TheBanyanTree: Today, Yesterday

[Monique Colver]

> This morning I lay in my hotel room bed,  my stomach churning. Too much
whisky at lunch yesterday?
>
> Maybe. It was just one,  but I'm so susceptible.
>
> It was a long hard day. So long.
>
> I started a new supplement a couple of days ago,  and my anxiety levels
have plummeted. Friday morning I woke up without the persistent anxiety
that I've been carrying around for months.
>
> Thursday night I laughed hard and uproariously at something my husband
and I were talking about. It felt both odd and familiar, something that has
been missing as I recovered from the first part of this year.
>
> We drove up to Seattle Friday morning,  and by 11:30 we were here. I
dropped Andrew off at work,  and I drove to the east side to meet up with
my friend.
>
> My friend has been going through some shit. She and her husband have been
having a rough time of it. A year or so ago Andrew and I were at Los
Potrillos for dinner when my friend began texting me urgently, so upset
about her husband's sex addiction,  how she had to get rid of the computers
in the house, how he was treating her badly,  how she didn't want to be a
single mom again.
>
> She has 2 girls, now 19 and 6, the youngest her husband's,  the older a
product of an abusive marriage. The oldest has histio, a horrible disease
that few people know of, but she's in college now,  and working.
>
> Anyway. That was last year,  and they were to try to work on their
marriage. When they were working on it she'd be quiet,  and when it wasn't
going well she'd call me, in a sort of hysteria.
>
> Once, earlier this year, she called and we talked about suicide,  about
how sometimes it seems like such an option.
>
> She wouldn't do that, I'm certain, she loves her girls and life, and we
talked about it as slightly overwrought middle aged females, with laughter.
>
> Her life in the past year has been chaos, and she has relied a bit too
much on drinking. She knows that,  just as I know I rely a bit too much on
my meds. Sometimes she seemed a bit out of control,  and she left town as
often as she could,  to see her family, to go to conferences, anything to
take her away from home.
>
> Anyway. I met up with her yesterday to do the walk through and get her
keys for her new condo, because the marriage is dead and over and she and
the kids are moving this weekend.
>
> It was all a bit of rush,  and I'd put her in touch with a friend of mine
in the city she wanted to live in, which is the same city she has her
office and her oldest daughter goes to college and works. Robert put her in
touch with a real estate friend, but then she found this condo,  and she
loves it. It's on a small lake, over the water, and from the deck one can
watch the ducks and see the pool. Her office is just down the street. The
walkway leading to it is all wood, because the complex is built over the
water.
>
> Her parents are paying the rent for now, because she has not been paying
attention to work, and her husband is disabled and unable to work in the
trade he spent 30 years in,  cutting and installing marble.
>
> This story is far too long.
>
> Anyway,  once we got the keys I took her to lunch, and we sat outside in
the same lake her condo is on, and I had a whisky. Robert showed up; he had
packing boxes for her, and he wouldn't stop talking. He's in his 70's now,
a Chinese serial entrepreneur who takes a great interest in new people. I
hadn't seen him in 8 years or so.
>
> After, finally, we put the boxes in her car and she asked if I'd go with
her to her home to get her kids and bring them back.
>
> I said sure.
>
> We drove North, up the 405, and she talked about all the changes.
>
> She said Andrew would be a perfect husband for her, because he's only up
here once a quarter. She's off men, at least for now.
>
> During the trip there were several calls home to the girls. The older one
was sick,  and screaming every time. The younger one was trying to do what
she was told.
>
> I despaired.
>
> And then we pulled up to the rented house and she said that they had only
one working toilet, because the other two had broken and no one bothered to
fix them.
>
> We took the boxes into the house and I felt the loss, the despair, the
death of the family. It was like a physical punch, as if the wind had been
knocked out of me. It is a house where hope has dispersed, where love has
turned to ashes.
>
> And it was chaos. The older daughter sat in the living room, trying to
eat, her unmade bed behind her. In the corner, a german shepherd barked
from his crate.
>
> The older daughter yelled at the dog, then at us.
>
> There was not one thing ready to move.
>
> The younger daughter showed me her room, the bed she never slept in, toys
everywhere, spilling out of her room and into the bathroom, filling the
sink.
>
> My friend told her youngest to pack her bathroom, into shopping bags,
and began doing the same with her bathroom,  while I perched uneasily on
her unmade bed, petting the poodle that was moving with them while my
friend handed me a couple of random objects that seemed to have a special
meaning.
>
> The collection of teapots went into a giant ikea bag.
>
> I felt the darkness start to seep into me, but it wasn't my darkness, it
was theirs, and I wanted to grab the 6 year old and take her someplace
safe,  where she could be a kid.
>
> Long story, I know.
>
> The oldest daughter wouldn't go to the condo, so we left with the hastily
packed bags and the 6 year old,  and made our way back to the new condo.
>
> I showed Julia, the 6 year old, around her new place while her mother
threw bags in through the bedroom window. It was faster than walking around
to the door. Julia and I went out on the deck, and I showed her the ducks
swimming by. I showed her the room her sister would have, and I showed her
the little window within the window.
>
> She walked around in wonderment, and then raised her arms in the bare
living room and spun around, dancing.
>
> At 6, she's already an accomplished belly dancer.
>
> I watched them unpack, putting the bathroom stuff away in the bathroom
they'd be sharing. The 6 yo will room with her mom.
>
> "Can I put my Hello Kitty rug by the door?"
>
> "No."
>
> She has 3 Hello Kitty rugs, and so much less room now.
>
> Julia went to the tiny laundry room, looked around, then said, "can I put
it in the laundry room?"
>
> "Yes." So all three Hello Kitty rugs have a home.
>
> I sat on the floor and talked to Julia.
>
> The plan is to move in stuff until there's no more room, then get rid of
and store the rest.
>
> At last, after 7 hours, my friend took me back to my car, which I'd left
at her office. I was empty by then, running on, but I stopped at whole
foods and made a salad to take back to my hotel, and got cash to tip with.
>
> As I crossed Lake Washington the sun was going down, setting the lake on
fire. It had been a beautiful day, was starting to be a beautiful evening,
but all I needed was to be alone, to let the accumulated despair slough off.
>
> I worry about them, mostly about Julia, who has a father who is depressed
and hopeless about his future, and a mother who is trying to put together
the pieces, but who fears she'll be caring for her ex for the rest of his
life, like I did with Stew.
>
> I'd save them all, if I could, but if there's one thing I've learned it's
that I can only do a very little, and they have to do the heavy lifting of
keeping themselves together.
>
> I hope the enthusiasm for a new start carries them safely through the
rough bits.
>
> It's not my story, but I had to tell it anyway.