Robin Williams Stories

Yet again the A.V. Club has inspired me with their "What's your Robin Williams Story?" post. Mine is pretty funny, actually, though at the time, pretty horrifying. I was 10, and sleeping over at my friend Florence Kizza's house for a pretty innocent 6th grade version of a New Year's Eve party. Along with some other girls, we were cutting up old newspapers and magazines as confetti to throw around the room at midnight and watching Disney's Aladdin (for about the hundredth time). "Prince Ali" came on, and I immediately got up to dance, forgetting all about the clipped paper all over the floor. As I shimmied my way around, I slipped and fell face-first into the arm of couch, squishing my braces into my lip. The laughing stopped when we realized that one of the braces was stuck and needed medical attention. It's important to note that the Kizzas are from Kenya, and while they spoke conversational English, they were in no way able to convey my needs to the doctors at the hospital, nor were they legally able to do so without my parents consent. Mind you this was '92, so it wasn't as easy to get in touch with people back then, and my parents were at their own New Years Eve party, so we could not find them to give consent. Mrs. Kizza, Flo's older sister, and my friend Carrie sat at the ER for what feels like forever, all the while Carrie offering painful comic relief (every time she made me laugh it hurt). Finally, a kindly doctor took pity on our situation and agreed to dislodge the brace from my upper lip. Without Carrie stepping in as the role of comic, I might have panicked, so I forever link Aladdin, Robin Williams, New Year's Eve and Carrie in my mind. Oh, that and how having braces was truly horrifying. RIP Robin.  

Tougher Than the Rest

It started before the year even took hold. On New Year's Eve day, I found out that my tests came back positive for Chlamydia. I suspected it might as a result of the sexual assault I suffered in August. After hanging up the phone and confronting my boyfriend in the shower to share the results, (and fleetingly holding on to the thought that maybe he had given it to me), I resolved that I would never really know how I got it, but there it was. I thought back to the other men I had slept with since August, and awkwardly called each of them to both wish them a Happy New Year and to let them know they needed to get tested, even if we used a condom. Then I cried. I entered January 2014 determined to succeed in a self-assigned month of sobriety.

Six days later my friend Katy's mother died of complications related to MS. My best friend Sarah's mom died of the same 11 years ago. I went home for the funeral, and saw a lot of old friends, some doing better than others. Three weeks later, my friend Molly died, and again I found myself in my hometown trying to make sense of another loss. I stayed sober until the night of her funeral, almost all of January behind me.

Come February, I was drinking again, and unable to control my emotions. I had no idea how to handle what the year decided to throw at me in just over 30 days. I lashed out at my boyfriend, I ignored my professional obligations, and I cried constantly. I went home again in March, this time for a wedding and my dad's 60th birthday celebration. A better occasion to be sure, but being home again brought so much to the surface that I still wasn't ready to face. Immediately after that trip, I spent a week in Costa Rica trying to understand all that I had been through. I spent each day with close friends on the beach, doing yoga every morning, learning to surf, eating well, journaling, and trying to rededicate myself to myself. I came back renewed and ready to change my perspective. Turns out it's not that easy. A few weeks later I broke up with my boyfriend because I knew I didn't love him and I never would. He didn't take it well. Still being emotionally exhausted, his behavior pushed me into a weary and often hateful place.  

April brought on taxes, as usual, equally as tedious. I don't remember if May had flowers or not. As a cure for boredom, I started seeing an old flame again and remembered why it didn't work out the first time immediately, but continued to date him anyway. In June, I visited my parents in Philadelphia and saw how terribly my dad's alcoholism had progressed, and how it made my mom feel. I heard stories about the effects of mood enhancers and alcohol; about drunken nights that ended in tears and broken ribs. About how concern turned to anger and crept quickly to feed off my mother's inability to be around this anymore, and my dad's inability to control it. I went to Puerto Rico not long after and tried again to ignore the creeping madness my life had become.

Just before the Fourth of July, I broke my arm and learned just how stupid and clumsy I can be in the middle of the day. And just how little my boyfriend cared about my general well-being. I'm still suffering as a result of that. I am drowning in debt, and my spirit is want to wonder down a dark path. I can't say I blame the guy I was seeing from wanting to flee, and I am actually thankful he did, his drinking only further fueled my own. In truth, I am in no condition to date right now. I went home again at the end of July - for another wedding - and lay witness to my mother's new-found hatred. Maybe 'hate' is too strong a word as she still loves my dad, but she most definitely does not like him right now, and I cannot blame her for that. She's been putting up with an alcoholic for nearly 45 years. She blames herself for enabling him, for being codependent, maybe even for staying all these years as she watched it get worse. Deep down I think she knows he would die without her. Who knows exactly, but she finally had the courage to tell him that he is ruining their marriage. He says he'll try. So far, he's failed at even that.

It is now August and I am attending my first Al-Anon meeting tonight. My mom went to one last week. I need to know how to talk to my dad about what he's doing to us, to himself, and I don't know how to do that without making him angry, or worse. He's been there before too. I'm not sure what I will get out of it exactly, but I am not going alone and I am grateful for that.

At the end of this month, and I going to be in a wedding in Pasadena, for friends that I love dearly. In September, the day I turn 33, I am traveling to Copenhagen with two of my three coworkers for a work-sponsored trip. In October, my best friend Michael is going to marry his best friend, Michael. I'll be in that wedding too. I am trying so hard to look forward, not backward, to these events to come that are happy and full of hope, because some days, all I can think about is the heartache and shame that this year has brought so far and it makes me hateful. It makes me want to crawl in bed and hug a man who doesn't love me instead of a man that does and forget all the things I have to do. It makes me think of Molly, and I start to understand how this happened to her. How she must have woken up every morning hungover and hating herself. The best thing for a hangover is another drink, so there she went. You know the rest.

I don't want to become a person who lives in hate. I see what it's done to my father, to my friend, and to my heart. Since I turned 13, any wish I make whether it be on stars, on eyelashes, on birthday wishes, has always been for love. I can't help it, it's just something I always do. My friend Jenny calls me a hopeless romantic, and maybe she's right; but maybe it's more than a Jane-Austen-novel-kind-of-hopeless. Maybe it's because I've never given up the hope. And maybe that's what will save me after all.        

The Beauty of Molly Kate Pryor

Part of our senior year requirements and a tradition at my high school, Girls Preparatory School, is to prepare and deliver a speech to the entire student body, faculty, family and friends. Called "Chapel Talks," they are delivered during Chapel (assembly), and as many people who could pile on the stage next to you would as a team of support and love. You could include a performance if you wanted to, and lots of girls sang, danced, or acted with friends. Always terrifying, but fun, they usually dealt with understanding the impending graduation and changes about to happen in our lives, including leaving Chattanooga and each other. I found a book of Chapel Talks from my class, the Class of 1999, and decided to share Molly's. It is so special, and unfortunately, so timely, as we are again preparing to lose each other. As I said in my last post, Molly Kate Pryor is gravely ill. She lost sight of her beauty and spirit and if she dies, I am going to miss her everyday for the rest of my life. I can't dance as you do, Molly, but I can offer all my love to you, and remember you for all the beauty you help me possess. 

Molly Pryor’s Chapel Talk, GPS 11/13/98

I’d like to dedicate this talk to my parents who have sacrificed a lot so that I could stand here today.

Sometimes when you look at something just right you see the true nature of it. Like standing on roof tops, looking out into the city and realizing that you and the people around you have meshed into one amazing unit or when you are driving around with the windows down, sun-kissed and smiling, and you realize how beautiful your “gang” is. It’s a fleeting moment and you never want to forget the light in which you now see things. In these things I realize the innate beauty people possess. The beauty of the people who surround me every day amazes me. Their beauty is separate from all the outside influences. I can see her beauty in the way she dances, her’s in her writing, her’s in her art, but mostly I find it in the simple gestures of their faces that show a glimpse of the pure indescribable emotion beneath the surface of their mind and heart. Holding onto this vision of beauty is never easy. One day it is the most obvious thing that confronts my eyes, but sometimes the routine of everyday fools me into thinking I don’t care about the beauty that surrounds me. Sometimes every action seems fake, and I forget which part is the real part. I cannot delineate between the everyday outward appearance and the beauty I know is there within. They cannot see their beauty and sometimes I can’t see it either. I have to be reminded and watch from a separate perspective to see all that is there. So much of the beauty around us goes unappreciated. My gratitude to the people around me will never be enough to truly do them justice for all they do. Be sure that the people that you love know how much you love them and don’t let yourself forget it either. The time is coming when you will be separated from all of this. Don’t take it for granted. My separation from the people I love grows closer everyday and it’s hard for me to think about life separate from these people. But I know I can leave and they can leave and we can both always come back. They are my sanctuary and my rest. And for all of this I would like to dance as an offering to You. I Love You…

Old Familiar Friend

It's January 25, and I'm 24 days into a sober month. The only alcohol I've had in the last 24 days was a small shot of a Greek liqueur at my friend Katy Mena's mother's funeral. We all toasted to Vicky to help ease her passing into the next world. I don't regret it, and I don't think it counts as cheating.

It's been hard. Harder than I ever imagined it would be. I didn't realize how much I rely on a glass of wine or a beer at the end of long day to help me wind down. Or a whiskey on the rocks to help me have a better time when I'm out with my friends. Or several more to stumble home and have sloppy sex with my boyfriend. It's not like I was wasted all the time, but it started to feel like too much. Like I couldn't just go a night without having a drink, or two maybe, to relax. There is always a happy hour somewhere in New York, and I am usually always available for boozy brunch. No better way to chase a hangover than to wash it out with a Bloody Mary and bottomless Mimosas.

It started as just a casual statement to myself. I think I want to quit drinking for the entire month of January. Then I said it aloud to some people and they said, I think I like that idea. Then more friends agreed, and here we are, almost to the end. There are days that I've wanted to get completely shitfaced in some weird effort to make up for lost time. Yet, the only time I lost is when I was shitfaced. Or hungover. Or in the middle of a seizure the next day because I abused my brain chemistry by drowning it in alcohol.

For years I have watched my Dad struggle to be what people jokingly refer to as a "functional alcoholic," and I try not to let this need overtake me like it has him. Or worse, like it is doing to my friend Molly right now. My Dad is almost 60, and while it scares me to think that he may one day drink himself to death, Molly is already there. She is 33 years-old, and may not make it through the night. As her friend, I have seen her turn from the smartest, loving and loyal woman I know to a shell of herself - a hard-hearted, self-destructive, deceiving person that I am scared of. She has become such a different person that I feared losing her friendship forever if I confronted her about her alcoholism. So I didn't. I let my need for Molly to be alright, and the need to justify my own desire to continue on my own path without judgment, stop me from telling her that I was worried about her. That I thought she needed help. That I didn't want her to die.

It maybe too late now to tell her those things. She is in the ICU on a ventilator struggling to keep her organs working. Her liver failed, and now her kidneys are failing too. She is swollen and yellow, and now I believe she is the one who is scared. I've been talking to a lot of our friends over the last two days, and every conversation we have ends with, "I love you." We are all trying to hope for the best, but I'm not sure what the best is anymore.

I am heartbroken standing in this middle ground, and trying to sort through the twisted clarity my break from alcohol has brought. It has called attention to my need, even in this most inappropriate time and place, to want to drink. I want to drink just to take the edge off feeling so helpless and sad. I want to drink so that the reality of Molly's situation is less, well, real. I want to drink so that I won't be as frustrated with my boyfriend for trying to be helpful. I want to drink just because I do.

I find these confrontations confusing. I hope that I am a person who can control myself, but when it comes to alcohol, maybe it is not that simple. What will it be like when I get back to my normal routine and "allow" myself to drink again? Is it even a wise choice to ever go back? I am struggling to find solace in my old familiar friendly state of mind, and I hope to keep that wary understanding for as long as I can. I don't want to ever depend on alcohol to make me feel like a better version of myself. I want to see drinking as a fun thing I want to do, not a fun thing I have to do.

For now, I'm going to be grateful that I am able to stop for the month of January; I'm going to continue to understand my relationship with alcohol; and I'm going to pray for my friend.

Bloodletting

Somewhere in between
the choices I made and those made for me,
I find myself unclean.
Keep your distance, only whisper;
the darkness here tends to fester.  
I will bite my thumb at you, sir.
And you can claim no offense, sir,
but I know this cur.

This bitch will come unchained,
un-maimed, again unclaimed,
searching for blame. It's not the same.
Fists tight, I aim to fight.
To wake a dragon that never
sleeps leaves no room for clever endeavors.
When death escapes the cave
all is left to the depraved.

Once brave, now I crave
what was my innocence,
misguided sense, teeth clinched.
Unsure of the next tense, I close my eyes and aim
to claim whatever I can do to overcome this.
I am ashamed and would be remiss
not to admit:
I'd sell everything I own to forget.

For Shelby

A Poem by Katie Massari

little prowler of the night
grumble dancer, 
firefly. 
protector of those that shouldn't 
or might
and definitely those that stupid why. 

you stride aloft the world 
so wide
yet, careful you,
to take the ninja stride.

no fear has she
bruce lee and Tarantino bound
because fear screams at cowards
and she's really not trying to make a sound. 

Pose / Counterpose

I pose for you trying to find my repose,
The act of stillness is exhausting.
I search for silence, but come up lost,
So I bury my mind in madness.

An ostrich buries its head too (but for clarity),
and I know only flamingos.
Forgetting to counterpose, I ache.   
On the days I remember, I still burn.

Looking to elevate my mood I review rooftops,
and recognize that they require ambition.
Today I am lacking, so I seek comfort in creatures
with lower expectations, (mostly because I do not understand them).

I try to touch you without touching you with no success.
Thumbing through my notebook for inspiration,
I instead stumble into a fall on accident.
You used to think I'm beautiful

(and probably still do).
It doesn't matter either way as I am not what you want.
I go back to pose and breathe - balance out of reach
(like your arms around me).

Like a tree I stand; my limbs, free, while
Rings rage internal.
Someday I will come to terms with birds
and accept pigeons among doves.