Sassy

CW-slight hint of suicidal thinking, some swear words

Sweet sax strains of "Stormy Weather" swell and fall, taking the edge off my aching loneliness for a moment.

But my classic jazz downloads fail to distract me from my level six pain this morning. They never help with pain, but I like to tell the few people I still talk to in the flesh other than doctors that they do, that music is a pain management strategy, a mindfulness tactic I employ alongside my daily rainbow of drugs. These caring folks crease their brows, nod ooh and ahh, not sure how to respond. Who can blame them? Impossible to relate to chronic pain if you don’t have it. Especially this undiagnosable, not-understood, not-quite-chronic-fatigue thing I’ve been struggling with for seven years.

Hard to understand or fear a monster that’s only theoretical to you.

And I do think of it as a monster. An entity that’s entered my body and taken over. When I’m at my worst, every inch of my skin burns, even while I’m on the drugs. I can’t move from bed, can’t move from fetal position, can’t move for fear the flames will engulf me in a ritual of pain the monster has devised to make me finally give in, to call it quits. 

The hardest part isn’t the pain, though. It’s not knowing what afflicts me. For now, my only comfort is knowing I’m not alone. About three years ago, I found an online community—there are a whole lot of us out there, hundreds if not thousands around the world, with what we informally call “millennial disease.” Because for some reason we’re all under the age of forty. And bonus: we’re all infertile.

We’re all also befuddled and angry that there’s no research into it. Zilch. You'd think it’d be a goldmine for the first pharmaceutical company to crack its code, but something rotten is going on, and other than writing moot letters to our congress people, we are basically helpless.

A tender piano rendition of “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Your Face” tinkles, and I scrabble for my phone from under the covers, hitting the arrow forward button. Too late. I’m already back there, remembering the good, the bad and the end with Will. When we found out about my dead ovaries and he told me he wanted children.

I need distraction. Now. Maybe Jimbo2 is online. He helps me feel better, jokes me out of my worst moods.

I move gingerly to a sitting position, find my laptop buried under my sour-smelling sheets. Luckily Mom’s due to bring groceries and clean up sometime today. 

I’m in luck. Jimbo2 was chatting in our support group a couple of minutes ago. I shoot him a quick inmail.

SassygrrL: What’s the word down under?

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JImbo2: ‘Lo , luv. The word is shitty. You? Thought Boston would be dark about now.

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SassygrrL: Hunh?

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JImbo2: Check news! 

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SassygrrL: Will do. Meanwhile, “shitty” is the word for me, too. Time to talk?

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I wait thirty seconds, a minute, but he doesn’t answer. Very unlike him. I click my news icon, which downloads the landing page while I’m sleeping. Sometimes I remember to check it. Today, every headline is a variation of the one in the NYTimes box: “President Declares State of Emergency While National Energy Grids Shut Down ‘For a Short While’”

I click into the story, but it won’t download. I check my wireless connection on the top bar, and sure enough, it’s dark gray. Which would explain why Jimbo2 didn’t answer me either. Grabbing my phone, I slide out of bed, bare feet stung by the cold hardwood floor, and wobble down the hall to the living room. Sure enough, the router, shiny and black behind a brown, crispy fern, is lightless. No digital numbers glow from the oven clock in the kitchen either. I flick the light switch. Nada.

And I don’t know if I’m only now noticing, or if it’s suddenly reached a pitch, but the noise from the street is ten times the usual decibel level. I look out to see streets crammed with honking cars and people lined up in front of my neighborhood bodega. 

I need to call Mom. 

I hit her number three times. “Call failed” blares back at me. I do my breathing exercises, deep breath in, hold it at the top, deep breath out, hold it at the bottom, but two sets in I know I’m wasting time.

After Dad died, we always said if there was a disaster, no matter where we were in the world, we’d meet up at the house in Cambridge.

This might not be a serious disaster, but it could be, so I have to go to her.

I shuffle back to my bedroom, peel off my three-day-old pajama skin and decide on a luxury I can probably ill-afford right now, a hot shower. It could be my last for a while.  Stepping in, I realize something: I haven’t noticed my pain since the power went out. In fact, this might be the most pain free I’ve been in months, if not years. 

I do a quick body check while I soap up, check my tenderest spots, along my ribs and behind my knees. Both areas are at a level one, and that’s only because I’m anticipating pain I’m not really feeling. Wow. Normally I’d be rejoicing at this unexpected reversal in my pain journey, but it’s unlikely I’ll have time to really revel before the pain comes back. The silver lining is that I need to feel my best to cope with the state of the world until I can get to my safe person, my long-suffering, kind mother, so she can help me if I backslide during this outage. Or when. My monster will not be gone long. 

I put on clean, warm clothes, and remember the tips I’ve learned from all the apocalyptic content I’ve watched. I feel pretty silly because this isn’t technically an apocalyptic event as far as I can tell from a headline or two, but just in case, I pull out my backpack from the front hall closet and throw in a change of clothes along with my useless meds, toothpaste, toothbrush, deodorant and prescription body cream that does nothing to alleviate symptoms. In the kitchen, I dig up a bag of walnuts, some hard cheese, crackers, and a half empty jar of peanut butter and throw those in, too. Last, I fill a water bottle. On a whim, I toss in a couple decent sketches I doodled when I felt on the good end. I haven’t painted in eons, but hope springs eternal, right?

Grabbing my coat, gloves, wallet, phone and keys, I step out into this new world order, feeling paradoxically like a million bucks. I hop into my faithful Toyota, and as usual, she starts right up. I pat her dash with a smile. “Good girl, Sassy. Faithful to the end.”

I pull out of my garage stall and out the building’s driveway. The road is busy but passable and I turn north from my apartment on the edge of Jamaica Plain towards Mom in Cambridge. I feel a little giddy. Excited. Like Sassy and I are headed on one of the adventures like we used to before, letting the road take us wherever it wanted for a couple of days. I met Will on one of those adventures, at a pub in Salem. I told him I was a witch and he played along, and we laughed and laughed. Later he would joke that I put a spell on him that day. Snuck a love potion into his Sam Adams beer. If it were true, I’d have made one that lasted. Funny, this thought doesn’t tank me like it usually would. Or even an hour ago. Maybe after three years of angst, I hit a threshold an hour ago and I’m finally getting over him. Wouldn’t that be nice.

Cambridge can be at least a half-hour on a good day, and I think I’m in luck traffic-wise. People seem to be staying off the roads for the most part. I turn on the radio, but all I get is static, so I check to see if I can still bluetooth my phone to my car. Yes! Sassy does it again! My Calming Jazz playlist comes right up, and an instrumental “I’m Crazy” emanates from the speakers. I laugh maybe I do feel a little crazy, in a good way.

I check my dad’s beat-up analog Timex. Half-past eleven. Time for optional meds if I feel anything coming on. I check in with my body, and I can’t believe it, but there’s no sign of anything, percolating or otherwise. Less even than I felt in the shower.

Just be grateful. You know this is only a moment. A gift. 

Around me the residential streets are eerily quiet. I know it’s selfish, but I really wish they were always like this. Like I always felt this airy and good. I think fleetingly of JImbo2, why he said “shitty” was the word for him today, and some of my heaviness comes back. I kind of don’t want to know. 

#

I arrive at my parents’ Victorian house a few streets away from Harvard University, an easy walking “commute” to the ivied campus for my dad during his career as a political science professor then Dean of the College. I swallow hard. I can still remember the taste of his disappointment when I didn’t get in. Soon after that, at only fifty-one, he died of a heart attack.

I park Sassy out front and dash up the stone steps. I rap on the door, but Mom doesn’t answer--knocking is a formality with us anyway--so I use my key. The house feels cold, which shouldn’t surprise me because the heat is off, but it does. 

“Mom!” No answer. “Mom?”

I head into the kitchen, crossing my fingers, and sure enough, a small sheet of salvaged paper, cut up from one of dad’s old files, waits for me on the counter. 

Darling,

I know we always said we’d meet here in the event of something like this, but that was before, when you weren’t so stricken. If you get this, I’m coming to you. I wasn’t sure you’d be able to drive. But if you are here, sit tight. I’ll be back after I shop for some groceries and other things we’ll need if this thing lasts a while. 

Love you,

Mom

My heart drops a little. Things could get dicey out there. I weigh my options. I don’t really have any. Other than to my place, I have no idea where she’s headed. She might try her usual foodstuff haunts, find them overrun or picked over, and try somewhere else. My best option, as she urged in her note, is to sit tight. 

I might as well put my newfound physical wellness to use, so I head out to the shed, load the wheelbarrow with wood and bring it to the back door. Remarkable, but still no burning skin, so I carry the wood, armful by armful and stack it next to the yawning fireplace. I’m not even getting tired, and god this feels so good, the blood flowing, my muscles flexing.

Luckily, Mom’s oven is gas and easy to light with a match. I start a kettle for tea, and I run (I CAN FUCKING RUN!) upstairs to grab some old print versions of the Globe, crumple pages for a fire starter. So glad she didn’t listen to me about getting all her news virtually.

Watching the fire I made, enjoying its warmth, I have to remind myself that even though I feel amazing, this is not fun, this is not an adventure. This is potentially the beginning of a long-lasting disaster. The voice in my head sneers. Always been such a clueless Peter Pan. Dad used to call me that, Peter Pan. And not in an endearing way. 

Sipping my peppermint tea in Dad’s leather armchair, I reflect on how that voice, Dad’s voice, has dominated my thinking over the last seven years, how it’s kicked me while I’m down. How I’ve been too weak, too consumed by the unnamed pain-monster, or by trying to keep Will, to fight back.

I grit my teeth. “I’m not a Peter Pan, you bastard. And I’m not a career-driven, critical, narcissist who should never have had kids, either. I’m an artist, and I would have been a fucking great parent, no thanks to you.” I can’t breathe for a second while a sob wracks me, catching me off-guard. Wasn’t I over this shit a long time ago? Hell, child, maybe not dealing with something isn't the same as being over it.

Memories crash over me, memories of the lectures, the belittling, the cold indifference, while I sit in his favorite chair. Why had I decided my dad was a hero, a wonderful man, someone to revere? I always felt a little responsible for his death, too, as if my rejection to Harvard, worrying over me and my future, had killed him. I can see now he only cared how my failure made him look, not about what it meant for my future. And he probably died of his own damn meanness.

Guess there's always been a monster in my life.

Stunned, I stir the fire. It’s only taken me twenty years to figure that out. Jesus.

A crazy kind of guffaw-giggle escapes me. Man, my emotions are all over the place today, but my chest feels lighter. In fact, I feel so good, I could run a marathon. Instead, I run upstairs again to Mom’s room, pull Dad’s watch off my wrist, and dump it on her dresser. I pluck one of hers from her jewelry box. It’s ticking, and on time, if I had to guess.

I head back downstairs for lunch, to make something I stopped eating when Dad ridiculed it, a sloppy, triple-decker, peanut butter, jelly, and banana sandwich.

#

Three hours later, the sun is setting. Where the hell is Mom? All I can think to do to keep anxiety at bay is start making the nicest dinner I can scrounge up. 

#

Long past nightfall now, and I’m kicking myself while I pick at my cold stew by candlelight. Why didn’t I go out to find her? What if she’s hurt? What if she had a heart attack? I’m tempted to go look for her now, but it’s not a good idea for me to go out after dark. What if I relapse?

To distract myself, I wrap up in a quilt and head out back. The crisp, night air hits my lungs, but that’s not what makes me gasp—it’s the night sky that bowls me over. The Milky Way stretches above me, millions of tiny pinpricks and swathes of light, more stars than I’ve ever seen. Maybe more than any being on Earth has seen in fifty years. Seeing our galaxy like that…I feel more insignificant and less alone at the same time. It makes my head spin.

I don’t want to go inside, ever, but it’s too cold. I pull the quilt up to the hearth to be by the glowing logs and make a bed of sorts to wait for Mom. I watch embers dance while Miles Davis’s “Stella By Starlight” pulls at my heartstrings like taffy. 

#

I must have drifted off. It’s freezing and after midnight according to Mom’s glow in the dark watch. Someone’s knocking at the door. Mom!

“Oh, Mr. Fitz. I thought... Are you okay?”

Mom’s frail neighbor seems paler and more sickly than normal, even in the profound dark of an unlit city. “Not well at all, as you may imagine.” His reedy voice is barely a whisper. “But I was glad when a policeman came by tonight to tell me the news.”

“What news?” I ask, hoping it’s about Mom. 

“Power’s coming back on. In just a bit. It was some big anomaly with sun flares, and they’ve got it all figured out. He asked me to tell a few neighbors to spread the word faster.”

“Great.” I smile without enthusiasm. I’m not sure he knows what he’s talking about, but I thank him, helping him along to the next house. I’m more concerned about Mom.

I check my phone for bars, but still no luck. I still feel like a normal person, so I leave Mom a note and jump into Sassy, head toward my place and drive slowly to look for her silver Volvo. I’ve just crossed the Charles when the streetlights flicker to life behind me. My heart sinks to see what it does to the sky, erasing the universe. My phone dings, messages from my online support group, and I can’t say why, but my heart sinks a little further. 

Bars go all the way up on my phone now, so I try Mom. It rings a few times then cuts off. Cell towers must be really backed up.  

I decide to go back to Mom’s. And, thank god, she’s there, waiting for me. We hug for a long time, and before she can tell me what happened, her living room lights go on. 

A familiar, ominous flame-lick, the monster's lick, starts behind my knees and around my ribs, while all across the country, a roar rises, a collective cheer celebrating the return of electric power.