Day 1 in Chennai

I enter the tarmac, and the smell of must hits me. You know the smell...it’s towels that were left on the couch too long after a shower, or your house with the water cooler only after it’s been closed up like a drum for a week at the peak of summer. It’s not bad; far from it, it makes my amygdala light up like a nostalgic summer camper (which I never was) and bring back warm fuzzies of my aunt’s house and beach trips. We arrived at the airport at 12:30am and it took about an hour to go through immigration, customs, and grab the luggage. As soon as we walked outside there were hundreds AND I MEAN HUNDREDS of men lined up to try and get our fare as taxi drivers. Holy crap. Right away some dude tried to grab my luggage to my “waiting car”, and luckily I’m paranoid and also knew that we had a car from the hotel waiting, so I was able to find him and make that grabby sumbitch carry my luggage to the car. Because I’m not a douche, I tipped him $2USD, which converts to roughly $160 rupees, and that’s a high reward from grabassery behavior but such is life. I tipped the actual driver only $100 rupees, and considering a standard tip is 10-20 rupees (approx. 15-20 cents USD) I’m just handin’ out hundreds like a baller. I’ll only ever be rich enough to sprawl out on a 5-star-hotel comforter surrounded by imposing-looking currency, and that’s in India, and Imma take advantage.

We get to the hotel, check in, room is EPIC (and also musty). I shower under a waterfall showerhead, slip on my terrycloth robe and try to defrag after 22 hours en route from LAX to Chennai. I succeed and sleep for a momentous three hours, at which point I spring up like a Hun daisy (thanks Mushu, you have a quote for every occasion). I go down to breakfast, which is also amazing. This hotel officially makes the most magical cheesy eggs I’ve ever had in my life and YOU BETCHA I’m going down an hour early so my food can settle and I can get seconds tomorrow.

People are constantly looking at me. I worried it was because I was dressed improperly (my calves are showing), but I realize it’s because I’m white. And how many times have I noticed with disdain that people in any given place are staring at a Punjabi in a turban, or a Muslim woman wearing a burqa? And here I am on the receiving end, the end clearly demarked “other”, and I am self-conscious and paranoid and fidgety and GRATEFUL. Grateful that I can take this trip at a point in my life when I am acutely aware of my priviledge as a white American and am shoved against the glass; not only do I see an entire society of those who are unable to rise above their station, which I have already done at 30, but I am found wanting by many onlookers. I am grateful to be lacking, know that I am lacking, understand why I am lacking, and try anyway. Because that’s the immigrant’s tale in America, and even after one day, I think it’s really important that most Americans experience this feeling. We’d be a lot nicer of a country if we did.

After breakfast we went to the hospital and met with the surgeon, at which point I had x-rays done and went to another place to have a 3T MRI. That’s right, 3T stands for 3 Tesla, and shows cartilidge damage severity by accumulations of water (which indicates swelling in le cartilidge which is 80% water) - something never made possible to me in the US. I waited a total of 30 minutes, had the MRI for 20 minutes, and picked up my results (including color-mapped readouts, scans, and report) within two hours. While we waited, Sam and I picked up some adroid phones for $90 and Sim cards at ANOTHER location (because they can’t be sold at the same place) which required legit passport photos that we had to walk around the corner to get and were done way more professionally than ours in the states, haha. Got said Sim card and purchased 10 gigs of prepaid data for $20 (HOLLA), then picked up the results and went back to the doc. I’ll talk more about that second fateful visit when I’m stuck in bed post-op, but I’ll tell you a few things right now that I saw driving around the city.

A ganesh painted onto a tree, his trunk melding into the roots. Colorful shrines on every corner (literally), including in the parking lot of the hospital. The tiniest horse I’ve seen that wasn’t a donkey or pony hauling a two wheeled carriage/rickshaw piled high with hay. So many colors. Vendors in every nook and cranny of each street. SO MANY TREES. Almost the entire city is shaded by their leaves. Not as much poverty as I expected. Massive demolition with new construction going up in its place for the poor. Didn’t smell as bad as I’d been warned to expect. So much beauty.

Basically, I feel like the first few days are a page right out of the Darjeeling Limited and I’m not about about it.

on the glory of frequent and unsolicited conversations

I haven't written in a very long time. This blog has served its purpose, which was to grant me an outlet when I needed it most. I am a verbal/written processor; I rarely am able to come to terms with feelings or situations unless I'm able to express it somehow. Now that I'm married, my poor bastard husband hears it all on the frontline and has kept me sane through this intense nursing program (that is now finished! I am a RN, BSN and the world is beautiful).

Recently, I've been surprised on how many people feel safe talking to me. I had so little time in the nursing program that I didn't go to a lot of places and have these opportunities. Two weeks ago or so, I was filling up the mini with gas and a nice young black guy was at the pump next to me, his lady in the car. He was washing his windows and I needed to wash mine too; when he was done, he gave me the wiper, then we started talking about cars. He came over and followed behind me with a paper towel as I washed the windows, making sure there weren't any water lines. He had tattoos everywhere, including his neck and face, and was articulate and considerate. We talked about our moms, and suddenly he said, "You know, you're one of the chillest white women I've ever met." I laughed, we shook hands, I waved bye to his lady (who smiled and waved back), and parted ways.

A few days later, I had a long conversation about the nature of cyclical, systemic poverty with an older black guy at the laundromat who drove a neon green caddy. We spoke for over a half hour, and it was so awesome to learn his perspective. Same for the homeless elderly white lady with an amputated leg. She gave me this open testimony about her history with abusive men, drugs and alcohol, and her nonexistent relationship with her children. It was amazing. And I feel so privileged that something in my nature enables people, literal strangers, to give the gift of their stories to me.

Because at the end of the day, we are our story.

We leave for India next Wednesday, and I'm going to try and write as often as I can while I'm there. I may start a new blog for it, and if I do it'll link it through here.

Make your story a good one, loves. That's all I hope for you.

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I'm profoundly depressed right now, for a lot of very valid reasons. Normally I'd need to write a post to see the validity, but luckily I married the right person, and he validates my stress and anxiety when I share them with him. But that sharing occurs often, and I feel like a wholly burdensome partner, so I'm trying to get it out here and not weigh him down any further.

I don't have the energy to describe all of the factors that are leading to this point. A big reason my coping ability is so low is the intense, prolonged knee pain I've been in for the last 18 months. I don't have it in me to deal with manufactured in-law drama, school drama besides getting there and back and finishing my million assignments on-time, maintain a house, and still be a good person. So I'm withdrawing into myself, bit by bit, and becoming more apathetic than I've ever been. It's a hard place to be. I put all my emotional energy into my nursing and then into my marriage, and there's nothing else left.

December 15 is my last day of my BSN, and I can't wait. Next semester it's just residency and an online class, and taking (AND PASSING!) my NCLEX. Then working. Contuining with my Masters, although with how I'm feeling right now, I don't know if I'll continue anytime soon, or even at APU.

I'm living an emotionally devastated life, and I don't know how to change it, except to keep putting one foot in front of the other. And it's killing me.

powerlessness.

The weather outside reflects my mood. My father keeps saying that it's earthquake weather, and it keeps echoing inside my head and rumbling out of my eyes...my core is shaking. I am under such immense stress that I feel myself tearing. Shearing. Pulling and pushing and under no control of the turmoil.
It is, to say the least, exhausting.
That's what has been so enduring lately - the lack of rest. I feel dead, all day every day. Life has become the process of putting one foot in front of the other and putting out the fire under my step. My dream after marriage is just sleeping.
There are issues with the house we're buying. Not with the actual house, not with the financing, not with anything that you would expect for their to be issues with. Nope, we were on our shit and all of that is totally handled. The issue is the sellers.
They had four goddamn repairs to do that were minor as all getout. Replace the wood under one eaves. Put a plate over the pilot light of the water heater, add a strap to it, and add a drainage pipe. It would take a shitty handyman about 4 hours to fix it, but they've waited until the absolute last day. And the tenants are still in there. Not only is my real estate agent not putting pressure on them, she's saying that I...YES ME...told the tenants they should be out by 5/11. Monday. When Sam has to be out of his apartment by Saturday, 5/9. Why would I tell them a date I never even had as an option in my brain?! As a matter of fact, I told them the 7th. As a second matter of fact, it's not my responsibility for their vacancy.
So for 2 days, we'll have to have all of his stuff in a Uhaul parked against my parent's garage and hoping we don't get robbed. 
Well Erin, that's not so bad. Why are you freaking out, you may be thinking. Well, because I have a very amazing group of friends that are willing to help me throughout the day of Saturday to move us, get us unloaded and partially unpacked. If we're delayed and don't get our keys until Monday, we'll be alone. And that means we'll be unloading alone. And that means that I'll be in so much physical pain that I may actually not leave bed and say FuckItAll to LIFE. Which I can't afford to do. Not with the school program I'm in. Not with my marriage commencing via wedding in 15 days.
So, like most humans, the fear of pain is motivating me and making me fiercely aggressive. I am gearing up to fracture and could care less what the fallout is.
By fracture, I mean: scream, cry, roar. I'm already doing it extensively. I can't bear the thought of going home, taking care of the dog I'm dogsitting, hear the shit my parents will dole out like candy, do laundry, pack my life, and ultimately have NO CONTROL over whether I will have the home I've worked hard for by Saturday.
Someday soon, it'll be better. I just wish I could exert some type of action to make it so.

tempered.

I ruminated on the year that had just passed by. It was, like it is for everyone, the beginning and the end of so many things, but there were more than the average notable occurrences. Most importantly, it was the last year I would ever be single (at least I hope). Really, who goes into marriage assuming that it’ll someday end? Not me. And not Sam, thankfully. We met in February and intend on walking through this life together. As a part of that, it was also the last year I would spend New Year’s Eve alone. It was the last year that I would feel lost from my path; nursing school has begun and as the culmination of four years of work, it feels like a big part of me that has been waiting to bloom has finally started to. It was the first year I lived without the fearsome pain of endometriosis, and had to live for 365 day the reality of never having a period, ovarian cysts, terrifying bleeding, suffocating pain, or the possibility (however slight) of giving birth to my own offspring.

It’s an odd thing, accepting that bit. It’s easy to accept something when you have the capability, and a little harder to swallow when it has been forcefully taken from you…more so when you yourself is the one who did the taking, to survive and thrive.

I realize I haven’t blogged in quite some time, and as I was talking to my friend Kathleen today, I realized why that was. Simply, it’s Sam. Blogging began as a way for me to expel my deepest self with force and words. I was unable to do it in regular life, primarily because I was too busy, or often because it was too much for me to reasonably expect my friends to listen to as I processed my life and feelings. Life is not easy, and I am poor, but instead of therapists or making my friends hate me, I turned to this venue. Writing it made it true. 

And now, honestly, I tell everything – EVERY SINGLE THING, that poor bastard – to Sam. He is in every way the best thing to happen to me. Also, the idea of spare time to write these days is a mirage, and I think that if I am going to devote a certain time of day to writing, it needs to be creatively, not just regurgitating the same things I’ve already verbally worked out with Sam or another friend.

I’ve decided a few things though. 2015 will be a big year that much is certain. Sam and I will be moving into our own place with a spare bedroom for our loves who need a place to land for a while. We will be getting married in May (the date isn’t known by many because we’re eloping and don’t want to cause a fuss), I’ll be completing my B.S in Nursing at the end of the year and beginning my preceptorship in anticipation of the NCLEX, and I’ve mentally committed myself to volunteering in a nursing home, ideally with hospice patients who don’t have their own family to sit with them.

I just watched a documentary called Serving Life, about inmates volunteering in Angola penitentiary’s hospice program, and what the warden said has stayed with me: it’s about taking care of each other in this life. I’ll dig your grave, and someone else is going to dig mine.

I’ll hold your hand and dig that grave for you, because I am capable of doing so, and not everyone is.  

There was a lot more that happened in 2014. Mental health advocacy for friends, cosigning on a car for a friend, refinancing my own, getting different health insurance (saving me thousands every year – THANKS OBAMA!), two knee surgeries, not missing a single day of nursing school despite those surgeries and still managing a 3.8 GPA, loving not only my life-partner but his family, road trips, tears, fears, and everything in between.

My best friend told me today that I am mellower these days. That Sam has calmed me down. Truly, I think that I am now tempered…that the fire of these last few years has done its job. I felt my blows. I hardened, and sharpened, and am formed in the best shape so as to slice.

So as to slice.

Reflecting on anger.

When I think about how I've changed the most in the last 10 years, it would be how my anger manifests itself. I still have a reputation for being fearsome, but I'm less inclined to punch someone and more inclined to yell or, more often than not, stay eerily calm.

(Except that time I caught my mom using drugs last August, and I truly beat her. She says I beat the shit out of her. I say I beat the piss out of her. Because I literally did.)

Today, again, I found evidence of a relapse. Lucky for her she wasn't home, so I had time to calm down as much as possible by productively channeling my anger into cleaning. My mother is a pathological liar, and probably one of the most selfish people I've ever known. These things don't make her a bad person, per se, and she is capable of kindness, but not if it came at the expense of her comfort. That is where we're different, and I'm well aware that many of my more permanent characteristics are a complete opposite of her as sheer defiance.

I try to never lie, even when it makes me uncomfortable, because she made me lie about everything from a young age. I have never been drunk, because she's an alcoholic. I've never used chemically-based drugs recreationally, because she's an addict. I've never slept in more than 2 days in a row, because she will literally sleep all day if you don't make her wake up for something. I am obsessive about doing dishes and laundry regularly, because I grew up around disgusting piles of both for weeks on end as a child (and to this day, whenever I'm not home for a few days). The list could go on and on, and it's all in direct reaction to her.

What makes it hardest is that I cut out liars from my life as soon as I can see them for what they are, and yet I haven't yet been able to cut out the worst/most frequent/pathological liar that haunts me. My mother is like the anchor that tethers me to all the most agonizing aspects of my origin story that I am perpetually trying to rise above. I rarely get genuinely angry...irritated, sure, plenty, but never for long...and most of those incidences are on her. What the fuck does she have so hard that she feels driven to escape? She literally has no accountability anywhere in her life. She doesn't have a job, doesn't pull her weight in the house, and is sleeping more than waking day to day. WHAT THE FUCK IS SO HARD ABOUT HER LIFE when she's literally had a caretaker in her OWN GODDAMN DAUGHTER SINCE I WAS 9 YEARS OLD.

WHAT THE FUCK. And really, I know it's not as bad as MANY other people have it. I'm not deluded. My good friend Trisha has a mom that would make you wince to hear the stories. She gets it, even though my story is like the diet version of hers.

But here I am, hours later. Angry, frustrated, betrayed, and wanting to cut the ties that bind. How much better would my life be without her? And really, do I owe her any more of the life that she seems hell bent on ruining?

I warned her today that if she keeps this up, she'll be daughter-less and will die alone.

I'd never said the words out loud before, and I'm finally to the point that I mean them. I imagined a future without the fear, drama, instability, and anger that she brings to my life, and it was a beautiful sight.

"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." -Yoda

I'm pretty over being her doormat when I refuse to be that to anyone else. Why is she exempt from the standards I place on anyone else I let close to me? "Because she's my mom" just doesn't cut it anymore. 

On being accepted.

Last Wednesday, I interviewed with the head of Masters in Nursing at my school of choice. After some hesitant language, the last ten minutes were spent planning my start date. I was in. I was accepted.

In the span of twenty minutes, my life's axis tilted, and I emerged elated and surefooted. All of this struggle for the last two years has not been in vain. I didn't work full-time at the hospital, volunteer as a CASA, and take anywhere from 10-14 units while in constant pain and alone up north for nothing. Sacrifice had placed a seed in my hand, and conquering innumerable hurdles had provided the tears to make it grow.

You may think I'm being dramatic, but I'm not. And I don't regret a moment or any decision I've made to get here. It's in my own time, to be sure, but there is nothing but soul-deep surety that this is what I'm meant to do with my life. Finding a path that's yours alone can take time, but the hunt is worth it, even if it takes your entire life. I can tell  you this confidently, my loves: don't stop until you find the place that your feet feel home.

Things are going incandescently right. Under normal circumstances, I would start to be scared around now, thinking that the other shoe is about to fall and I'll be at the disadvantage again, clawing upwards. But I think those days, the grand sweeping gestures of them, are behind me now. They've shaped me. As my good friend Sarah says: a good blade bends when pushed. It feels every blow that hits it. I felt my blows. I bounced so I wouldn't break. My metal was being tested. My self, the foundation of me, has been forged, and it's beautiful and fearsome and an oathkeeper. I would not have it any other way.

My mother looked at me the other day, and tilted her head just so. She told me, "You've always had a force of character, Erin. Me, I never had that backbone. I liked to believe I did, for a long time. We build up myths of ourselves in our own minds, and in mine, I was strong, but I never really was. And then there's you. And if there's anything that every parent will say about their children, it's that we wish they had more than us. In some ways, I gave you less than I had, but you were born with more strength of character than I ever had. That's the best gift I could ask for...you being so strong."

I love and am loved fiercely. While many other aspects of my life may be in flux, those two truths have remained the same, and I daresay always will. What could make you stronger than love? I feel it so intensely that it falls from my mouth when at my lowest and most exhausted and afraid. I don't fear death because of it. I don't fear failure, because it's just a state of mind. I don't fear loneliness, because who could be lonely with so much of this? So much. So big.

Be fearless. Nothing can hurt you. When it stings, know that it's your metal being tested, and the more you bounce, the stronger you'll become. You are infinite in this love. Go courageously into grace. Your best self is waiting for you in the unknown.