the translators and navigators

I desperately need a navigator right now. I don’t have proper support that most cancer patients have. I have to be my own navigator, and it really sucks that no single person loves me enough to be that person for me right now.

My mother cannot be that person because she is vain. Her insistence on looking perfect goes to my detriment when I don’t get those lovely accoutrement of beauty and self care as part of test protocols and treatment expectations in the hospitals. She will not be willing to go without makeup for a moment. I’d literally, like seriously hear me on this one, I’d rather die than have to wait hours for her to get ready whilst worrying about getting to appointments on time.

Thus, I must go alone. I must be mine own navigateur.

In hospitals, they have a term. Porters. Those are the people who take you from point a to b for medical tests. They’re extremely helpful, because it’s easy to get lost in a hospital, despite all the signs.

This morning I watched the introduction to BC cancer content on YouTube. I’m far behind where I should be, not having yet seen an oncologist. Now I”m going to write something very real… a much more important tirade than the compromised medical care that occurs to us small town voyageurs.

the violation and the teddy bear

I was the ugly friend in high school. At least that is the way I was treated by my main friends. I was the titless-wonder. I was the one no boys would ever like. This has remained true despite promiscuity being permitted by the men I’ve encountered. None really wanted me. I was just a tool to get them ready for the next.

I took a memoir writing course late last year, which required going out to Nelson. Only got 3/6 classes because the instructor was undisciplined, and I cried upon performing my reading assignment which triggered a deluge of distaste and apprehension from the fellow students.

We were taught, don’t bury the lead. So I revised my story to not do so. I revised my story to start with the provocative words “My teddy bear raped me!” These are words that have sprung from my lips at 21. Genuinely, I was deeply troubled at the time, on the wrong psychiatric medication, nascent puberty teeming through my body and a first psychosis in the mix.

No one ever raped me, really. My dignity has been pillaged a time or a dozen though. Mostly, I believe when men look at me sexually they see an easy mark. When I’m out and about, I walk with purpose and my direction seems solid. I don’t come off as a victim, real hold her down and violate her hasn’t occurred and it won’t.

I also refuse to be a victim. I put all the blame squarely on mine own shoulders for ever allowing unwanted/ unearned touch to occur. My body is like an electric fence. I can either turn it on, at which point all human touch is repulsive to me. Or it’s off, I trust to be able to navigate the oohs, ahs, and not like that’s, or please don’ts required.

Part of this goes back very young, when I was forced to give affection to aunts, uncles, cousins that I didn’t want to hug. I was forced to show a love that I couldn’t trust because of borders and distance and a lot of cognitive dissonance from as far back as the age of 3.

Spokane was a playground for me as a young girl. The house on Alta Vista Boulevard wasn’t safe by today’s standards. It had a lot of land and pathways up to neighbor’s homes. Back yards with waterfalls and coy ponds and mysteries that involved unparalleled maintenance. Yet a lot of things were in disarray.

When my grandpa died, it was most sad to me because I knew I’d never go back to that place. A lot of things are sad to me because I’ll never go back to those places. I will never again see my long lost friends. For my own sanctity, it is goodbye for good, especially to those who weren’t ever going to come visit anyway.

My message is quite simple to these girls. Time is up, bitches.

I definitely feel more raped by these psuedo- conditional, gaming me type relationships. The ones where I was put down for having smaller breasts. The ones where I was told I was beautiful because they thought that I was pathetic enough to care to hear such nonsense. And because I had acne and was slow into puberty, I was less than, for real – I haven’t ever been the attractive friend. And these bitches did treat me like I was unworthy of finding love and a partner. I was forced by my friends into taking the first person who showed interest in me in that way.

He was really quite lovely. I have nothing against him. He did not hurt me in any way. And I never meant to hurt him. But it wasn’t a choose your own adventure type scenario. There’s a reason such transgressions should only happen in private.

The false female relationships took away my dignity more than anything. I only have room now for new female friends, people who are open to learning from a person who took a different path in life. People who can recognize that I might know a thing or two about sacrifice, just the flip side of the coin.

My instructor of that writing class was wrong. Those were the exact words to start my memoir with. It’s a whole lot more interesting to write what really happened, not to try to construct some tale of memoir, but to actually be honest about the words verbatim that left your mouth. Like many instructors of this nature, she discouraged me more than encouraged. I do apologize for crying in her class room. What a sin, eh.

Again, on social stigmas, NO it is not okay to cry. a single tear can drop, but the second your face reddens, it’s too much.

You are doubly and triply fucked if you ever lose composure in any social interaction. It is okay only to cry in the privacy of your own home, and with music on to cover up the sound of your sobs. Your dignity is in the balance. Most people cannot handle your pain and will refuse to do so. They don’t see it as an opportunity. Where they do, it is feigned empathy and at worst pity.

Our world is in such a state right now, that there is no more empathy. People are drained from having offered it. People are drained by receiving it too. It’s a diabolical obligation. Vulnerability with people who aren’t paid to handle your problems, just unconscionable.

that teddy bear did metaphorically plunder me and all my chances at love. Anyone who reads this and tries to “talk sense” into me doesn’t have a healthy impulse at heart. I was forced into a relationship out of socially enforced monogamy, with someone so profoundly incompatible for me that all we did was waste time together. The snowball effect is all on me, but still, why are so many people so damn fake about everything? Dale Carnegie is not your friend.

Right now, It does seem like a lot of the support offered has been “guilt assuaging”. I don’t care about your mortality nor morality; I’m the one who doesn’t want to die before the baby-boomers. Only way you can truly support me is to die before me, and we can’t make promises of that nature now can we.

Remember The Notebook. I thought that was a happy ending when most people saw it as a tragedy. Death is not the tragedy. Dying simultaneously in your sleep with the love of your life is not tragic, it’s beautiful.

Not having lived is the tragedy. Not having anyone to be your navigator. Not having the people critical to your survival actually show up for you is tragic. And definitely, people need to show up for you in the way you need.

At this point, I consider myself an orphan. I am both Pip and Miss Havisham. I am both on the ball and off of it. I am in my apartment all day today, chained to a house arrest – waiting for the information I need to make the decisions critical to my own survival. I’m waiting for the drive-by shooting that isn’t coming.

My brother will be the sole heir and for that reason I’m spending my money. I don’t need a conservatorship. I am well enough to understand the stakes at hand.

Someone important to me has shown up for me and I’m protecting that person – actually, I’m protecting everyone by not naming names. One day, if I live, this resource can be revised to include names and tell the stories as a narrative, at the moment, it must remain obtuse for your protection and mine.

Thanks to the other Lauren Smith for your co-operation. I appreciate you removing the confusion from my life. Now to go eat my third meal of the day.