Today something's compelling me to write about helplessness.
I've decided that helplessness is my worst fear. Being out-of-control. Being unable to help. Being weak.
I think I'd rather face backwards at some horrible situation I caused, knowing that I had many options I could have carried out, than face forward, seeing no way out but one, and being incapable of doing what I really WANT to do.
It's all these dreams I've been having: power being taken from me, me resenting authority, hating being out of control, waking up angry and hurt. I KNOW that's my damn problem, but I don't know how to fix it or why I'm suddenly so paranoid of losing what security and power I have.
Last night's dream was just as bad as the other night's. No blood, no guts, no dead people, no apocalypse, but just as bad. I dreamed that I was wearing Erich's boxers around, content in knowing that he'd never get them back. I didn't show them to anyone, or anything, just smiled all to myself. But then he appeared, wearing a bright orange Hawaiian shirt. Now, I have seen that shirt on two people in my lifetime: Meg, when she was drunk off her ass last Valentine's Day, and David, to whom the shirt actually belongs. No one else would be caught dead in it. But Erich strutted proudly by me in that shirt, flaunting it at me... I wanted to rip it off him. I wanted to tear him to pieces for mocking me, for mocking David, for being such a damn jerk. But he was surrounded by a big group of friends, huddled together and talking in their pretentious accents. There was nothing I could do without looking insane by running at him and screaming at him to demand he take the shirt off.
I woke up with my fists clenched and my heart racing.
I hate that feeling. Frustration. Passionate frustration; one of those feelings that makes you want to drink five gallons of coffee and go at the world full-force trying to kill it, and at the same time makes you want to jump off a high building because you doubt you'll succeed.
One of the most painful times of my life was when I was living with Peter and Ken -- well, basically living with them -- and was unable to do a damn thing about ANYTHING either of them could throw my way. Peter was constantly unhappy and insecure, and no matter how many times I put my arms around him to tell him SOMEONE loved him, he just didn't see. And there was nothing I could do to make Ken stop drinking and smoking and having sex with strangers, nothing I could do to pull the joint out of his mouth, steal the coke stash and flush it into the river, or make him stop coughing up blood and having random seizures. There was nothing I could do to make either one of them happy or healthy.
NOT, mind you, that it was my responsibility. I could have just let things go. I could have just wandered away, let them fight it out, let them kill themselves and each other. But they WOULD have, that's the thing. Ken would throw these fits - not of anger, but of some twisted 24-year-old rebellion. (I think 24...) Instead of fighting fair, he'd go out and pick someone up. And Peter and I would be left in the apartment, alone together -- unless, of course, I decided to follow Ken and either rescue him or throw myself in with him... But when I stayed with Peter, he'd cry, or he'd start bitching half-incoherently about how he missed Ken, and ask weird questions about when Ken was coming home, and whether or not Ken loved him. He wanted it all explained, and he wouldn't listen if it wasn't exactly what he wanted to hear -- and it was NEVER what he wanted to hear, because what he wanted to hear didn't make the least bit of sense in the context of the relationship. It was going to hell, and I ended up in the middle of it... So why didn't I run away? I don't know. A deeply-felt responsibility to take care of both my friends? An intense fear that if I didn't do something, they'd both wind up dead, and it would be my fault for not stepping in?
I sincerely think it was the latter.
One night, Ken left the apartment while Peter was still at work. Just before he left, the two of us found a baby bird lying in the middle of the road, peeping its feeble vocal cords out. It was still to young to be recognizable as an particular kind of bird, probably born that day or the day before. Ken, who was anticipating going out for a few drinks, couldn't be bothered to stick around to help this bird. I was left alone with it.
Peter came home to find me sitting alone in the dark. I was crying. I'd hidden the baby bird under a bush outside, and waited inside, praying that the mother would hear its baby's calls. I couldn't face myself in the mirror the next morning if I knew I had to bury the body of that bird. I hadn't been able to find the nest, and had looked everywhere. I'd searched every nearby tree thoroughly with Ken's huge flashlight (which, he told me while he was drunk one time, he used to masturbate... I handled the flashlight AWFULLY carefully...). Peter, oblivious to my tears, asked where Ken was.
"He went to the bar to pick someone up," I sobbed, too full of grief to beat around the bush.
"What are you doing here alone in the dark?" Peter asked, finally noticing something besides the absence of Ken.
"I found a baby bird," I sobbed. Peter looked confused. I explained.
"When do you think Ken will be back?" he asked, becoming increasingly upset.
It was like that the entire night. I was thinking about the bird, about Peter's mental state, about my stupid fucked-up family, about PETER and how he didn't fucking notice me, about Ken off drinking and slutting it up with someone at The Bar... But all Peter was concerned with was what shape Ken would be in when he got back, why Ken had felt the urge to leave anyway, whether Ken loved him, whether Ken would come home with someone, what Ken was doing at the moment... ALL night it was like that.
I retired into the so-called Pussy Room (where Ken's kitties and Helena spent the night...), kissed Peter's forehead (oh, I wanted to give him a real kiss... But the look on his face told me I'd better not - I'd just better not...), and lay down in bed. I laid there staring at the ceiling with my eyes open in the darkness, listening to the occasional car go by. I knew Peter was sitting in the next room on the couch, eyes staring blankly at the wall across from him, waiting for Ken. I knew he would wait there until morning. I KNEW he was sitting in the darkness thinking about Ken -- or maybe trying not to think about Ken. I knew that baby bird was outside on the lawn, screaming with tiny lungs for help. Finally, in desperation, unable to sleep, unable to stop thinking, unable to make my mind oblivious, I shoved my feet into my sandals and ran outside in Ken's sweatpants and a tshirt. I was sobbing, and I KNOW Peter saw me go by, but he didn't say a word or acknowledge me.
He found me a few minutes later (I guess it had taken him time to get his shoes on) crumpled up on the lawn, weeping as I have never wept before. It scared me. I think it scared him, too, depite the glazed look in his eyes. In my hand, I held the baby bird, trying to pet it without killing it, willing it to grow up instantaneously and fly away. Peter held out his finger to it, silently. "He's so cold," I cried to Peter.
"What are we going to do?" he asked.
THAT made me feel better. He'd spoken an entire sentence without Ken's name in it. Not only that, but his words formed an alliance between us -- something I desperately wanted, but couldn't manage to create.
"I don't know."
We took the bird into the house. I kicked at Little Bits, the cat, who looked hungry, but let Karrie, the other cat, sniff at the bird -- HE was too damn smart to kill that bird with me standing there. Peter and I searched the kitchen for something to feed the tiny creature in my hand. "Chicken?" asked Peter, in the refrigerator. "No," I replied, and actually giggled.
Finally, we settled on a can of corn. Peter opened it, and I delicately fed a kernel to the bird, who appeared to choke on it. I smushed the kernel up and tried again. This time, it went down. It tried to peep again, but it looked too weak. This was either going to go on all night -- Peter and I feeding this poor bird preservative-loaded corn -- or the bird would have to die. "It's probably going to die anyway," said Peter. "Yes," I agreed, trying to wipe more tears away.
We stayed up a few more hours, feeding the bird, crying together (over completely different things, but we were both sitting on the kitchen floor, so technically it was together...), talking, bitching, wondering… Finally, exhausted out of my mind, I started crying again, and asked Peter what we were going to do about the bird.
Do you want me to… get rid of it?” he asked me. “I can put it out of its misery if you want me to.” So then it was all up to me. There was no running. I could have said, “I don’t know what to do – will you please do something and just not tell me?” but I couldn’t be that dispassionate about it all. Everything was up to me – I was the responsible one. I was the one in charge of literally choosing life or death for this being. I was in charge of saving everyone all of a sudden, doing the Right Thing, figuring out “What’s Best.” It was odd – I felt I was doing the same thing for Ken and Peter – obviously they couldn’t solve their problems any better than that tiny featherless bird. And obviously no one else was going to help them out…
“Yes,” I said. Peter and I walked out into the night. He held my hand as we walked. He asked me if Ken loved him, and I told him I didn’t know. I asked him if he loved me, and he said he didn’t know. And then we walked in silence, hand in hand, because there was nothing more we could say, and nothing more either of us could do.
Peter made me wait several yards from the bridge. He walked slowly to the middle, and I sat down on the sidewalk, covering my eyes with my knees as he did the deed. God forgive me, I thought. Peter came back over, held me tight right there in the middle of the sidewalk, and kissed my cheek softly. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said. Yeah, right, and you can’t save them all, either, right? RIGHT? Yeah, right. I could have saved that bird. Maybe. I could have looked harder for the nest. I could have stayed up all night with a can of corn feeding that hungry mouth. I could have done SOMETHING, couldn’t I?
But I couldn’t have. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t do anything for anyone at all.
I’ve never told that whole story to anyone else, as far as I remember. The images of that night come flooding back to me if I let myself think about it very often, and the lump is in my throat even now as I type, months later. I hate to think about it, hate to feel those feelings over and over, hate to feel the guilt of putting another living being to death – and being powerless to do anything else. But I think it helps to write it down, to face my fear, despite the hurt.
Love Always,
Helena*
“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference…” – The Serenity Prayer