msjessica's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- everybody needs you I guess I should write some shit down before i forget about it. from memory, i'd had a pretty shit week. after a period (months) of listening to either silence or just the same stuff (Nick Cave, Dirty Three, EN, all instrumental/glitchy electro) I somehow got a vibe to listen to the latest Frank Ocean (Blonde), and maybe a day or two before that I finally listened to Kendricks DAMN backwards reissue and it was like a revelation. Actually yes, that is where this story starts, walking down La Trobe St at 8:43 in the morning to GOD on that album and feeling like somehow a gear just found its way into its hollow and clicked. I wondered why I hadn't listened to it until then, before realised I would not have appreciated it until then. So somehow following that I started feeling open enough to give Blonde a proper listen. I got that mid-track change in Nights stuck in my head. I'd been fucking miserable, for awhile. Friday came, my siblings had visited the weekend before and I'd spent the week lamentng how lonely their presence then absence had made me feel. That sense of years and years of missed opportunity. The threat of sibling psychosis. Of the apocalypse, of infertility, of millimetre apart parralel lines, so close but so far away. I was dark and drunk and lonely, it was friday and I'd shut down some chances at connection and chosen to sat at home on my own with some wine. It started to get late and I decided to flick open okCupid for some entertainment. They have changed their algoirthms so you need to interact to even get a message..... I hate those sites, I didn't foresee anything out of this except hopefully something to channel some anger in to? Or some peace, love and a hard cock, who knows. Anyway I messaged 2 guys, and they both replied, and one had really clever funny banter but the other was just around the corner, and genuine looking and i was full of wine so i asked him to invite me out so he did. And it was good. I don't know if it was good because we were just so desperately lonely. No, that's harsh. it was good. It was after 12 by the time I got to him, we sat and chatted until we got kicked out at 3. It was easy, comfortable. I said I liked him so much, I didn't want to go home with him. Happens he lived next door so..... ok, i guess that doesn't count in a way, i'd go up for a drink. He has a mini bar in his apartment. And a beautiful big balcony, beautiful view of the city. I stayed until 6am. We didn't have sex but I spent fair share of time wandering around his apartment in my thick soled big black docs and nothing else except my scars. We spoke about spending sunday together. He was meant to be at work at 7am. He is a metal head. I made him listen to Franks Nights. He hated it, but liked me. We slept for 3-4 hours, he went to work and I ubered home. We'd arranged to meet Sunday. I spent the whole day thinking about it, he lived about a 7 minute drive away, i spent so much time wondering if I'd uber or drive to meet him - he messaged in the afternoon asking me to dinner, what did i want, i wasn't sure, he decided and asked when to pick me up and where - i realised my standards had been so fucking low i hadn't even considered the possibility of that. i feel flabbergasted at that. the bar is so low? picks me up in stupid giant car. beautiful easy outdoor late Melbourne summer dinner followed by drive home (easier to open up while his eyes on the road, he seems embarrassed by his $$$). he has this lovely apartment with a large balcony, city views, so much space. we sit and talk and talk and talk. he pours blue sapphire and individual glass bottled tonic water. we both chain smoke and talk and talk and talk. we don't have sex but we sleep together. he drives me home in the morning. I knew Mum had this appointment with her oncologist Tuesday. I'd said "no plans tonight, except calling Mum when I get home from work to hear about her appointment, I'll come over once I've spoken to her". When I called she didn't answer. This was not a good sign. I knew she wouldn't call if I said I was going out, so I didn't tell her. I went to that big balcony. We sat and chatted, watched the light dim and accentuate the city skyline, eventually I tried her again. Cancer has mutated, become aggressive, there's nothing they can do, comfort measures. I was ok until I saw his friendly face waiting inside. I crumbled, my phone rang again, my sister. Then again, my brother. I'll be there next week. All of a sudden, everything shifted. And this person I'd know for a few days was there in a crucial moment in my life, he will be there forever. I had been waiting for this since May 2016 when she first got diagnosed. Always knew it would come. And I had said all through that time, when it comes to the last months, I will just go to her and stay until there's no reason to be there anymore. Honestly sometimes, I'd craved it, I get so homesick sometimes. So here it was. Once my internal dust settled, I booked a flight for the following Tuesday. In the time between that and that, I went to work and cried and and cried and cried. i saw my closest friends and was met with an entourage and went numb. I got angry. I was scared. I'm still scared. This boy and I continued to spend as much time together as possible. Including a gorgeous sunday afternoon sitting on his couch sharing music - he is a stalwart metal head but open to listening to whatever was on my mind. Through our nights together I had played so much of this flight of fancy kind stuff - I went on and on about those Kendrick and Frank songs to him, before realising those were the tracks forming his understanding of me....(i must some day write more seriously about my submitting to pop music, my unadulterated passion for it, in amongst my absolute music snobbery, it was once such a defining trait for me and these days i really just dig what dig and don't question it).... anyway I made sure to play some real weird german stuff for him, and we had a glorious prolonged make out session to Dirty Three Cinders and then he let Spotify radio go all night playing similar stuff so I KNOW the amazing Warren Ellis's violin got to him and how could it now, he's a master. Sigh. I had some really nice times with that boy. What a strange time to meet someone. We spent a lot of time together in those few days before i came up here, I withheld truths about myself until I felt safe, I withheld SEX until I felt safe, and I have never ever done that - and it was only a few days but it's longer than i've ever done that. When I spilled my truths, he spilled his that the one thing I'd said he'd previously classed as a "deal breaker" but he sat with me in it and asked amazing questions and listened with his heart and holy fuck, he actually really got to me. And after he took it all in, he opened up and told me his biggest secret too. And I sat with him in that. He is a blessedly beautiful person. I got here, to my mums place, almost 4 weeks ago. A lot has happened, it's fucking heavy being here, waiting for her to die, waiting to see how she dies, organising stuff before she dies, for when she dies. it's fucking hard. I would need to write a seperate entry to go into..... the appointments with solicitors to finalize her will (behind her partners back), with palliative care nurses, with doctors in ER, to talk about her partner in denial trying to save her with cannabis oil, to talk about my beautiful grandparents (her parents) in their 80's having to face losing their daughter alongside me losing my mum, to talk about my siblings and how they're handling it, to talk about my dear dad the next town over, to talk about the fluid on her lungs, her protruding stomach, her deteriorating mobility, a mother running to her child's cry, advanced medical directives and the horror that is signing a document saying let her starve, suffocate, die of dehydration before our eyes. There is so much more to this few weeks, and holy fuck it's only going to get worse. BUT this beautiful boy has been such a nice interruption, distraction in between - and it's been hard to keep up communication because fuck when you've only known someone a week or so..... there isn't the space in the togetherness to hold this kind of heaviness. but to write this tonight i put some of those songs on, and my heart flutters with the memory of the strength of that space we created and I can hopefully waltz back into momentarily next week. He's already offered to pick me up from the airport. And if I'm being honest, I don't know if I'd be going back if not for him. And even if it doesn't last - which, lets be honest, i don't foresee me marrying the guy - if this thing is just to get me through this time, if it's just to give me some time out from the intense-ness that is sitting around waiting for my mother to die, I'm ok with that. I need and deserve a bit of a breather and some stress relief. 12:16 a.m. - 2018-03-29 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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