TheBanyanTree: Low Pointing

[Maria Gibson]

What is this?  What the sam hell is this?  Who the fuck low points on a 
Wednesday night before seven pm???  Who finds themselves driving home 
crying her pitiful eyes out less than one hour after work in the middle 
of the week?  This crap has got to go, got to stop, got to cease.  Cease 
and, yes, desist and stop and anti-start.  I'm not sure which feels 
worse, the crying or the loop in my head.  Ican'tdothis Ican'tdothis 
Ican'tdothis Ican'tdothis Idon'tknowhowtonotdoit Idontknowhowtontodoit 
Idon'tknowhowtonotdoit.  It just won't stop and neither will the 'this.'

I went to CAH to meet a friend; you know, not really in the mood but not 
wanting to go home so, ok, I'll hang out for awhile and have a beer then 
go.  The friend bails for a man (can you imagine?) but there is another 
already there.  Bails for a man, too, this being her son.  So, I'm at 
the bar thinking I have been rejected, I have been abandoned and you 
might think I am having these thoughts about the friends, but no, it's 
someone else and a lot more sinister.  I sit there with my ab muscles 
clenched, this is my own personal anxiety method, I tense my ab muscles 
so hard, so tight that sometimes I am sore the next day from holding it 
so tight for so long.  I am tensing them and my fists in my lap and I 
feel, to my utter horror, the need to cry.  Now, when I need to cry 
there is no stopping it and there was no stopping this.  I knew I had a 
few minutes, I could pay for the half a beer I drank, although I was 
charged for a whole beer, and I could escape before anyone witnessed my 
personal pussiness.  Barely made it.  Barely.  Got to the van, started 
it, drove through the wavy lines of my tears.  God, I hate this.  All I 
really want to do is lay my head in Pammie's or Carla's lap and beg 
therm to tell me it's alright, it's ok and you know, tomorrow's another 
day.  I really don't want to go see Barbara, you remember her, therapist 
I haven't seen in six weeks, because she will ask questions.  She will 
expect answers.  She will make me cry and I just can't stand the thought 
of it.  If she'd let me just curl up on her big, fluffy couch and sleep 
for an hour as she stroked my head and murmured soothing crap to me, 
maybe I'd go.  But I know her and even if she started out like that, 
which she never would, she'd end up asking at least one question and 
making me cry.  So, as you can see, I can't possibly go see her.  I'd go 
see Jack and beg forgiveness for not being mended when he's done so much 
for me, but he had the gall and audacity to need emergency surgery and 
is out for at least another two weeks.  How dare he be human and not be 
available when I need him?

I don't know how I got myself into such a state which is a damn lie, I 
know exactly how I got myself in this state.  So, at the bar which feels 
so unright and so foreign that I can't stand being there, the awful 
feelings are creeping in on fast but silent wicked feet.  Used to be a 
favorite place, among others.  I think, ok, I'll go to the coffee chop, 
that feels better in my mind, that feels better to my ab muscles, ok, 
I'll go there.  Drove right past it.  I was going home where I 
desperately did not want to go.  Kept driving through a torrent of tears 
knowing I would have to do something to occupy myself once I got there 
so I wouldn't do something silly.  I am exhausted with the effort to not 
be the reach out tonight, no, I have to see for myself how this little 
drama will play out.  Let it go its way, let it run whatever course it 
will.  I will not deem it or direct it.  I will just let it be.  This is 
why I am in such a state.  I have rejection and abandonment issues from 
way back.  Hey, can I blame this on my father?  Because, you know, 
that's from where it stems.  Yep, right from dear old Pop, first man I 
loved, first man to reject me, first man to abandon me.  First but not 
last, no, and did make a mid chapter appearance, a cameo if you will, 
some years back.  Rejected me then, too.  Whatthefuckever.  I don't have 
a lot of childhood issues left, God knows I had many, but this 
particular one just will not go away.  I'm all fine until the familiar 
sick feeling fills my tummy, dread because I know, I have a feeling, a 
funny little feeling about what is going to happen.  Or not happen.  
But, in any case, a rejecting abandoning feeling.  And I have all too 
often been correct.  Ouch.

I'm about tired of my obsessing.  I obsessed over food and the daily 
safety of my children for years and years.  Sure, a few minor ones in 
between, but those were pretty steady customers.  Then I struggled and 
struggled to not obsess about food.  In truth, I didn't stop obsessing 
over it until I began drinking and obsessing about bar hopping and 
drinking.  Then I mixed in some obsessing over sex.  Whoa, what a 
whirlwind crazy ride and how did I ever survive it???  I was mad, 
insane, crazy, nutso, psycho.  Got to bar hopping and drinking six out 
of the seven available and trust me when I say, got myself up to no good 
six times.  Wow, the anxiety and depression were wild at that point.  
Now I'm not obsessing over food, I gave up obsessing about bars and 
drinking apparently, based in my feelings about being in a bar tonight, 
and no longer obsess about sex.  I do have this one little issue to 
twist and turn over in my gut but other than that, I'm all out of 
options.  Which is probably why this got so big so quickly.  Trouble is, 
while all the others were simple, this is not.  It isn't and it's my fault.

I have to rest, I have to put my head down and just let the air out 
slowly.  I am either going insane or I am already there.  Does it really 
matter which one it is?

Maria