Perhaps There is No Other Way?

I've been doing some soul searching of late for a variety of reasons. I'm starting to wonder if I ever stood a chance of having anything approaching a normal life. They say family is the single biggest influence on who a person grows up to be. I'm starting to understand how absolutely true that is. I think a lot of people when they say that are thinking positively; if you bring a child up with love and respect they will go forward and love and respect others. But I think that's the optomist talking. I think reality is something far darker and twisted and upside down than that. I think the reality of families is what makes us who we are; and that reality is far from being the result of positive outcomes.



I grew up being bullied by a sister two and a half years older than me. My mother encouraged her to be strong and independant and to have a take charge attitude. And inadvertantly my mother encouraged her to walk across people in the process. In raising us my mother only had her role models to work from, which is probably why my brother remains fairly removed from the insanity. My mother had two sisters growing up and no brothers. In short, she didn't know how to screw up a son, but she knew how to make sure her daughters didn't get along. She raised them as she had been raised by her mother; a woman who'd herself had a highly chaotic childhood lacking in stability. Grandmother's parents were killed in a tornado when she was young and she and her siblings were shuttled from relative to relative till she married a much older divorced man at 16 or 17. She must have a had a very hard upbringing, and I'm sure she survived it by being tough as nails, competitive, strong and independant. She taught her daughters those skills without knowing I suspect how to teach them to be friends as well. That I saw, my mother and her sisters were never terribly close.



So I grew up being criticised at every turn. I was slapped, pushed, kicked and verbally and emotionally abused by my sister. To this day I don't think anyone saw anything terribly wrong with it. I know they didn't then and don't now understand how crucial that was in my turning out the way it did. Why should they? I didn't figure it out myself until this week. What do you get when you criticize everything someone does? You wind up with someone who communicates as little as possible in order to avoid criticism. You wind up with someone who will empathize and sympathize with the oppressed absued discounted and marginalized people of the world. Yeah, you wind up with me.



The flip side to that is that I idolized her at the same time. Some part of me knew she was being unfair and cruel but I would have done anything to win her approval and friendship, so I buried any negative feelings. I kept hoping someday she's like me. Someday we'd be friends. Someday she'd respect me. I kept trying to figure out what I could do, how I could make that happen. As a result I also grew very good at gauging how people were feeling, what they needed to hear at that moment and how to communicate something important to them. Those were all skills that came to help shape not only who I am, but what I've done for a living.



I made excuses my whole life for her. I rationalized the way she treated me, or believed that I deserved it. I rationalized or ignored the way she treated other people. She told me I was fat. I not only believed her, I ultimately became fat. Keep in mind we're about the same size now, as we were then. I get now that she pushed the worst of what she believed about herself off onto me and then ridiculed me for it. All this time I thought all my negative beliefs about myself came from my mother. While she had something to do with it, an awful lot of it came from my sister.

So I "got" all this with sudden clarity the other day. I thought she and I had been forging a new relationship with elements of mutual trust and understanding for quite some time now. I thought that my sister and I would one day be on equal footing and be friends. I thought one day I'd make her proud of me. I know now that could never have happened. I can never make that happen. Nothing has changed. Well, not true; I have changed.

She went off on my on my facebook page. Yes, I now understand one shouldn't have relatives on your facebook page. Anyway she did that in front of all my friends, real and cyber. It was pretty vicious. I cried for days. Then very early one morning I got it. Nothing has changed and she's a bully. I suddenly saw all the connections I'd missed all these years. I suddenly understood what a lifetime of bullying had done to me. It was a light bulb moment. I've been trying to win from her the one thing she would absolutely never give me, becuase to do so would be to give up her power over me. That power she believes she has is part of what keeps her propped up and going . . . at my expense. I wasted 47 years searching for an approval I was never going to get. That's all.

I still don't know if there's any value in trying to communicate any of this to her. She'll deny she was every a bully, and most likely will just call me worse names than she's already called me. Insert eye roll here. I don't know. I'm still thinking on it.

I'm an Alien, That Must be It

As I was laying in bed this morning crying, that's the realization I came to, however impossible; I must have been left here by an alien race; designed to blend in and pass for the real thing. I look too much like both parents and my siblings to be adopted or otherwise conceived so what does that leave? I've felt a good part of my life like an alien, surrounded by another species, not at home in the environment I'm in.

I am incredibly unlike my siblings in emotional temperament, political outlook, religious beliefs and on down to the clothes I wear. I don’t consider NASCAR t-shirts a fashion statement. Call me weird.

I’ve tried, Gods knows I’ve tried to find a way to fit in somehow. I once sat through two hours of NASCAR conversation with a brother and sister. I didn’t understand a word of it and could have cared less, but damnit, I faked interest, I nodded, I smiled, I laughed. I can’t see that it got me anywhere, those two hours of “bonding”. There’ve been other attempts. There has been lots of nodding and smiling and ignoring barbs and jabs and stabs in the back and I think I was run over with a 18 wheeler once, or was that a bad dream?

If our parents were still alive maybe they could have been a buffer of sorts, a common ground as we got older. But they passed away over twenty years ago when I was still in my twenties. I’m 47 now and the intervening years have not given me a single clue as to how to fit into my siblings alien world. I don’t say my family’s world because I don’t believe my parents were this radically different. My father was a fair man to a fault. My mother, well, she was a narcissist who really didn’t give a crap about anyone and was mostly just angry at everyone because she was not the center of the universe. Yeah, I know, crappy role model from day one. Don’t think I don’t know that.

The thing is there is this person inside of me, you know. I know who I am, I’ve lived my inner life and brought it out into the open. I’ve crawled into the dark places and made it a part of my reality. I can’t pretend that their reality is mine. And that ought to be okay. I don’t understand why it’s not okay for me to be who I am. I don’t understand the hate directed at me for being who I am. And yet I do understand.

Years ago I read a book by John Bradshaw, On the Family. Light bulbs went off and bells began to ring. Years? Um, decades now that I think about it. I am the youngest of four children. Yes, sigh, the baby. I prefer youngest, but people think it’s so freaking cute to call me the baby . . . I’m 47 and my breasts are dropping down to my navel. . . whatever makes you giggle people.

Bradshaw related a scenario that stunned me. He said something to the effect that all family members have roles and if a child acts outside of that role they will most likely be ignored by the family. The family will literally not hear or see that child when they are not playing the proper role. He gave an example and it floored me. His were the first books I ever highlighted that weren’t text books. I kept coming back and coming back to that highlighted page. And each time I read it I was angrier and angrier and angrier. All that time I thought it was me. All that time. Twenty some odd years, all my growing up years I thought it was me. God damn I thought it was me. I was supposed to be cute and funny and the baby for the rest of my life. I wasn’t supposed to have a serious thought in my head or contradict anyone or be anything other than what the family role dictated for the rest of my life.

See, they used to ignore me when I spoke. We’d be talking about something and I would make a comment and they’d ignore me. Sometimes I thought maybe I said it too softly and they didn’t hear me. Sometimes I‘d say it again louder. But most of the time I thought they were ignoring me because what I’d said was stupid. But they literally didn’t hear me. I conducted an experiment one night; an impromptu one. I was dishing ice cream out of a carton and it slipped. My response was unprintable here. My mother, I swear to the Gods, looked around in confusion and said to my oldest sister “Did you hear something?” My sister said “Oh it was nothing, no, didn’t hear anything. This wasn’t a sarcastic “Did you hear something”, this was an honest statement of confusion. Just for the heck of it I tried that experiment several more times in vary degrees. Their response was almost funny. Almost.

I think I was 22 when I did that. It was all downhill from there.

There is a part of me that still looks up to them, my siblings; that wants their approval. It’s inevitable I suppose, being the youngest. Well, how do you secure the approval of someone who feels that your entire life is unacceptable? You can’t. But it doesn’t stop that part of me from continuing to hope. I wish it did. It makes no sense to hope. My siblings are not my friends, they never will be my friends and they’ll never be proud of a single thing I’ve ever done with my life. They can’t accept who I am, not one minute not one second.

So who am I that’s so unacceptable? I’m a liberal single Pagan female. I’m socially and politically fairly liberal, though others stand further to the left than me. I’m Pagan, this means I don’t believe in the bible as a frame work for my beliefs about the Gods, life, the afterlife or the point and purpose of living. That's it. Haven't killed or maimed anyone. That's it.

That I didn’t turn out like my siblings who are right wing republicans appears to be a major source of discomfort and unhappiness for them. I can’t say I’m thrilled about their point of view, but they are who they are and if it makes them happy so be it. I don’t believe I’ve ever condemned them for their beliefs or practices. I learned long ago and I continue to relearn and relearn that what you do comes back to you. Condemn others and it will bounce back at you. But just being who I am seems to be condemnation in their eyes. There’s nothing I can do about that. The old if you’re not with us you’re against us theory of life. Gods, but that paradigm so needs to die out. How many people have been hurt killed maimed and abandon by that power over point of view?

So I’m crying again. I’ve been called self centered, myopic, unrealistic, irrational and uncaring. And that’s all in the last two hours. The words and the hate hurt, but what I hear from the words is “You’re not anything like me and you frighten me.”

I’m sorry, I can’t help you there sis. Your fear is not my responsibility.

So, if my real parents would be so kind as to beam me up now I’d really appreciate it. I’ve had enough and I want to come home to my real family; the ones who understand me, love me, believe in me and want me in their lives as a friend and sister. I’m a pretty amazing woman, damned intelligent and insightful if I do say so myself and I think you’ll be proud of me. Ready for beam up anytime now . . .

On Having

I've been struggling ever since Jessie died. There's been one or two days that we okay, but most of them have just been hard. She passed February 14th. In some ways I think that's just one very cruel vicious joke: Valentines Day. It gave me pause. I wondered if the Gods really did love me. If they did how could they do that? Why take my best friend from me on that day? You could call it coincidence, but I tend to think there are none. Taking her from me on that day so suddenly is hard not to take personally. It's one of the few slights in life that didn't make me angry but just hurt. It still hurts. It's not like there's a man to bring me flowers or children to buy me useless things on Valentines Day. All I had was a dog okay. Some kisses and a cuddle here and there.

I've been trying for the last few weeks in earnest to find another dog. Nothing seems to be working. I thought I'd found a local breeder who's dogs I liked and could afford but it turns out the breeder doesn't OAF or Penn her breeding dogs. If I were to adopt a shelter or rescue dog I wouldn't know diddly about their parents either, but I can't bring myself to buy from a breeder who cares so little about the puppies she might be bringing into the world to suffer short painful lives because of hip dysplasia.

The way I found out pissed me off beyond words. I'd joined an email group of large shepherd breeders figuring that would be the best way to find a local breeder. What I forgot, or chose to forget from previous experience is that breeders are the most inbreed, nasty tempered, suspicious, back stabbing sniveling bunch of pantie wastes on earth. Dealing with them one at a time ain't so bad, but get a group of them together and watch the knives come out and the blood spill. Given that they create soft fuzzy life out of that never ceases to amaze me: how absolute opposite they are of that which they give to people. Had someone simply said "Have you asked about hips yet" I would have been fine. That was on the list to ask about, but I hadn't gotten that far yet. But some smarmy little backwoods breeder had to insinuate that breeders dogs all had bad hips. This is the same shit that privately contacted me the week before wanting to sell me one of her puppies from all the way over in freaking West Virginia. So I walked quietly out of that group and left them to their backstabbing and I declined to buy the puppy.

I tried going back to the rescue where I got Jessie from. They keep precious few dogs in their rescue now and seem to prefer to dedicate their time to a permanent facility for unadoptable dogs. I got no where with the volunteer who contacted me. When I asked about cat friendly dogs I was told to "Just come on down some Saturday and meet the dogs." It's a three hour drive to just come on down. The idea of spending three hours in the car to see dogs who may or may not be cat friendly is not appealing. Why they don't temperament test the dogs is beyond me. Perhaps I'm the only person on the face of the planet who wants a German Shepherd and has cats? Yeah, but that's the way they make you feel when you ask. I've since come to realize that attitude is pretty common with breed rescues. I tried another breed rescue in another part of L.A. and that hasn't gone much better for the same reason. As I told a friend the other day, it's far easier for Madonna to adopt another child from a third world country than it is for me to adopt a dog.

That leaves me with county shelters. There's a cheery place, a county dog shelter. My fear with going into one of those places is how many dogs I'd walk out with, "Excuse me but is there a limit to how many dogs I can't adopt at one time?" If you've never been in one, county shelters are the most dismal hopeless places on earth. That any of the animals ever get out of there alive and rebound in spirit from the experience is a miracle.

I know, yes, I know it's not supposed to be this hard. If it's this hard I'm doing something wrong and the wisest thing to do is step back and take pause. I realize that. But there's the thing, grief makes it hard to accept that.

Alright, wait, slight tangent here. Dinner tonight was miserable. It sucked. It didn't turn out right. But then I was trying to make egg rolls with rice paper yet again. I want to track down the tramp on the gluten forum who claimed you could bake them. Uh, no, you can't. The texture turns to plastic if you bake them. First I tried frying one of them tonight and it stuck to a non stick pan and came apart. I gave that up and got out the steamer. You are supposed to be able to steam them. The other three fell apart when I took them out of the steamer. I had deconstructed rice paper egg rolls. I'd have killed for proper egg roll wrappers. I've tried repeatedly with rice paper. This is the fourth or fifth attempt. Mercifully I used up the last of the package tonight. If you make them light enough and you're lucky you can pan fry them but they're a freaking mess. Make them too big and the weight of the filling tears the paper and you have what I had for dinner. I was furious by the time I was done. Not mad at the wrappers mind you; that would be pointless. But mad at life, mad at fate, mad at the Gods because I can't walk into the fucking supermarket and buy egg roll wrappers like most everyone else on the planet. I was mad all over again that it was taken away from me; other people can have it but I can't. THAT is what gets to me every single time.

And I'm angry that other women have husbands and children and grandchildren. I can't. And it's as much grief as anger that all over this planet men and women met and fall in love and have children; billions of people do that every single day and I can't.

Sense a pattern here yet? All I want is one relatively young cat loving german shepherd to take into my home and love and spoil and take on walks and watch tv with and I can't have it. Truth be known I don't even want that. I want Jessie back and I can't ever have her either.

I don't entirely understand what it is that set my life apart from what is normal. I haven't a clue actually. Not a single clue why. Most days I can ignore it, and can focus on everything else that works and be happy, but some days I just can't see the light no matter how hard I look. And unfortunately its mostly been like that since Jessie left. Yeah, other women get men and children; I got a dog to love.

My Other Half

My other half is gone. I didn't realize that's what she was until now. I had to put Jessie to sleep last week. She suddenly had trouble breathing and it turned out she had advanced lung cancer and there was nothing that could be done to help her. I couldn't let her suffer though I was so not ready to let her go. Letting her go was about the most gut wrenching thing I've felt in awhile.

She was this big beautiful exuberant lug of a German Shepherd. We were together pretty much 24/7. I realize now she was literally a part of me, my other half. We were a pair. I'd look over at her to see what she thought of who ever had entered the room, and she'd look at me to see what I thought. She was much kinder to people than me though. That kindness taught me a lot about life. If she could have talked we would have been finishing each other's sentences.

I always marvel at how pets do that; how they become so attuned. I finally figured out a few years ago that she viewed me as her job. That was a somewhat humbling realization. I needed looking after in her estimation. In return I tried not to be too obvious about having to look after her, particularly as she got older and simple things became harder for her to do. I didn't want her to think she was letting me down in any way. I told her if the positions were reversed you'd do the same for me so don't worry.

I can't seem to get past the grief of loosing her. At first all I wanted was another dog, another Shepherd. I missed having a dog almost as much as I missed her. But I look at rescue and shelter and breeder sites and all I think when I stare into the eyes of all those dogs is that they're not Jessie.

Perhaps it was a mistake having her with me all the time. On the other hand I'm glad I was there for so much more of her life. So I don't know. I suppose there's another dog out there somewhere who belongs with me, I'm just having trouble imagining that right now.

HLA-DQ 1,1

I should have paid more attention in High School biology. It might have helped. It might not have. I'm awash in a sea of DQ's and I am fighting for every bit of understanding. The more I read it the more I glean from it, but the definitive answers I want don't appear to be there.

I took a gene test to determine which gluten sensitive genes I posses. I've seen estimates that as much as 60% of the population has one or more of the genes. Problem is they just aren't sure what it all means. They have some idea that certain genes are worse than others, and they've begun to understand that different genes can cause different symptoms and present different challenges for gluten sensitivity. But the science is far from exact. I have two copies of a gene they seem to be calling HLA-DQ 1. I say seem to because apparently even the protocol for naming genes is an ever evolving one. Everyone has sets of genes, with one gene in the set coming from their mother and one from their father. I received the very same gene from both of my parents; the DQ 1. According to the literature a double DQ 1 gene means the sensitivity is more pronounced and probably unavoidable. It is a gluten sensitive gene and it's most associated with gluten ataxia. Ataxia is a word I didn't know until today. I could probably have gone the rest of my life without hearing it.

I read today about something they call the Romberg Test for Ataxia where a patient stands with their feet together and their eyes closed. That's it, that's all. I read the description of that test and immediately thought, "Well, no one can do that." Well, actually most people can it turns out. But I have never been able to. I'm better than I used to be, but standing with my feet together and my eyes closed I start to wobble and run the risk of falling over. Hell, it's a miracle I haven't fallen off my treadmill yet my balance is so terrible. My balance has improved in the last two years, but it's obvious even to me that some things are never coming back. They know that a gluten free diet improves balance and coordination in affected people, but they don't know whether or not it can reverse all of the damage that's already been done. On the up side I don't fall down anymore so I guess I should be grateful.

But the part that got to me, that freaked me out is that gluten can actually change the cerebellum, leaving deposits and changing the shape and function of the part of the brain most responsible for balance and movement and coordination. This freaking gene and the subsequent gluten sensitivity has altered the very make up of my brain. There are mentions of links between ataxia and Alzheimer's and dementia as well as schizophrenia MS and several other things.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe I live in my head too much. Maybe other people don't. I don't know. There's this huge disconnect between my thoughts and the fact that I'm a physical being dependent on things like the structure of my brain for cogent thought. I'm anchored to this body and that's a hard thing to process for some reason. I can't transcend the physical body. I'm bound by its health and abilities. And that makes me angry.

More than that it scared me, more than anything else on this journey through gluten hell has. And I'm mad. And I'm confused by all the uncertainties. And dammit none of this makes sense. Why me. But of course me.

Someone somewhere posted a snip from Slaughterhouse Five this afternoon on a local website.

Tralfamadorian speaker: We know how the world ends and it has nothing to do with Earth, except that it gets wiped out too.
Billy Pilgrim: Really? How does it end?
Tralfamadorian speaker: While we're experimenting with new fuels, a Tralfamadorian test pilot panics, presses the wrong button, and the whole universe disappears.
Billy Pilgrim: But you have to stop him. If you know this, can't you keep the pilot from pressing ...
Tralfamadorian speaker: He has always pressed it, and he always will. We have always let him, and we always will let him. The moment is structured that way.

What is meant to be will be. You can't go back and change it, and even if you could it would do no good because what's meant to be will always find a way in the end. Everything has a point and purpose.
But accepting that is a struggle.

Just Ask

If you ask the "universe" often times it answers, or at least helps you figure out what the answers are. I put two and two together last night. Well, actually this morning.

I had a series of dreams last night that I remembered this morning. I don't always remember dreams, but these seem to have intentionally stuck in my brain at least enough to finally make the connections happen. I dreamed about the house I grew up in. In the dream someone had walled over the front door of the house. Where the door should have been there was just stucco. Literally I could no longer go inside. And I can't. The house belongs to someone else now which is an idea I'm still getting used to. I wonder if they're happy there? I wonder if they survived the ARM crunch? I wonder if they love how the sun comes in the living room windows in the afternoon?

I also dreamed about the car I used to own which is now also gone. Gone from my life. So many things are gone.

I found out last week, Christmas Eve that my cousin is being treated for rectal cancer. She's undergoing chemo and radiation. She's fighting for her life. She and I share the same middle name. Why in the hell both our mothers had to fucking do that to us mystifies me to this day. What the hell were they thinking? It was my grandmother's middle name, but you know, it's not like there was much more to it than that. Great grandmother named her daughter after a silent screen actress so our middle name was someones last name. And no, I'm not publicly saying which one because then the whole freaking world would know my middle name and quite frankly it's stupid. No white kid from Pacoima should have that as a middle name. Let alone some white kid from Pacoima who's mother was born and raised in Oklahoma. Long story, but trust me on this.

Anyway, when I heard about Teri I was stunned, saddened but not surprised. Her son has been battling POEM's disease for a couple years now. How terribly hard for all of them. I can't imagine what that is like.

I wasn't surprised because rectal cancer is a digestive cancer. People with untreated Celiac Disease are prone to digestive cancers. Some numbers give them a 50% higher risk than the average population. With treatment, which is a gluten free diet, the numbers go down significantly, returning to normal after a year or so.

I carry a Celiac gene, that's pretty obvious. Which one and in what combination I don't yet know. It's possible I inherited a double gene. I'm pretty sure my mother had Celiacs. I would not be surprised if my father did too. I finally ordered a gene test to try and find out. While it no longer matters to me which gene or genes I have, I'm hoping I can use it to convince my siblings, at the very least my siblings, to get tested for Celiacs. My mother's entire family should be tested, but most people don't want to know. My siblings don't want to know. My sister is truly mystified as to where I could have gotten this "rogue gene". The odds are good she carries the same gene. but she'd rather pretend I'm some how extraordinary.

And that's why silence scares me. In theory I'm in a better place now because I'm gluten free. But the years, decades, maybe a lifetime of eating gluten have already taken a toll on my body. I know that, I experience that every day. I regret not knowing, and I'm angry at doctors who never had a clue. But what can you do? You can't go back and relive your life. This is the life you're handed, the one you're meant to live.


It may have already shortened my life, and the lives of people I love. And I get angry all over again at the way whole grain products have been pushed down our throats by a government trying to artificially support it's farmers. I see that stupid food pyramid and all I see is blatant commercialism in the guise of healthy living. Whole grains kill.


The silence I now fear is mortality. Teri's battle brought that home to me to live.


I wonder if anyone ever dies thinking "I did it all, everything I wanted and I have no regrets"? I've never known anyone who died who felt that way. It's not the dying I fear I don't think. Either there is something after this physical life or there isn't. Either way works. It's this nagging sense that perhaps I'm not doing it right; living that is. It's not even about regrets. I want some guarantee that I did what I was supposed to do here; some nod from some God that says I'm on schedule and headed in the right direction.


Does knowing about the silence stop the fear? I don't know yet. Time will tell. I need to figure out what to do with all this. How do I guarantee that when I die I do so thinking I covered all the bases I was supposed to cover? How do you do that?

Silence

For some reason silence bothers me these days. I can't put my finger on why exactly. Not silence just in general, but specifically silence when I'm home alone. That never used to bother me.

I've always loved silence. It probably came from growing up in a house full of people and not having anywhere to go to be alone. My childhood was a cacophony of sounds; the TV, arguments, discussions, music, dogs barking, traffic. That may be all it is actually; traffic. I grew up two blocks from the 5 freeway. There was always traffic, even in the dead of night, on the freeway. And we lived on a busy four lane street as well. So the nights were never silent; not ever, not for a second. The freeway made this constant chorus like sound at night as cars speed along. When I was very young, under five, I thought it the sound of angels singing. Why I thought that I couldn't tell you. How I knew what angels were I couldn't tell you. I wasn't raised with religion, never read the Bible, never went to Sunday school. Why I decided that was what singing angels sounded like I don't know. How I knew what angels were I can't tell you.

And the trains. The train tracks were several blocks beyond the freeway. It was common in the sixties and seventies to hear train whistles at night and to hear the engine sound. I've always thought growing up listening to something traveling that fast and that far through the night did something to you; infused you with a wanderlust of sorts.

So there was never silence, even when no one spoke. There was always background noise. And light too. Not only is the Valley one of the most populous, light polluted places on earth, but there were streetlights every few houses. One shone right in through my bedroom window. And everywhere I lived down there in the flatlands there was noise and light in the dead of night. That's one of the reasons I leave the outside porch lights on here. Total darkness is nice, but it makes it hard to navigate around the bedroom in the dark. More importantly though, it's just too frightening. There, I said it.

I'm still afraid of the dark. I wasn't always. But it's still there, tucked in the back of my brain; this fear. It started after the Northridge earthquake. Again, I was living in the valley where there was always light coming through the window. When the quake began I was thrown out of bed and dove under the computer table next to the bed. I held onto the table as hard as I could with my eyes screwed shut repeating over and over "Please stop, please stop." When the two initial jolts finally did stop I opened my eyes. I thought for a split second I'd somehow become blind. There was a confusion between what I should have seen and the total darkness I was in. It was a shock on top of a shock. There was something about that moment that just buried itself in my brain, that moment of shock when I opened my eyes and was greeted by total darkness. I had a hard time with darkness after that. It was months before I could handle being in the dark, even the quasi darkness that returned to the valley once they got the electricity back on. Whenever there's a quake that fear returns, even if just for a few moments.

But I've never feared silence. And it's not exactly fear now that I feel. Where once silence was full and rich with possibilities and depth, now it just seems to stretch out in front of me somehow barren and empty. It's lonely. Why now I don't know. I feel no more vulnerable than before, no more at the mercy of fate or possibility. It's as if there's no longer anything to listen for in the silence; it's just empty. And that makes no sense to me. I feel like I've lost something, but I don't know what. Did I loose my nerve? Is my strength deserting me? Am I simply tired of being alone? The silence is empty feeling and I can't tell you why.