lipstick and rouge.

My sister left today. And I finally had some time to decompress.
To exhale.
To go for a run around the island and sweat it out.
My sister is schizophrenic. Some of you know that. But a lot of you dont. And I don't talk about it very often because I get a strange reaction from people when I do. They get quiet and distant and I can see their eyes...they don't know what to say and they are praying for a subject change. But if i dont talk about it, it weighs me down. And I have held on to it for far too long. My friend Lauren W. told me I need to talk about the hard stuff because keeping it all inside gives it too much power. I've been told I'm good at asking the hard questions of others...but of myself...that's a different story.
I'm afraid to talk about my sister because of how it will make me look. I am embarrassed. And it's aweful and selfish but it's true. This disease is hereditary and I'm afraid people will start to wonder about me. My friend Carmen point blank asked me if I thought I might have it too. Back when we were in college and Hillary was first diagnosed, Carmen asked me and it broke my heart that she could think that. And it scared me to death because i woke up every day for months waiting for it to rob me of my life too.
And it did, in a way.
I had no idea how to cope with the late night phone calls and the emergency messages about her trips to the emergency room.
Listening in detail to how my mom held her hand while they pumped her stomach. The charcoal combating the bottle of tylenol she had taken. Her lastest suicide attempt. And I had to get a cell phone so i could be reachable at all hours of the day. And I felt like I was going crazy too, so it only made sense for me to hang out with the wild crowd at work. The kids at the restaurant I bartended at who had asked me to hang out a hundred times before. Their offers suddenly seemed more comforting than another night alone in my bedroom doing crafts because I couldnt sleep. So they kept me company and took me dancing. There is something so freeing about being there in the dark with that music playing and the bass line droning. You can't not move. Jenny E. paid me the most magnificent compliment; she said I was the most confident dancer she had ever seen. I love that. It has taken years to build up to, but I am free to dance in front of hundreds of people or in the confines of my own bedroom. And the performance is the same...kinda spastic, sometimes offbeat, but always alot of fun...and I think it has to do with the fact that it is one of the only things I can do entirely for myself.
So I danced and baked and rolled X and snorted coke and I looked to these people to save me. And I got frustrated when they broke their promises and left or died and I was no better off. I had just numbed the problem with sex and drugs and it was still there, waiting, haunting me.
But I'm talking now and figuring some things out. Ask me questions. The hard ones. It means you care. That I'm worth more than small talk.
And I've been watching movies. My mom still has our old VHS collection. And I've been watching my old favorites with my sister, like The Secret Garden, The War, and Dead Poets Society. They are so worn out and on their last leg but siting here with her and joking about the old days before she got sick, it was kind of nice and really sad at the same time.
I've been so selfish and so impatient and I sit here and listen to her talk about all the things she wants to do with her life and it breaks my heart to know that she wont be able to do most of them because of her meds or the disease itself. And it's a lot of pressure to know I'm my mom's only shot at grandchildren, and although i finally understand the amazing gift that a child is...I see no possibility for motherhood in my near future. And I get mad at myself for doubting this trip. I always thought I would make this journey with my husband but I'm still waiting on that part of my life. And I'm tired of waiting. I I felt like God was urging me to go. I hope I am being obedient. My neighbor asked me why I was leaving Charlotte and traveling and all I could think to say was "Because I can." Why are you running a marathon? "Because I can." I can't explain it. It doesnt really make sense to me either, why I would leave all the people I love to go somewhere you all are not. Sounds down right stupid actually. But I don't want to be left behind again. I have loved watching you all grow and change and create these amazing lives, but I have to get a life too. I can't just sit back and be a cheerleader. I've done that before and I wound up empty handed, broken hearted, and lost.

"I got all whole and healed...and you don't show up." she said at the end of Grey's Anatomy. I don't usually watch this show and it's because of Meridith's character. I hate her. I think she is pathetic. But seeing her standing in the grass lit by all those candles I can't help but to identify with her...and it really pisses me off.


So I'm taking this trip on my own. And meeting up with folks along the way, because a good life has two things: Love and community. And I'm realizing that I will never have it all together. That I am broken...and that is okay. There is no such thing as whole and healed. And broken can be extraordinary.

Why am I doing this, Lord?
Because I can.
Sounds like as good a reason as any.