The Daily Affirmation Plan

The Daily Affirmation Plan 

(1) At the Party, Talking to Colleagues

Warm light, corner conversations.  A flush of untucked shirts, pardon me’s, gentle hand on shoulder, passing by, excuse me, coming through.

I am barely listening to her, when she says “You know, Jack London wrote that story about me.”

“Huh?” I look at my drink, bare bones to ice cubes, I’m melting, I’m melting, I croon in my head like a witchy drunk just converging with the floor.

“Jack, the book about the dog that made him quit drinking, you know?  I was the dog.”  She says, seriously, says.

I burst into laughter.  I don’t even make the catty remark about her being a perfect bitch too, I am not even sure they existed in the same era and I am certain she only watched the Disney version of any book in her general education vocabulary and remedial inner workings of a brain.  I walk away, fully awake, still laughing and shaking my head and she mouths “Wha?” at me while I turn my head back around to focus on the bottom shelf remnants of choice and soda water that I can tolerate for another conversation in this subterranean existence.  I bump right into him.  

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(2) With Him, in the Now

“You’re so depressing,” he says as if his tongue is leaning on the word second phonetic syllable of the word de-pressing.  

He lights his cigarette and sways in the wind the way a dandelion does before it gives away the wish.

“Existential.” I correct him.  “My relationships are extraterrestrial.”

He laughs, pushes me off the second stair of the deck.  I take a step backward and he falls down.

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(3) How My Family Perceive Me to Be

“When I told people I was broken and that I was okay with it, they took it to mean that I was less than and I’m not.”  I said.  The woman, sitting across from me, behind a desk, in a green sort of office only free healthcare can shine, takes down a note while she echoes, “I hear you.”   Soft enough to give me comfort, loud enough to make me feel followed.

“I said I didn’t want to be the person I was, that being broken was okay with me, but I thought, this whole time I was just saying that and that I would get better and it would be some great come back.  I’m not a heavy weight fighter, I’m not an out of work actress, I’m not coming back and I read the other day that this complicated PTSD thing is permanent, like every day, all the shit I’ve been through, the kidnapping, the family stuff, my Dad, my mom — it sticks to me like a film, like Florida humidity, or like cheap mist at the perfume counter, it stays and I’ll fight through my “triggers” and attention deficit, my memories and who I am trying to be - I have to fight through it - I don’t get to be back to normal ever again.  I thought I would get back to normal.”

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(4) What the Shrink Conveys to Me

 

“There are some things I want to make sure you hear me tell you before we get off this call.”  The Jamaican woman says, behind the desk, the green haze around her, the em-hmms and notes have stopped, the moment fo her to let me off the line is coming and I’m going to miss her because she feels like reason.

“You have been through a lot. A LOT.”  When she says a lot, I believe her more, like the word becomes a rounded bowl that holds my a lot.  

“Most people don’t come out the other side of what yo have been through.”  She says to me and I am angry with her for saying that, as if there aren’t a million other people who come out just fine from trauma or many a bad decision making moments.  I am nothing.  

“You are trying and that is what matters, I know it feels like a lot to carry but you have your brother and you are a very resilient woman.”  When she says resilient it sounds like snakeskin, shiny, sleek, not for me, for someone else.  When I say resilient I see a sturdy old car, like a tank, just driving through the street, old reliable, built like steel, they don’t make ‘em like that anymore.  

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(5) Blunt Sharpness, Soft Edges My Existence - Always

“You know that people can’t handle things as plainly as you see them and they don’t want to hear it Sarah, you’re hurting them.  They were protecting themselves and people aren’t built like you, they can’t see what you see and fix it.  It doesn’t just work that way.

“I thought if I told them what I saw, as an outsider looking in, that I could make a difference.  I thought if they knew that they were loved no matter what and accepted, they would want to do the right thing. I don’t know why I’m the asshole.”

“There are people who want to fix themselves and built their lies to protect themselves.  There are people who exist out of lies and are inherently evil and do not want to fix themselves.  There aren’t a lot of people who lie and want to tell the truth, ever.  No one wants to hear what their problem is, because then they have to face a decision on which one of them they are.”

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(6) What I tell Myself When No One is Looking

I still hear my mother on occasion, not lately though but I know what she would say and a few months ago, I was crying in the bathroom when her voice barely came through the meteor shower of my tears and frustration. Why was I carrying so much of this weight that wasn’t mine, why did I have to be the way I am and accept that others are not going to be the better men or know how to walk at higher altitudes?  I am always so angry, just waiting to ball up my fists and pound them into the sides of my brain or the floor, the wall, the carpet, anywhere but here place.

I said “I can’t hear you anymore, why can’t I hear you?”

She said “You need to be stronger, that’s all there is to it.”  

I laughed.  That’s what she wanted me to know, that I just had to be stronger, I laughed like a cough. 

“I don’t know what else to tell you sweet pea, you just have to be stronger.” Her voice was fading, I could see her face, she was worried about me, genuinely.  She knew I was cracking up on the inside, every day.  Every day.  She saw it and she was fading away and I realized that’s how it was going to be.  

Everything I know seems to fade away, it doesn’t mater if I am right, wrong, loved, accepted, reconciled, apologized for or to, understood, respected - there was nothing to redeem, atone, perform, or prove.  Nor did anyone feel like they owed me anything either.

What a fucking world we live in.

There’s nothing I can do.

I just have to be stronger.

(on the seventh she rested)

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