Open Letter I

Dear Any Man Who Has Ever Wanted to Fuck Me,

Your time is running out.  You have six months.  If you want to have sex with me, you should tell me right away because if you wait until after my surgery, I am not going to sleep with you.  I am sorry if that seems unfair to you, but if I know you now, there is no way I am going to be able to let go of the idea that you didn’t want me the way I was and you only want me now because of the change in my looks.  Maybe I don’t want to bang you now, but at least I will know and then later won’t judge you.  Time is running out.  Post-surgery Shannon isn’t giving tail away like a discount sale no matter how much she might want to.

I’m giving you a chance to get in on the bottom floor here.  You can take that however you see fit.

Love,

Shannon

Crash and Burn

In June, everything is going to change.  I’m trying to clear the wreckage of this crash and burn.  6 months isn’t very long.  Just enough time to say goodbye.

 

A Hard Day Today

She is my inspiration.

It was a bad day today, at the doctors.  I am sad and I am feeling cheated.  I want this to be over.  It’s dogged me for too long.

Never asked and asking why…

I am a little bit obsessed with the gym right now, and dieting too.  I am not saying I am perfect.  In fact, today I ate three slices of pizza and two cans of coke for dinner, but I am trying VERY hard to control my portions and work out regularly.  I have almost completely cut out snacking in between meals as a way to understand my caloric intake.  I am picturing my February birthday cruise and how I’d love to put on a bathing suit and not feel myself choke up bile when I look in the mirror, and how by May when Jason gets married, I don’t want him to be embarrassed by his fat sister or have all of Jen’s beautiful wedding photos ruined.  I know that when losing weight the motivation should not be about making someone else feel good about how you look, but the fact remains undeniable that if I don’t do something now, I am never going to be happy enough with myself to allow a partner into my life.

I’m going to Stonehill tomorrow.  I am really looking forward to it because it is a place full of profoundly wonderful memories, but I always approach the place with a mixture of joy and sadness.  I remember the pain of the nights I cried there, for the things I have lost both tangible and intangible, but also the nights of joy.  When Sara held me while I cried all night in our dorm room, thinking Joe would never love me.  Or when we all went sledding down the Donahue hill on cafeteria trays.  Screaming and dancing around on the stage when Kacee and I saw we were cast in Air Pump.  Kate and I trying to catch the last 5 minutes of The Nanny before trudging to Maurice Morin’s English class.  The Forum scandal. Joe and me drawing bats on the foggy windows of my car.  Listening to Dashboard before bed with Melissa. Playing chess in the hallway of O’Hara with Tom Clark.  The day Jamie defended my honor on the Boston subway when a drunk tried to razz me.  Singing in the church choir.  Smoking a clove with Chris Cox on our quiet walks to the sem.  Crying at the grotto with John.  The magic of ACTF.  The day Joe took me to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory and how it felt to hold his hand.  Losing my grandmother and having to call David Krinitt and how kind he was to me. Winning the Irene Ryan nomination for Adding Machine. Feeling the shame of letting down my friends. John and the bunny. Feeling so isolated and alone I had to separate myself from the dearest friends I had.  Running to the cafeteria randomly with Sara one spring day.  Getting my fortune read by Nicole’s Grandmother the day we got our tattoos.  The Air Pump cast party.  Scrapbooking on the floor of the suite with Jenny.  Getting written up by Mary for Seymour. “Turtle Police”. Our “That Girl” T-shirt party.  Busting my ass for piano class and only getting a C+.  Taking photos and using the dark room for hours at a time with Ryan Dobran.  Making videos with Mike Kinnally. Listening to Looking Glass Hero playing in the O’Hara lounge with Val and Andre.  Jinglehimer Junction and the Junction Gang.  Not being cast in Wall of Water.  Campo shining their big light on Joe and I while we were sitting on the Donahue steps.  Sitting in the pool room at the hotel during Dandelion Wine ACTF with John.  Lynn and I making it to the second round of Irene Ryans.  Trying to lose 20 pounds on Pat’s orders.  Cleaning up the TA room as Pat’s assistant during the summer with Jim.  Missing Kate and Jenny when they were away on semester abroad.  Holding Colin the night he broke his nose during Wild Oats.  Cutting off all my hair.  Loving. Being loved.

I could write the memories all night long and still never capture the true essence of my life there.  God blessed me so much more than I could ever have hoped when he guided me to Stonehill.  Even if nothing good ever happened to me for the rest of my life I couldn’t begin to thank Him or celebrate Him for what he gave me in those four short years.

Expansive Heart

April 1st marked my first day of medical insurance since leaving Suffolk in August.  My new PCP practically had a heart attack of his own when he saw my list of complications, took my blood pressure, saw my scars both physical and psychological- it wasn’t an easy appointment for either of us, I would wager.  But I left there with a handful of prescriptions, a mind full of worry, and one tiny thread of relief.

I cried the whole way home. I just wanted to have someone to hold me and tell me that this would all be alright.  But I don’t.  I don’t and I don’t think I ever will.  For the longest time the very thought of a new romantic partner turned my stomach- I only felt fear and violence there, and regret- but now I think my time has run out.  No one loves me.  I’m almost 30 years old and no one loves me.  I have no person to hold me when I fear that nothing is going to turn out right.  I just wanted a few minutes of quiet attention all of my own- but I have been robbed of even that one comfort.

I just feel so robbed.  Why is my body poisoned?  Why did someone have to take what little part of me that was healthy and rob me of that too?  How am I barely scraping by each day with just enough to get me along when I tried, so hard, with every part of me, to be a person who loves, with an expansive heart that welcomes all and thinks of the good things before the bad?  Does God truly not care how hard we try?  Is His path so set that no matter how we struggle we are bound to it?  Is “free will” just the bone he tossed us to get everyone to shut up long enough so he could think of a name for the platypus (nice job there)?  I am feeling a little bit gypped-hoodwinked-bamboozled tonight.

We All Fall Down

For a few brief and shining moments, I forgot about everything.  Every tear, every hand that was ever laid upon me, every moment of panic, every self doubt and self loathing, was nothing but aqua blue touching more aqua blue.  I wanted to step into it and keep on walking until it swallowed me whole in its hallowed beauty.  What bliss to know nothing but reverence and deep, spiritual Love.  So fleeting.  No money could buy that feeling.  In a life where luck has been, at times, cruelly absent, these precious moments remind me that God hears my suffering and He will heal the broken parts of me, if I have the faith and courage to keep holding on.  Aqua blue touching aqua blue and me.

Opening Doors

A lot, and I mean, a LOT of changes are happening for me. My last day of work at Suffolk is Thursday, I leave Boston in August to journey home for awhile. I don’t really know how to feel. I know that there are a lot of good and compelling reasons that I cannot stay in Boston right now- but I fear that I will never return here, to my home, and that I will always feel lonely at home. I am giving up a lot of my freedom in order to go home, and as patient as I am going to have to be, I know I will be driven crazy by the intrusion into my life. But it is the right thing to do. For my health and my well being, for a little while.

Today while I was taking Lavan out, I glanced into the windows of 54 Woodlawn and thought about the birthday party we had for Jacob on August 3rd, 2007. It was a world ago and at the same time, just a blink of an eye. We had no furniture, I didn’t know J from Adam, but I can picture him like it was yesterday in his open pink short sleeve button down, those sapphire earrings, drinking up a storm. And we all had a wonderful time. Then I slept alone in the house, on a mattress on the floor, listening to the birds in the early morning thinking how wonderful my life was. I was right. How lucky and blessed I have been to know and love the people I have known and loved in Boston- and how much I am going to miss them in the coming year(s) we are apart. Looking up into those windows reminded me that Life is always moving forward, and no matter how I wish to capture the feeling of love and acceptance that I felt when J used to hold me on the ugly blue beanbag chair or when he used to pull me into his bed on Saturday morning, those times are over. I am no more the person he held than he is the person that did the holding, and I think that me living with him still is not helping me to remember and appreciate that. Choices were made. And the choices I will be making soon and the places I will be going and the things I will be doing are all going to be wonderful manifestations of exciting choices that sprung from everything I have known here- not just in the past four years, but in the past 10 since I left home.

Now is the time to say goodbye. I’m the bird this time. I will be the one who returns if I am truly yours. For the first time ever.

I’m sure I will have so much more to say as the time ticks on in my solitude. Afterall, I didn’t even mention all that is weighted in the coming attendance at important and potentially excruciating events. There’s always tomorrow.