I am free and I hate all you people who are in happy relationships. However, I wish you all great happiness and you never know; one day, maybe just maybe one day I will be able to do this “relationship-thing” for more than the meager two months that I seem to fall at. Until that day comes, I shall enjoy my simple little life full of greatness and magic even you can’t touch.

THOUGHTS...

THOUGHTS…

Today marks the fifth week of fall semester 2008. I love the fifth week of school: the fifth week is when you realize that the Biology class you were anticipating, now happens to be the most boring class on your schedule, the Literature class seemed like a fascinating idea when your academic advisor was taking you through the motions of what the class would entail, only thing is, she forgot to mention that, interesting as the class was, it also requires way too much reading and research, it feels like you have no time to do anything else; the Finite mathematics class was your first choice, but now it looks like the Greek alphabet spelt backwards and forwards in twists and turns in one big circle, maze and lateral confusion. It is in the fifth week of the new school year that you finally come to realize that you are stuck, doomed, helpless and powerless to do anything about the choices that you were so eager to make in a rush; you can not drop any of the classes that seemed like an amazing idea back in the summer when you were signing up for them. To drop a class will leave a nasty looking “F” on your grade report. This ugly letter will follow you wherever you go, it will sneak up on you unexpectedly in future and pinch you on your backside. You do not want to drop a class and have this burden to carry around for the rest of your life. You can not pick up a class either; any of the other classes, that did not look like fun but now look like the real deal, are now out of your reach. After four weeks of classes, every professor has become pretty comfortable with his little group of students and he would hate to have an outsider come in and ruin the uniformity of his nomenclature. Infact, try you may, to infiltrate his little group, you will pay for it dearly, you will be the one lost sheep dragging the rest of the class behind when they could be moving on with steady tempo. The professor will not forgive you, the students will not forgive you, even the intellectual gods will scorn you forever.

Today marks the fifth week of my Sophomore year 2008. And as I sit in my Biology class, I can hear the buzz of Dr. Watt’s voice, trying diligently to help me understand why I should know what Phylogenetics is and what role it plays in the Systematic Classification of Clades and Cladistics. I want to scream, to drown out the buzz, I want to run out of the class and never look back, I want to pinch myself real hard and ask, “What did I get myself into?” The Biology that I am studying right now is comparable to learning a new language, albeit a very confusing and frustrating language, if ever such exists. Pterophyta, Phylogeny, Protista, Eukarya…all of these words sound so foreign to me that I have to try very hard to concentrate, follow what is going on and stay awake.

I wonder if it is just me that is having this “foreign-language-can’t-comprehend” problem. Is it just me having learning difficulties? I look around me, scan the room and notice the other smart Saint Mary’s ladies with whom I share this great Biological moment every Monday-Wednesday and Friday. It is great to be a Saint Mary’s lady, it is a real privilege. Saint Mary's ladies are a renowned breed of feminine genius; known for their excellence in all areas Scientific and Academic. It is a real pleasure to be a Saint Mary’s girl, makes me feel important, counted, part of a whole. I suspect that the other ladies in my class do not have problems understanding Phenotypes, Bacteriophage and Chromosome Banding Patterns. Why should they have problems understanding any of these things? They come from families whose mothers, grandmothers, sisters and great aunts went to this same college, sat in these same seats and probably helped build, re-build and maintain this school. These ladies come from generation upon generation of Saint Mary’s College Vs Notre Dame University, the two fusing to give birth to genetically modified genius little girls and boys. On the other hand, where I come from is of very little significance in comparison to the brain heads around me: unless of course you consider the fact that I am their live specimen, having been infected, infested and diseased with all of the known bacteria and diseases known to Africa and the world. A major area of our study this year is diseases. I am the class’s best example of how life can survive in deteriorating sanitary conditions, mosquito infested land and high concentrations of bacteria; I am accorded a lot of respect for my survival.

When I decided that I wanted to be a nurse, I did not think for one second that I would have to sit in class everyday hour after hour cramming plant biology whose relation to human biology will forever confuse me. I thought that once I made up my mind to join the medical field, I would get out there and start helping people right away; after all, it is what I love to do. How naïve! Who cares about angiosperms, gametophytes, spores and ephedra; about sympatric speciation, choanflagelletes and kinetoplastids. All of these things I have to learn and cram and re-learn and learn some more. I can not spell or pronounce half of the terms in my textbook, and yet I have to know them and their role in this great compass of a life. I am not a Biologist, I will tell you that right now, I am a writer by birth. It is what I do, it is what I do best, it is what I live for. I write and I write and I write. I think I am good at writing, I hope I am good at writing; it is a God bestowed gift that I claim as my own everyday. But I decided to be a nurse. And it is already the fifth week of my sophomore year, no way out now. So help me God I will try to stick this out to the end. I may hate it, I may loathe it, I may even stamp on it; but this has to be done, if for no other reason but to prove to myself that for once in my life I can finish something that I set out to do, so help me God.

#213

#213

The sink was smeared with the same oily, brown that I had grown so used to seeing. I bent over the sink, as my veins were bulging out of the side of my neck, my heart was racing wildly, and my throat burned. It burned so much but it did not hurt any more, the pain ceases after the first couple of times. I felt my stomach go through the usual heavy contractions, my shoulders jerked high and heavy, and in one violent thrush there was release; the remnants of my dinner came out of my mouth in the same brown, gooey, substance; the remnants of my earlier greed, the remnants of a very dysfunctional disorder, the remnants of a failing healing process. As I quickly rinsed my mouth, brushing my teeth so violently as if hating what I had just done, but loving the fact that I still had some control over life, I told myself for the millionth time that this would be the last time that I would be sending my tooth brush down my throat to pick up the evil that I never wanted getting to my essential systems. I was rinsed, I was cleaned, I was purified and sanctified: food was evil, I was evil, death I welcome thee with an open bosom.

As I tried to figure out what I was going to do for the rest of the night, now that my sin had been purged, my phone went off and I looked to see who was calling me at this most convenient time. Number 213-***-**** flashed at me off the screen like a wanton seductress; my heart stopped. It was the number that, lately, I had grown to obsess over in a dangerous way. I knew instinctively who was calling me, but my phone, even with caller ID, could not figure out who was invading its sweet sleep. But I knew who was calling; because, although I had deleted this same number out of my life, I always recognized those first three numbers and every time I reached for my phone to answer a beep, I wished with all my heart that I would see those beautiful numbers 213-***-****, but I also wished it not to be; those numbers were my very undoing. It had been a while since I had had my phone interrupted this way, in fact, it had been almost a month and the calls never came, the messages ceased, total silence ruled my life, my despair I held intact. And with lingering hope, the wane set in, I waited, tired of waiting, wishing, tired of wishing and praying. I gave up, tried to move on and I was successful. But there it was, #213 was calling me, and my heart nearly burst with shock and surprise. This was not the first time I was going through the motions of #213 with the troubling, obsessive- almost obscene, effect it had on me. This was actually the fourth time that I was experiencing these same emotions, it was like de javu, I had been here before, I had anticipated being here again, and there it was, #213. This was no routine I found pleasurable; it was distressing and emotionally draining, to say the least. #213 would call, I would pick up, we would talk till late into the night, I would invite it into my life; it would leave, I would leave, it would disappear, I would search the ends of the earth, it would ignore me, I would keep searching. And finally as I gave up the search, finally as I pulled myself out of mental rehab, straightened my life, got myself together determined to move on, finally when the wounds inflicted by this “thing” were starting to heal; it would, out of nowhere spring up on me, find me, search me out and over and over again allure me with sweet intensity.

It all started a long time ago when my life was sweet and all was well. I am a sucker for routine and every day I stuck to the same routine of work, job, party and genius. I am a creative genius by birth; everything I touch turns to gold, the words I speak are true perfection and the things I do make me a lot of money. Did I mention that I am a genius by birth? I have always been in control of things, I am my very own Zen master, and I have learnt, with constant studious effort, to move things as if by magic: my hands the wands and my life the wonders I have weaved for myself. My life is a perfect life; no disturbance, no impediments, no upsets, nothing out of order. And with every sweet life, there is the wonderful Life Partner. LP is of course the most good looking and loving person you will ever meet, he makes me happy, I make him happy, life is good, maybe one day we will get married, blah blah blah. I have found everything I want in life; I search not, and I want not, for I am the most content person alive. At lease I was until #213 came up to me one day and asked to change my life for me. And I took him up on his challenge; there is nothing wrong with a few modifications in any set formulae. Who knows, maybe those new changes, those new formulae’s, those new ways of working at things, might prove to be the greatest find of any masters’ divine searches. So I invited #213 in, let him into my house and gave him sole run of my estate. I allowed him to take a look at what I owned, take what he wanted out of house and estate, switch the house furniture around, change the position of my desk lamp, even went so far as to let him repaint my precious walls. I saw no harm in any of this, he was my new best friend, even my pets loved him, and surely I was allowed some freedom in upset of routine. When his visits to my house went from twice a week to five times a week, I took it as a compliment, here was someone else, like everybody else, who found my company worthwhile, and so he should, I have a lot to offer the entire world. It mattered not that I had forgotten to mention this sudden change to Life Partner; I had seen no reason to.

While I was celebrating this new found glory in human internship, #213, quite dramatically, stopped calling by the house. With no reason or explanation, he vanished off the face of the earth. And that is when I crashed for the first time. They say that you never know what you have until it is gone; this statement would not have held more truth if it had been carved on a golden stone. At first I thought that I was just bothered by the fact that I did not know where #213 was, I was worried for his safety not knowing if he was alive or dead (but I knew in my heart of hearts that he was alive). And as my anxiety grew, I thought maybe I missed #213 as you would miss any best friend if ever they went away from you. But my anxiety grew even worse as I realized that I had allowed #213 to change my house around so much that everything that I touched; from the lamp that he had moved, to the walls that he repainted a blooming red, from the cooing of my pets who missed him, to the questioning looks of my next door neighbors who had become accustomed to his pleasant greeting every time he came round. All of this made it a seemingly more empty existence. I could not find #213, I tired calling him, even going so far as to ask his mother if she knew where he was. Life partner of course tried his best to make things better by doing what he does best; making love to me like I am a goddess of queens, making me forget all of the ills of this world. He is not a jealous man, L P, and he knew that I had grown very fond of #213, despite the fact that I was destined to be betrothed to him. Oh how admired his confidence.

Then one day when I went into my favorite butchers, I was told that #213 was actually fine and doing well for himself. He is a popular person around these parts, with a lot of confidants and there was further news about some new exploit he had accomplished, winning the hearts of the whole town. I had been worried to death that #213 was lying in a den, when actually he was “doing very well.” My Being crashed for the second time. I ran home, threw the fine piece of steak just purchased, into the waste bin, and cried for the next four days. Of course I continued to go to work and do all of the things that were expected of me, I put on the best face, people even said I looked lovelier and happier. I am a great actress and this amazing talent serves me well in times like these; I am so good that I can make you believe, by mere appearance, that my life is so great, when really I am dying on the inside and the smell of my death is so pungent to the naked nose, but my looks deceive you better than your nose smells. When I tired of crying and realized that my tear ducts had been overwhelmed and could not serve my purpose anymore, I turned to the one person I always turn to when hell turns loose; I turned to “the Jesus”. Yes, I turned to my personal savior and I prayed. For weeks and days I went down on my knees and I prayed like I had never done before. For those of you that know me, and I mean really know me, I am not very prayerful in my everyday life since most times I choose Grey Goose and Patron for my salvation; I will frequent the nights like an owl on heat, dance and grind, crawl into bed at 9 in the morning and do it all over again, loving every minute to last a life time. But my process had been disrupted, I was torn and confused and I did not know what to do, so I came across a man that told me to unload my burden on him, and so I did. I guess at some point in our lives, we the fortunate ones, come to crossroads where we have to choose between dying in self pity, or raising up like this Jesus man and saying “fank” you very much, if he could do it, I, too, can raise myself from this self made hell.

My healing process was harder than I ever imagined it would be, as I went about the house throwing out every piece of clothe that #213 had touched, redecorating my home and getting an expensive paint job from an expansive home firm. I changed my hair, remodeled my ways, and came very close to joining the new age monks; that is how dire my situation was, I was a pure lost sheep in need of a break from life. LP remained in the center of all of this, taking in the new me and again, making love to me like I was heaven and hell and peace and death, goodness and earthliness all rolled into one in infinite glory. I can never get myself to say an ill thing about my Life Partner, he is nothing but goodness to me and after weeks of rehab, vacation and pleasant touches, I was ready to face the world again. My happy face was no longer a lie, it was the real thing, I was back and I was back for good, ready to kick ass and stay the course.

And then one weekday night as I sat in relaxed pose, listening to the gentle rain meditation disc that had become a constant comfort, part of my healing process, as I was regrouping and becoming my own Zen master once more; the phone went off, I had forgotten to turn it off. And there was that number that I had learned so hard to forget; 213-***-****. My heart skipped, my lips dried up, blood rushed to my face, my fingers froze, then trembled, then froze and went into uncontrollable trembling. I broke out in a sweat as suddenly I watched as all of the things I had learned during rehab; the yoga, the advice, the “love-your-self first” the Zen master program, all of this I watched as it beautifully floated out of my bedroom window, stopping momentarily to unlatch the window, looking back at me with disgust, pleading and waiting for me to call it back, all of this gently moved through to the open air, the open world, the open sea of darkness, and plunged headfast to the ground below, and from up in my room I could hear the shattering of my broken promises to myself flying off in all sorts of marvelous directions. The deed was done, I had picked up the phone and broken my code of sanity, I was back in touch with the forbidden. He wanted to know if I was awake, how I was, what I had been doing and where I was. After stubbornly refusing to forgive him, messages flying hotly from my phone to his, my fingers burning up with all of the typing, I gave in, I accepted his apology. He had slipped, made a mistake, he was sorry, I was a forgiving person now that I had bumped into Jesus, and surely everyonene deserves a second chance. And so #213 got a second chance, and it was as it had been before; he came in, changed things around, re-painted, remodeled, even the pets were glad to have him back, but the neighbors were a little apprehensive; they had seen what a wreck I had been the last time, my efforts to hide my near-demise had not worked, they were not too happy to see him back in my house. But what did they know, they knew nothing about the handsome man from Jerusalem who handed out forgiveness like it was water, they knew nothing, I knew it all. I forgave and forgave and forgave, I loved and I loved and I loved. In fact, I forgave #213 so much so that when he asked to stay over one night, I let him. He was my guest and if he wanted an innocently-sleepover, he could have one.

In the beautiful early morn, he was gone faster than a canon ball. The rest of the story, you know. I crashed, I died, this time I cursed and vented before I sought out the bearded son of a carpenter. He was a little hesitant to grant me audience this time, reason being, I had allowed #213 to stay in my house. But I was a child, I explained, I had feelings and imperfections and fire in my loins, surely he could understand. After much pleading he did understand, after all, it is his job to understand. I prayed, I meditated I healed. I was happy, life was happy. But something was not right; I had stayed away from LP ever since the innocent-sleepover. For some reason; call it shame, call it guilt, (although I really do not believe in either), I had found every reason to avoid Life Partner after this last crash. He knew nothing about the sleepover, harmless little sleep over that it was; he did not have to know about the harmless little sleepover.

Clearly #213 is what modern writers will call “my-obsession,” ”), my mystery and enigma, my Mr. Big (for you “Sex and The City fans”); he is that which I do not understand and long not to understand because to understand it would be to spoil the fantasy, and who here doesn’t love a good fantasy. But at what point do you decide to open your eyes and look at what an ugly little creature this so-called fantasy has turned you into. At what point do you put your feet down and swear to save your soul once and for all, from the debilitating disease of endless, blinding lunacy? Chasing something that is not there only gets you despair, choosing something that you know to be less than real, only makes you a candidate for “the institute.” Sometimes it is much harder to stamp out the lies than it is to let in the pure and true, and sometimes we are just not ready to make these kinds of decisions; and that is why we go on and on, round and round in cycles of self destruction, embracing what we truly know to be fruitless. When we finally tire of chasing the ghosts, there is always someone, something, (as if by magic), some event waiting to show us the truth and guide us out of our very own individual man-made hells. Some of us make it through fine and happy, some of us do not make it, dying along the way, and some of us, after seeing what the truth has to offer, choose to stay in our little hell; the truth is so boring, stale and bland, the lies are sweet and juicy, exciting and mind boggling. You and I have a choice; we always have a choice, but whatever choice you choose, may it serve you well. I made a choice today; to let go of #213, he is the biggest lie I have ever believed in. But then again, I have made this choice four times before, and now we will see whether this choice is the answer, or just another lie like the rest.