Watching From Across the Room

I’ve watched myself this time, from the chair across the room. I have watched and listened as I cried through the night. I’ve seen the sheets rumple and toss as my legs kick them, over and over. The computer is pulled toward me, the plug ripped out of the base. I’ve seen my arms get skinnier, I’ve seen my stomach shrink a little.

At night I hear my stomach growl, and it is loud. Rachel hears it, she is next to me, we are stranded and the snow piles and piles outside.

“Want me to take you to the ER?” My mother asks this tonight. I grunt. I shake my head.

If I go, I will be admitted. I can’t be admitted. I have things to do.

My body grows weaker with each bite of food I don’t take. I slide Ramen noodles down my throat, the sodium will bloat me but it is carbohydrates and I need something. Icy Gatorade is all I can sip. I bite the straw so hard. I feel like I am growing new teeth, my gums are bleeding.

I wanted to eat Christmas ham and turkey. I wanted the catered penne vodka. But we all 
have things we want but don’t get.

I’m watching this time, I am still smiling. I still feel the rush of new feelings. 

I dance across the hardwood floors to make sure I can still get up. I get my own ice. I plan to memorize the United State Presidents by date. I organize my thoughts so that they do not drift into the Bad.

I write about characters who are healthy, who swim and jump around. I write about them and for a minute, their bodies are mine.

I am watching. I am here. I am not letting go.
 
I will not. I will not let go.

You and Me and the Sea

It's been 80 days since I last held my breath and dove under the waves.

It was late September when I grabbed my chair and my Asbury Park teen beach badge (I look 12) and plopped down in front of the ocean.

I brought a sweatshirt that day, in case of a cold fall breeze, but the air was still. I stretched out. I looked at the children, their heads bobbing in the sea. I jumped up from my chair and into the ocean.

It was warm; over 65 degrees, for sure. I read recently that Bruce Springsteen, a fellow Monmouth County dweller, swims in the ocean until November. I believe it. The ocean is warmer in the fall than the air that surrounds it.

I swam for an hour that day, knowing it would be my last until June. All summer long, after every sick spell and hospitalization, I had gone straight to the ocean and jumped in. A baptism, of sorts. My orientation, back into the outside world.

Now that it is cold, and the New York City wind stings my face, I wish for nothing more than the ocean. For me, it is my only healer.

And so I will sit at my desk, Googling flights to Costa Rica and Miami until spring breaks and the summer sea welcomes me once again.

Life, right now.

I am late to work, so I am running out of the apartment. I am leaving behind my phone, or keys, or wallet. I am forgetting to to make my bed.

I am saying "fuck it" to the subway, I am making excuses, I am too ill to ride public transportation. I am taking cabs, too many cabs, I am telling them 22nd between 5th and 6th, YES, I said 22nd, no, not 27th. Two-two. Twenty second. Thank you. 

I am watching the meter rise. I am riding up the elevator. I am sliding into work as quietly as possible. I am working, I am reading, I am getting a headache. I flirt with coffee. I am drinking coffee now.

I'm watching the hours unfold in reverse and I read human interest stories, over and over. I update. I check. I read. I work. I lay my head on my desk. I whine. I talk to my friends, the days move slowly, I am telling myself that this is the best I can do.

I leave work and I walk on ice patches. I dash into traffic without looking up, I am invincible, I cannot move and I am throwing up now, on the side of the street. I am looked at, approached, worried about. 

I come home. I watch fake shows and I don't read enough. I don't write enough. I am worried, I am not, I am fine.

People call me and I don't answer. I write down words: asshole, inconsiderate, incorrigible, awful. I look at these words and I want to embrace them fully and become them, completely.

I am back four days and gone two. I am doing my best and failing, wildly, for everyone to see. I am sneezing into toilet paper and wishing this was fiction, wrapped in cotton, not real.

I hibernate. I put on Christmas music. I talk to strangers instead of friends.

I fall asleep. I breathe through my mouth. I hug the toilet. I think optimistically. I run out of space on the floor.

I resist this life. I embrace it.

I live it.

Boob Tube; Alternately: Reasons Why YouTube Should Not Exist, Part One

Sometimes instead of sleeping or working on grad school applications, I watch YouTube videos of tragedies/major news events from my youth.

Tonight was another one of these nights.

It all started out so innocently, as it always does. Prince William got engaged, so I was People.comming that shit and then, before I knew it, an hour had passed and I had spent most of that time watching news clips announcing Princess Di’s death and highlights of her funeral (THEY CALLED IT HIGHLIGHTS. OF A FUNERAL. AND I WATCHED IT.)

Then I moved onto John F. Kennedy, Jr. (John-John Is Gone-Gone: actual New York Post headline that I oddly remember, even though I was 13) and now I’m on 9/11 again, which makes me really sad and nauseous but I watch the breaking news clips anyway.

I’m really curious about O.J. Simpson so maybe he’s next (something about a car chase?) and I probably need to find out who the Menendez brothers are, because The Nanny keeps referencing them. I’m going to find out, and also figure out what happened in the Korean war (you know, since my grandfather got TWO Purple Hearts fighting in it), and then cry some more about Tim Russert.

And maybe then I’ll take a Xanax and let myself pass out.

My Back To Work Week, In Numbers

Welcome Back Signs: 1
Welcome Hugs: 10
Unwelcome hugs: 1 (Personal space, people.)
Times I almost cried: 2
Times I found myself in uncomfortable conversations: 2
Times I blushed so hard my scalp turned red: 3
Times I laughed so hard my scalp turned red: 5
Drinks consumed: 2
Drinks bought for me: 2
Number of people who looked at me as if I was coming back from the dead: 10
Number of people who looked at me like they thought I'd been fired: 5
Hours billable to client: Good question.
Hours I spent making my own Countdown to Vacation calendar: 1
Hours I spent enjoying "welcome back" attention: 5. Or 21.

Not a bad week.

P.S. Thanks to everyone at H&S who has been so understanding this year. Onto 2011!

Win for Bergin

Hello, disciples.

Today is a proud, proud day for Kelly.

After 18 months of ordering food online using my mother’s credit card, I have finally qualified for the Delivery.com Snuggie.

This, friends, is a moment to celebrate.

I will soon be warm, in my Snuggie, devouring chicken fingers with a big, fat smile on my face.

Hurrah!

The End of Funk

It would so often just be the two of us in Sam’s Honda, an early 2000s model with leather seats and two doors and a CD player with Stevie Wonder inside. His greatest hits became the soundtrack to my fall, the Disabled Fall, the Fall I spent in the passenger seat of Sam’s car, listening to “Isn’t She Lovely” and something that starts with “do do do do do dooo”. On the rare nights we’d go out, Colleen, Sam and I would singalong and I’d mix up nearly every word.

I watched the seasons change through the windows I stare out now, the windows in my grandmother’s house, where I have lived this fall with my cousins, the aforementioned Sam and Colleen. We ate dinner every night at the round, ancient kitchen table. My grandma cooked. She cooked a lot, actually, for someone who just turned 77. She says that a good square three meals a day will keep you healthy and maybe make you lose weight too. (It might be true, I lost about 9 pounds of the prednisone weight, which is the size of a large baby.) She bought this house over 40 years ago for $19,000 and damn, was it a good investment! Did you know they almost moved from the Bronx to Levittown instead? I could have been a Long Islander.

I learned that fact this fall, and I learned other things too. I learned a lot about babies and toddlers  when I spent a few days at Katie's, hanging with my favorite people in the world. There I woke up at 7 with Emma hollering at me down the stairs "I'm up, Kelly, come get me!" But other than those early mornings, I stayed up late most nights and slept in until the afternoon. (I recently read that this is the sleeping patterns of geniuses. Which, yeah.) If I was awake by 2:00 for ABC Family’s reruns of Full House, then I was pleased with myself. That’ll have to to change, because this week I go back to work and the real world and all the trivialities of daily life that I have forgotten.

I had no money this fall and I still don’t, so keep those Christmas lists short, family. I kept my apartment in the city but my bed was largely unused. I came into Manhattan for Halloween, to gallop drunkenly around a bonfire and break my 3 Blind Mice cane over my knee. I also came in to make a few bucks off literary superstar Julie, and to see my friends, and to go to doctors and have my armpits mangled. But mostly I stayed at Grandma’s because I have felt warm, and safe, and home here.

I watched the seasons as they changed and I tried to go outside every day. Most days Sammy and I would hit the open road, the glistening pavement of Route 18 leading us to Guitar Center that one time Sam let me jam or Starbucks where once we nabbed a table and took advantage of free Wi-Fi. But our best destination was the public library, the library my grandmother cursed to hell because my grandfather (God rest his soul) once donated $1,000 without her permission. One Friday night, Sam and I happened upon a Jewish Klemzer band, and boy, did that accordion player jam.

It was a good fall, a time warp for me, a respite. So often I feel paranoid, fearful that everyone thinks I'm  being lazy because I'm not working. But this year proved that I needed this time off. It was necessary. I know that it has not healed me, and I'm not sure I am better. But to rest without judgment, to have the advantage of living here--this has fulfilled me.

If you had told me at the start of the year that I’d spend two months living at my grandmother’s house in suburban New Jersey, I wouldn’t have believed you. But the beds are warm here, the linens old and broken in. It felt right to be here, a perfect place to rest and write and work. I got things done, I watched the leaves fall, and this week I will go back to work, ready to close out the year.

(Also, thanks to my parents--and grandma-- for filling in the $$ gaps when the disability checks failed to supplement my rent/lifestyle.)

They're Ba-Ack!

I wake up choking on my spit. My eyes water and my face reddens. I run to the bathroom to gulp water from the faucet and wipe my face in the mirror.

It is 7 am and I have been asleep for just a few hours. The pain kept me awake, as did "The Nanny" marathon on Nick at Nite. (No one cheers me up like Fran and her struggles against the upper echelons of New York society.)

At night, I perfect my dance in the kitchen with Colleen and Sam. But in the mornings I am alone and so painfully awake.

I cough again and swig Orajel mouthwash- antiseptic, bitter, unkind. I take prednisone, even though it makes me crazy and fat. (Which, come to think of it, is not such a departure.)

My mouth has blown up again—sores have moved in, taken residence on my gums, lips, tongue. The crater on the tip of my tongue is offended easily; the passing wind of my breath aggravates it, like 
peroxide on an open wound. 

It hurts to talk, so I only speak when a good joke or insult comes to mind and when someone is about to eat the last of the lo mein. And It hurts to eat, so I only eat popcorn and noodles, where I can place each bite in a non-infected spot. 


But when the night has dried my mouth and the air is particularly offensive against the open wounds, I must look for something to distract me.


I throw my fists into the air. I punch the armchair in this old bedroom in my grandmother’s house. I kick, kick, kick.


And then--I take a deep breath through my nose and think: 

This is not easy.

Life in the 'Burbs

Month two of disability leave finds me in the suburbs for most of the time, as money is tight and the city is filled with shiny alcohol and cheap Forever21 frocks that I just have to buy.

I've been staying with Grandma for awhile, after my parents, in a fit of frustration over my lack of cleaning abilities and my tendency to scream downstairs for more water and Panera bread, suggested I go to Grandma's for a few days. (Typical joking conversation between my father and I: "How did you become so spoiled?" Me: "I AM WHAT YOU MADE ME!).

Life with my cousins at G's house has been nothing short of a vacation. It is a world on a whole other level. I love my parents, but the dinner discussion is more likely to be about grad school and colleges for my brother. At Grandma's, we spend 20 minutes discussing the price dry-cleaning one coat's might be at the dry cleaners. ($15, if you're curious.) Easy stuff. And G doesn't look over my shoulder, counting the amount of questions I got right on a GRE practice test. If I were at home with my mother, I'm sure she'd be quizzing me on what "temerity" means. And I would fail.

A few days vacation turned into a month, so here I stay, studying for the GREs and watching marathon episodes of "The Nanny". It's been productive: my score went up 200 points in each section and I can do a dead-on impression of both Fran Fine AND Mr. Sheffield. I hope to continue to do the Fran one all the time, at paid events and impersonator conferences.

I've also spent a lot of time trying to master the moves in Hanson's new video. I did a trial run of my very loose interpretation of the dance in Grandma's kitchen last night and Colleen laughed so hard she choked on her water.

At least I think she was laughing.

I've loved living with my two younger cousins. Last week, we decided to get a bottle of red wine at the local Browntown shopping center. (I have high blood pressure and WINE HELPS!) I got home with my purchase (ten bucks for 2 liters. CAN YOU BEAT THAT?) and was immediately disappointed to discover that we broke the corkscrew the last time we indulged in vino.

After Googling how to open wine without a corkscrew and trying to open ours with a shoe like some dude on YouTube, little cousin Colleen (also known as Jolly) decided to push the cork all the way down, into the bottle. My lack of knowledge regarding physics did not prepare me for what was about to occur.

Throwing caution to the wind, we took our place on the kitchen table, in the presence of two laptops and my beloved iPhone. Having lost my iPhone to a wine spillage before, I covered it with a napkin just in case. Jolly pushed the cork, as I held the bottle.  Colleen pushed and pushed on the cork until we heard a satisfying pop! of victory. I looked up just in time to get sprayed in the face with pungent cheap red wine.

Jolly lost two of her favorite shirts and my laptop is permanently stained red but we poured ourselves a glass and moved on.

The next morning, I was chatting with Grandma in the kitchen. She was making her usual cup of tea when I looked up at the ceiling and down at the walls. They were absolutely covered in specks of our cheap Yellow Tail wine. Horrified, I attempted to distract G from this sight.

Samantha and I spent the rest of the morning scrubbing our family history off the walls and ceiling.

It took a long time. But even though I was elbow deep in 409, I was immensely grateful for the position I am in. I have been afforded the opportunity to rest and be well.

I haven't been sick every day of this disability leave, but I have used every day to reflect upon the position I've found myself in. Without having to work full-time, I have been graciously allowed to be well and revel in it. It has been a long time since I've had such a stretch of good health. (And by stretch, I mean two weeks). So I have lived in these moments. They have been big and small and sad and happy but altogether, they have been meaningful.

This morning, I woke up with a mouthful of sores and a fever. Instead of wondering why this happened, I decided to just accept it. I am not better but that's okay.

I will accept it, be happy, and move on.

For now, at least- this is a reasonable goal.

Ah, Bloody Hell! (Said in appropriate British Accent)

I shook in terror even before the needle touched my skin.

I cried when the needle numbed the first abscess and again for the remaining two.

I kicked a tray table involuntarily. And I tried to remember: deep breaths.

Those yoga breaths didn’t work.

So I cried and cried through it. Large, grabbing sobs. I wiped my shirt on my hospital gown and silently berated myself for being such a wimp.

Still, I couldn't help it. So the tears and sobs escaped me. Until all three hard, nasty abscesses, located right above my armpit, were sliced and drained. The surgeon applied pressure after her scalpel work was done, and she pushed her hands against my arm so hard that I gasped.

There was a lot of gauze and blood on the floor, and I looked to remember, as I always do. I remember the most jarring of medical experiences; my tenth birthday was spent on a surgeon’s table with my face cut open for the same kind of infection. I cried then too, but I was only a child.

The surgeon apologized afterwards for being “vicious” but she had to get everything. She had to get all the MRSA, the infection that has caused so many problems this year. The infection that lives inside my body.

I choked out “It’s okay.” It's not her fault.

I rarely cry. I have an extremely high pain tolerance. I mock people who faint when they get their blood drawn, even though that’s mean. I am trying to get better at realizing that pain is relative (BULL!), but I don’t even feel it when I go for my monthly blood test.

I failed at being strong this time and I failed last time, too. And it pissed me off.

I signed discharge papers and heard a 30 year old woman WAILING because her blood was being drawn. I listened to a girl my age gripe about going for a chest X-ray. 

"Piece of cake", I said, once I reached the hallway. She just ignored me. But I couldn't ignore her and her bronchitis. It seemed simple. Pretty-faced, clean clothes, no hospital gown soaked with snot and blood and tears.

The nurse helped me put on my sweatshirt and I put on my headphones and ducked outside. Inwardly, I wailed just like the grown woman inside, afraid of needles.

I left the emergency room into a New York City storm that soaked me until my mother pulled up with her car. Hail pelted the car as we drove down the turnpike.

And I cried.

I feel split open,

and I suppose today I was.
For the second time in a month,
I was split open.

A Disability Leave Update

I have been on disability leave for well over a month now. (NO WORK! SCHOOL'S OUT FOR THE SUMMER!)

In that time, I spent one day in the emergency room getting an abscess underneath my armpit drained. I was in a wedding. I went to Atlantic City. I spent time in the city and then, tired and out of breath (and money), I left the city for my parents' house, where I was given Gatorade and pretzels on command. It was nice, and it was fun for awhile. Life with Ozzie and Harriet got boring though, and I craved the company of peers, so I headed to my grandmother's. She's not exactly a peer (Sorry, G.) but my two cousins, Colleen and Samantha, live there. And we are close in age and have been raised (sometimes like a pack of wolves) pretty much together, so I spent five days there. I studied for the GRE and wrote. I even went to the Rutgers Library, where I realized that I am old and college boys are loud. And hot.



And then I returned to the city, for more doctor's appointments to devise Kill Lupus, Kill! treatment plans. I was prescribed new medicines and a flu shot and then I spent two days puking and feverishly moaning on the couch, clutching my left arm (now infected) to my side while watching marathon of classic episodes of The Nanny. I went out briefly in Brooklyn on Friday, for Ross' birthday, but Gen punched me in the wrong arm so I went home and took painkillers. On Saturday I went back to New Jersey, to see Katie, Allie and Emma. Aren't they cute?

Now I am back in my parent's house, in my sister's bedroom. Today I will be back in the ER.

This will have come full circle.


I have rested much of this past 40 days, but to what relief? None. There were bright, shiny days when I felt I could do what I wanted. These were days I cherished, perhaps in ways that healthy people do not. I did what I wanted while I was well, but I have spent much of this month with the shades drawn and my laptop humming beside me on the bed.


I am supposed to use this time to get well, or at least better myself in some way. Despite my lack of physical relief, I know I have. I feel stronger mentally and emotionally than I have in the past 2.5 years. I feel loose on my feet, and even though steroids have made my face fat, I think I might be. I did a jig in Grandma's kitchen last week, and I thought it was pretty damn good.

It annoys me that my life is so cyclical--sick, okay (for a week or so), and then sick again. I haven't turned a corner because I have been jogging in place. I have no progress to show and no idea when I will be ready to work again.

But I can at least rest knowing that I'm using this time for some good. Later today will be brutal, gruesome, bloody and unpleasant, but at least I have a better grip on it than I did a month ago.


This time has not been fruitless, after all.

(Thanks, as always, for the emails, Twitter @'s, messages, care packages, and kind words. I appreciate it all.)

Who Let Me Have A License, Anyway?

In order to break up the monotony of sleeping, napping, and overdosing on Xanax, I decided it would be in my best interests to join my friends for One Night In Atlantic City for Declan's birthday. The whole gang took the bus down, but since I was in New Jersey being disabled, I drove down.

We stayed at the Tropicana and I ended up having the typical AC experience: I lost money, dignity, Ross' T-shirt, and got kicked out of a nightclub for taking off my shoes and trying to lay down. (I AM NOT MEANT TO WEAR HEELS. I still can't bend one of my toes and my calves are in constant spasm.)

After a long night out (for everyone else...I was asleep by 1:38, according to my last ill-advised text message), we woke up early because checkout was at the ungodly hour of eleven AM.


Bleary-eyed and beyond exhausted from this change of pace, I got my car from the valet (I don't know how to park) and set about driving home alone.


But first, I needed McDonald's. Because, you know, I was hungover. And a Happy Meal cures that.


OR SO I THOUGHT.


I pulled up to the window and ordered the usual: Big Kids Meal with Orange Hi-C and a side of ranch dressing. I paid and received my order. Looking into the bag, I realized that they gave me a fucking BOYS toy and not a girls! Um, I may not have the most feminine of voices, BUT I AM A FEMALE ADULT BABY WHO DESERVES A GIRL TOY.


Overcome with anger, I hit the gas pedal without paying attention to any signs and ended up driving down the wrong way of a one-way street.


"FUCK!!" I screamed and jerked the car in a retarded U-Turn, while simultaneously trying to shove a fry into the ranch dressing and then into my mouth. Because what's more important? Not killing others with my likely elevated BAL and idiocy. Clearly, it's French fries!


I got in the right direction and set about opening my McNuggets while the light turned green and fellow road rage sufferers beeped at me. Startled, I jammed my foot onto the gas pedal and turned onto Atlantic Ave, on the hunt for the Atlantic City expressway. But I was still distracted, so I missed my turn (again) and ended up on some shady street, the name of which I never saw in a game of Monopoly. I pulled over to regain my composure and to open my McNuggets and STUPID action figure (I wanted to make it dance to Rihanna). I checked Google maps, looked at myself in the mirror and said "You can do this."


I got onto the expressway and was cruising at 80 when suddenly, I was cut off. I panicked and swerved into the next lane, mid-fry dip. In the wake of my speedy turn, my beloved Ranch dressing was expelled from its container and drenched me, my awesome denim shirt, and the steering wheel.


"MOTHER OF ALL HELL, YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME." Still driving at dangerous speeds, I attempted to clean myself off while steering the car and flipping the bird at the Granny who cut me off.


Finally, I hit the Parkway at the exact moment my hangover decided to really kick in. Forty minutes of bumper to bumper traffic later, I pulled off at the Forked River rest stop and slumped over the steering wheel, near tears and cursing the beers I drank the night before.


Then, the nausea hit. So I ran into the rest stop, flecks of fries falling out of my lap and onto the dirty asphalt.The freaks at the stop (attracted by that machine that turns pennies into NJ landmarks and reading glasses, obviously) stared at me and my dressing-filled hair as I flew into the ladies room and puked in the first stall.


I came out of the stall, to the judgmental looks of the populace, splashed some water on my face and went to Sbarro. I bought myself a breadstick and some dipping sauce and got back into the car.


An hour later, I was home. I spent the rest of the day laying in bed and singing the song I made up in the car. Entitled "Blame Ronald", lyrics include "Kill yourself, Kelly/but kill Ronald McDonald first/When that is done/Shoot yourself in the face with a gun". (Note: I may have self-esteem issues.)


Lessons from this hellacious experience? Don't drive if you might be still drunk and/or mentally unstable. Signs of this may include--dancing with your Happy Meal toy, cackling with laughter at a sign that said 'poop' instead of 'pop', calling a breadstick a "crust thing" to the cashier, and using said "crust thing" to wipe the dipping sauce off your face while half-alive at a rest stop in Southern New Jersey.

And also, don't drive when your main focus in life is trying to dip a fry into a ranch dressing packet.

And also:

NEVER GO TO ATLANTIC CITY.

Life on Disability Leave

This, ladies and gentlemen, is Kelly Bergin on disability leave.

Not sleeping. Watching 50 hours of Six Feet Under in one week. Eating only sourdough pretzels and Gatorade. Listening to all the songs listed on Entertainment Weekly's 50 Most Depressing Songs. Developing a harrowing addiction to Xanax. Rereading Babysitter Club books to remind you of a simpler time. Being forced to shower by Mother.

It's not pretty.

Can you tell I majored in English?

I don't want to take this trip alone (September 2010.

It has been over two weeks since I stepped foot into my office, sat at the desk and pretended to keep it together.


In that time, I had my armpit blow up, then I waited in the ER for it to be drained. There's a slit where the abscess was and I like it. It looks cool.

I watched Moe get married. I danced, went for it with the bouquet toss, walked down the aisle without tripping, cried through an entire Mass, got in a car at 2 am and headed back into the city.

The wedding was beautiful and amazing and one of the better nights of my life. At one point, I sneaked into the bathroom and cried because I was in such pain. But still, I danced. And I was high on it for three days because I had proved to myself that I could ignore the pain. For two or so days, I tried really hard and then I called my parents and begged them to pick me up because I could not take the pain anymore. Last week, I did not leave my bed for four days.

I am on disability leave. I sleep all day and stay up all night. I take Xanax. I stare at empty glasses of water, lost in depression. I almost laugh because I am a cliche, but I do not laugh. I just keep staring. The water moves and changes, my vision blurs, but I am still.

I can't write. I think I used to be funny, once. But not right now.

I came back to the city Friday. I came back because I couldn't be at home, staring at nothing and regressing. I am so deeply embedded in the Sickness Zone. I eat only sourdough pretzels and drink icy Gatorade. I try to go out, to drink and dance with my friends. But I only make myself sicker.

They say: treat with prednisone. Take the prednisone, even though it makes you sick and fat and depressed. Take it, and we'll figure it out. We have a working diagnosis! We can figure this is out and it will all be better.

Everyone has been kind. Thank you. I mean this. My friends make me laugh. My parents take care of me, my cousins call, and even work sent over a care package full of fun stuff. I am so appreciative.

But I am stuck. I'm fucking bored. I know this scenario. I am finding it so hard to be positive, and I don't know why.

So I delude myself because there is is nothing else to do.

I think:

It will all be better. One day, I will look back and say: That was a bad year, but it got better, and look at you now...look at you now. You are living the life you wanted to live, and not the one chosen for you.

One day. One day. One day.

Delusions

I have these thoughts often.

What if I moved away? Out of New York City and the tri-state area? Away from my parents, cousins, friends, family and the doctors I’ve known since I was a kid.

What if I moved away and got better?

It doesn’t make any sense. I know this.

But…what if?

Because I want to. I love my life in New York but I know that this city is where I will be in ten years. I would like to travel, and live somewhere else, and not have men spit on me on the subway. I would just like to feel like I am an adult, doing it all by myself.

But I just filed for disability leave and I’m fucking miserable and dependent. I’m in no place to do anything.

My lease ends in 11 months. Sick leave ends whenever.

Maybe things will change. I will use this time off to get better because I am going to believe it works like that.

Maybe it does.

And then I'll go, go, go.

Congratulations, Moe and Gus!

Gus and Moe got married on Friday afternoon.

It was a fantastic wedding, for an awesome couple who have survived six years of a long, long, loooooong distance relationship to make it to this place. No wonder we all cried during the ceremony. It just felt right. The whole church radiated warmth and love for these two people whom we love so much. And the reception? Well, let's just say my aunt knows how to throw a party and those Aussies know how to get down. (And apparently do the Irish jig.)


And I couldn't have asked for a better three weeks with my out of town cousins (minus the whole sick thing). I will miss Moe and Gus when they head back to Australia and Liz and Cece as they head back to Seattle in the next few days.

Also: the hot groomsmen have me thinking of Australia as a nice place to settle for awhile. Do they have lupus down there?

I love you, mate(s)!

Immerse Yourself, But Do Not Drown

This summer I learned how to be alone.

I live in New York City with two roommates. I lived on the weekends in Interlaken with four or five or six family members, depending on which cousins were visiting and which siblings were present. Now everyone is gone, their rooms empty, the sheets changed. When I visit, I visit alone.

I got sad thinking about this today, how the hallways won't echo with Cheech and Chong fighting; how the porch won't stink of college boy cologne and sweat. There will be no more beer cans littering the balcony and no more sandy towels, draped alongside surfboards on the fence. I will miss Greg, Roarke, Kristie, Audrey, Steven, Sam, Colleen and Anna, and I will miss this summer, even though it has been the sickest and loneliest of all my summers.

And even though the house was constantly full, I isolated myself. I spent many days in bed, sun-drenched days under the covers, long blank afternoons that stretched into evening.

Shut the door! I yelled at all those who entered my room, looked at me, looked at me looking at my computer, talked to me, and left. Shut the door, please! I said this when someone brought me a drink, or pretzels. I said this and disappeared.

I have spent hours and hours in bed this summer. Hours that I once considered to be completely lost to the Diseases.

And some were. Some were buried under four milligrams of Xanax and shots of Nyquil. But many were spent communicating, Tweeting, writing, reading, reaching out.

It is safer to be myself within the confines of my sheets. It is easier to be my Sick Self on the Internet, where I connect with strangers, strangers who can care and understand without the burdens of emotional and physical bonds.

*   *   *

In August, I fell deeply into this isolation. I wanted to be alone. I needed to be alone. I was physically sick and so there were many, many days where I did not go into work. I lived in my bed in the East Village. Constantly logged onto Delivery.com. Emailing work and apologizing and falling and falling and failing. Drinking alone because I thought it would take the edge of this razor sharp pain.

Sickness is blurry. Even a cold can throw you off, mess with your senses, screw with your equilibrium. Lupus + Other Random Diseases + depression is disorienting like nothing I have ever experienced. A long, long summer.

I wrote and I did not cry until I was so drunk that there was nothing else to do.

I avoided others, friends, peers. They don't understand, no one understands, blah blah.


My dad said: "You are drowning yourself." My mom begged me to see a therapist, or to come home.

I stayed in New York, though. I stayed indoors and shut my door. I burrowed myself so deep that I left everything, every part of me underneath my sheets. I avoided looking at people in the eye when they asked how I was feeling. I dodged calls and well-wishes and sunk further into the mattress.

Please, shut the door.

I thought: this experience is not to be shared.

I thought: I belong here in bed.

I thought: Outside is overrated.

I thought this until one day when I realized that it was enough. Until I realized so sharply and clearly the repercussions of illness and sadness and isolation. How it can wreck your career, social life, body.

I stayed in bed a long time.

And then?

I opened up the door and walked outside.

*   *   *

But as is often the case when I push myself, I only got sicker. I write now, this Wednesday morning, with tear-stained cheeks from a new infection and chest pain so severe I debate calling my mother, or the hospital, or sending an e-mail to my doctor at 2 am.

I want to go outside tomorrow. Make it to work. Feel air on my cheeks. I want to fulfill my potential at work and in life.

But my head spins with words that hung in the air at this morning's appointments. Words that will remain suspended there until I grasp what may be a new reality. 

But I am still trying. And I will keep trying. Because there's life outside these windows and I intend to live it.

As much as I can.

Reasons I'm Going To Hell: Part 1

1) Kristie kind of hates North Dakota and is really sad and writing emo tweets about it and I'M SORT OF HAPPY ABOUT IT, because I want her to quit and come home.


2) My younger brother Greg goes back to college this week, and yeah, I'll miss him because you know...he's fun sometimes, but I'll mostly miss the fact that without him in the house, there's one less person to bring me breakfast in bed.


3) I bribed Emma with three Munchkins this weekend so that she would a) stop trying to pick the flowers in Shop Rite and b) sit down with me. I HAVE A HEEL SPUR, PEOPLE. It hurts to stand.

4) I used to call my brother's beauty pageant ex-girlfriend JonBenet Ramsey behind her back.

5) I tried to Facebook friend the real JonBenet Ramsey's brother because I want to figure out if he did it. He did not accept.

6) I encourage Gen to drink alone because I love her maniacal tweets when she does.

7) In 8th grade, Rachel and I went on a date to the movies with some dudes and I told her that her hair looked good even though she had a huge bump in the back, just so that the boys would like me more than her. It did not work.

8) I once got naked in a hotel room bed so that I wouldn't have to share it with Kristie (SHE IS A MOUTH-BREATHER). She got so mad that she started crying and dramatically dragged a pillow and semen-stained blanket to the floor. I eventually felt bad and let her sleep in the bed.

9) Rachel and I once convinced Gen (when we were on one of our crash diets) that 8 laxatives was a normal dose to take. She hasn't been the same since.

10) One time, Rachel, Gen, Meghan and I went to the city in high school and bought a Playgirl. We then put up pictures all around Kristie's room (especially around her framed Bible quotes) and underneath Greg's bed. My mom found out, obviously, and I blamed it all on Gen.

I wish I could say I was ashamed of these.

...

I have heard lately from friends and family that it is hard to read my blog. It is painful for them to see me ache--and it is confusing to those who have always known me as funny, loud, silly. The In Real Life Kelly does not always match the Internet Kelly.

My identities have split as I have gotten sicker, and wrote more, and realized I have a voice that is indelibly shaped by disease. In Real Life, I can live in denial. How do you feel? Better, thanks.


But I can no longer do that as I write. I am here to tell the truth. Whether I know it fully or not.  Writing this all out, typing it in 12 point font is the only way I know how to reconcile life and disease.

I do not write for an audience. I write for myself. Even as I pimp myself out (not literally...yet). Even as I advertise myself. In the end, I am still writing for me. I will write for as long as I write. This blog could end tomorrow, or never.


I am me and this is my reality.

For better or for worse.

What I Picture Kristie Doing In North Dakota

I'm totally going to have a half-breed niece or nephew.

And I will sing this to them.

Sleep

my sleep patterns are erratic and fucked up and i am exhausted constantly.

on monday, i woke up with a sty that grew large overnight and so at lunch, they did an incision and drainage and gave me medicine to prevent infection.

it still hurts. they said it wouldn't.

on sunday, against my better judgement, i went to brooklyn and saw a concert and had just a little bit of fun.

but all i really wanted to do was sleep, so by 9:30 on sunday night, i was passed out. i woke up at midnight though and tossed and turned because my mouth is bad and my nose is bad and it's hard to sleep when you're face down and breathing through both vessels is a bitch.

unless i take more than the prescribed dose of xanax, i don't get to sleep for more than three or four hours. i am constantly exhausted. run-down. a normal sty doesn't turn into an infection overnight and healthy people can have fun but i can't, really. not this summer.

not like i used to.

sometimes i can't work or do anything because all i feel i want is to go back to bed. because i am sprouting fevers and sores and please, don't try to talk to me, it hurts. 

I am bad for business. I am late and not there and I feel like shit about it. About all of it.

the world doesn't stop.

august is filled with bridesmaid duties and bachelorette parties and stuff stuff stuff! visitors from out of town. family.

and the thought of it all both excites me and depresses me. i want to do it all, work and say hi and have a beer and do dinner but this is the summer where i am paralyzed. tethered to my bed.

i can't get up. i want to! but i can't right now.

i just want to sleep.

The One Where Kristie Leaves

it is seven and i am awake.

my nose has been filled with sores and my mouth too.

that is so disgusting, you think.

you are right. it is so disgusting.

it is also undeniably painful and for over a week, i have watched my nose bleed, slept with toilet paper (i should buy kleenex), sneeze and then cry out from the pain of sneezing.

last night, we all gathered to say goodbye to kristie and as the hours moved on, as i got more and more tired, i could not sit there on the porch with them. i had to lay down, upstairs in my childhood bedroom. lay down and shake from pain.

there is a sore on my lip and it’s a crater. it is fat. phat, as i’ve been joking. oh, me and my funny jokes.

mornings are the worst! i remind myself of this now. you will get used to it!

twenty four years of you will get used to it!

today kristie leaves so i will try to sleep a bit before she does and then i will say goodbye and cry because my family is never apart and my nose is burning and my mouth hurts but mostly because i won’t see my baby sister for four months.

four months without kristie. this seems like a short time, but without kristie it will feel like a very long fall.

my mouth will hurt when i form the words goodbye, when i say i love you, when i kiss her on the cheek and bid her farewell.

but my heart? my heart will hurt more.

This all makes sense now

Back in February, my parents informed me that I wasn't executor of their will.

EVIL KRISTIE WAS.

I was shocked! Scared! Fearful that she would sell our parents' beautiful home once they kick it and turn it into a shelter for refugees! Native Americans, LIVING IN MY BEDROOM. Ecuadorian orphans riding the child-size bike my dad's going to buy me! Dogs and cats and abused iguanas, fucking chilling on my balcony.

UGH.


I was pretty upset, so naturally, I demanded an answer from my father upon hearing the news.

Dad: You know we made Kristie executor of the will, right?
Me: WHAT?! I'm the oldest! (I said, as I stomped my feet.)
Dad: But you're 24 and still write blogs about puking.

At the time, I vehemently denied it.

But I guess my blogs--just like Shakira's hips--don't lie.

This Confounds Me

I am not very inspiring, especially based on last night’s events and this morning’s resulting vomiting. (Jose Cuervo projectile vomited out of my nose. More on this, later.)

For some reason though, photographer Abbie Morrison (she takes really cool pictures in Maine, which I love for its lobster and Obama) featured me as an Inspired guest post (er) on her blog today. (Lauren Farmer was also featured on her site a few months ago.)

Check it out here.

Remembering July

In the last week, I went back to work but my mouth blew up, my sugar rose.
And so again, I went home and stewed. Drank icy water and ate Cheerios, one by one.
I slept for hours that turned into days.
Watched nightfall. Slept. Watched morning come. Slept some more.
Took Xanax. Took Nyquil. Took too much of everything,

I took the train back to the city last night, back to work and a life I forget I should be living.
I came home and took nothing.
I was done with the haziness, but then I tossed and turned and I couldn't breathe through my nose, so—
Nyquil. Again.
I slept until I woke up again at 4, my favorite of these bleary-eyed hours. These hours where I wake up and think:
Shit, that hurts.
Or:
Fuck. I have no money and I have to pay rent and I want to take that class and FREAK OUT!.
Or:
That’s a good one, I should write that down.

But last night, I gave up my desperate bid for sleep, as I so often do.
My stomach growled and I made popcorn, kernels falling to the kitchen floor.
I am always thinking:
I will clean them up later.

I came back to bed and looked at the calendar, each day of July, a month slowly coming to a close. I touched each day with my finger and scrolled the tip of my finger across my iPhone, lighting up day after day.

Days I don’t even remember happening.

I haven't been able to figure out what my memories of July will be.
It kind of sucked, didn't it?
Maybe we’ll say this, next year or in ten years or maybe we'll never say it at all, just forget.
It kind of sucked, you were in the hospital and then you were better, and then almost again...
Maybe I should just forget.

This was good,
This was bad,
This happened,
That did not.

I'm always looking forward just to look backwards. Dreaming of October while I'm filling up July with stories, stories I'll tell come Fall.

The summer of two thousand and ten, let's see, I was twenty four years old and things happened, I went to a concert, Meghan had a birthday party, I tried to swim every weekend...

What will I think in December? What will I say now? What happens next?

Morning

I’ve been awake all night, so at 5:30, after tweeting and writing and editing and stressing out, I grabbed Shea again and hit the pavement.

The grass was still wet from last night’s storm; the whole town shone with color.

Light streamed through the trees, branches lush with summer.

It was a bit chilly, so for the first time in months, I wore long sleeves and flip flops. And I put on sunglasses when a neighbor passed on his morning run.

Every street was a revelation in this light that I so rarely see.

Finally, as we turned home, I caught the sun rise over the lake.  Lyrics from one of my favorite Bonnie 'Prince' Billy songs came to mind:

I never thought the sun would rise in the east and set in west/ I figured I owned just dark skies and that darkness fit me best.

The sun rises.

It is another day.

Go folks, go forward. Trust your brain, trust your body. Go folks, go forth.

Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk

Like Rufus here, sometimes I think that I may be my own worst enemy.

Friday I woke up and suddenly, my mouth ulcers were back with a vengeance. I’d been feeling like shit all week and had slipped up a few times on my healthy diet, but I was mostly a Very Good Girl. (I didn’t even go out at all last week, as planned!)

I had been taking a form of prednisone (an evil steroid) to reduce my symptoms, but I took my last dose a week ago so when the sores returned and the joint aches reappeared, I panicked. Not to mention I was still experiencing diabetes from it, all without having insulin to treat it.

But I was determined. I worked from home for half of the day Friday until I dissolved into a half-conscious mess but no matter what, I was NOT going back to the ER. So I took some leftover prednisone I had lying around and again, my blood sugar shot up (I don’t have a history of diabetes, ever. But prednisone can cause it, along with a host of other extremely horrible and generally depressing symptoms. LIKE MAKING YOU FAT!).

Last night I called my doctor. He said “don’t change your diet, let’s just see what happens. If your mouth or blood sugar gets higher, we’ll need to admit you.”

So instead of boozing with Sam for her belated/early birthday party, I hung with my cousins/siblings/friends and we watched Reptar on Ice (classic) and I had a small bit of ice cream. My thinking? “you’re high (on only legal drugs, duh) and life is short”. (Note: My mouth and throat can only handle: ice cream, tiny Cheerios, one at a time, and ice cold water and diluted coconut water ). I had my ice cream (a little bit fatter/a little more harmful for me), took more prednisone, and went to bed.

I just woke up. It's 5 am. Mouth worse. Throat worse. Blood sugar a whopping 254.
 
Which means: I may be back in the hospital tonight or tomorrow.

Which means: Fuck.

Update: It's 10 now. Mouth is so painful but my blood sugar's below 200. We need to stay below 200, people. BELOOOOOOOW 200.

Ed Note: I wrote the post below on Thursday and am just putting up now. My face still looks like it was beaten by thorns. Feels like it too. I am constantly wearing 2 pounds of makeup.

Hotness-Bergin Style

So it’s been nearly two weeks since I sobbed and pleaded and begged my way out of NYU Medical Center. I spent my convalescence sobbing over Six Feet Under episodes, writing a ton of emo blog posts, and eating box after box of Honey Nut Cheerios. I ate mostly healthy besides this, as it it turns out I might have DIABEEEETUUUUUUUS (this is how I will refer to the disease, if I get it).
I’ve been detoxing from the extraordinarily high levels of methylprednisonolone I was on for two weeks. I took the last dose the other day. This drug is lethal, people. It really did tamper my lupus symptoms, but it threw me into drug-induced diabetes.

I also have developed some sort of skin rash on my face that makes me look like I got a chemical peel. It burns. It itches. It is uuuuuuuuugly. Remember that episode of Sex and the City when Carrie makes Samantha leave her book party because of her face? YEAH. THAT’S WHAT MY FACE LOOKS LIKE WHEN IT IS UNAIDED BY MAKE UP.

I think I’ve been pretty reasonable. I’m down for being sick, not being able to get out of bed, spending weeks in the hospital, but you do NOT mess with my face! I have enough damned scars, body!

LEAVE THE MONEYMAKER ALONE.

sometimes i remember...not to plan things.

sometimes i remember when i was sure of what was real, when everything i knew about life was in the crook of my mother's elbow and the smell of her hair.

when i was ten months old, they told my parents that I was sick and would stay that way.

still, i was sure of what i knew until i grew and my ailments did too. i sprouted (not too tall) and grew new wings and things and then...i missed 87 days of my junior year of high school. i spent a semester of college with cancer. my friends looked at me, awkwardly.

i know hospitals and cups you pee in and how to break this radio silence of sickness with a joke.

between childhood illness and what is now my Reality, i have done things. things i know and am sure of. i have traveled, failed at skiing, made jokes, written stories, gotten hangovers, and messed up a solo in my 4th grade chorus. i have drunk-dialed. (oh, how i've drunk-dialed.)

i have been in love and packed myself in tight with friends and mistakes and memories.

none of this is linear. none of this can be predicted, for any of us. and especially for me, when my health often hangs so precariously in the balance between the Outside and the Inside; between my Bed and the Bar.

and so, because of this, i don't plan long-term. i don't plan short-term. it's not because i think i'm dying. (i'm not.) but with just a cut in my mouth, a tooth abscess--my whole body, my whole weekend could fall apart.

i have "commitment issues", with everything from drinks plans to meetings to brunches to concerts to vacations. flaky, one or many or everyone has called me.

but now, tonight-- now i am looking at calendars and thinking: i want to go away but i'm not sure, and i need to go to work, and there's this party i wanted to go to, but i just don't feel...up for it...

so.

instead of these ideas, tangents, hopes, invisible itineraries --

i'll just plan to get up tomorrow. move around. walk the streets. try to get to work.

live.

right now.

scars, bruises, beauty

i have a four inch scar along the length of my neck, from where the cancer was removed two years ago.

i have a deep scar from an outburst last summer that ended with broken glass and a foot that bled for a week.

i have a tiny scar from trying to cut open a bag of candy like i was slicing a bagel. (idiot.)

my hands have been so constantly swollen from the lupe that they look old and tiny. kind of like carrie bradshaw's hands, withered from her self-pity and cigarettes.

my face has little marks where things where cut out and never replaced.

my veins, collapsed and taken from so many times, look tired, and bruised.

this last time, they hit every one on both arms, each spot more than twice. 

lauren captured it beautifully in this picture here.

they will heal, too. scar tissue has been formed since i was twelve but there are ways to do what we have to do. (hey, if a heroin addict can...)

on my belly, two scars are etched where my appendix was cut out. 

these things will never disappear. 

and the truth is?

i love them. i love them because they are physical proof of a battle, no matter how big or small. that something bad/good/stupid happened but it healed. it might have bled, hurt, caused stress. but it has healed, leaving a faint trace of what could and should have been.

like a tattoo that we get to remind us of who we lost, my scars remind me of battles both big and small. fights that cost more than others. times i will always remember when i look down and think: look what happened! how will i do better? how will i be stronger next time?

i have been me, forever. sometimes a little frayed, worn, and weary. but always me. 

and these scars? it reminds me of how time, so slowly, eventually helps to heal our wounds. it does not erase them, or forgive them; rather it allows the pain to recede and leaves us with this mark, this everlasting proof. it leaves us with hope that maybe we can all be healed. gaze at what has happened and look up with the ability to tell our story. the whole, truthful tale, as painful or as beautiful as it might be.

because even though we may have loved, and lost, and hurt:  we are still here.

(please share your scar/tattoo stories below, if you'd like. i love all gross stories, so don't hold back!)

Green

When I see you
I cast my eyes downward
at the
leftover stubble
with bits of white
that tell me you will be gray soon.

But
your eyes are trained on mine.
Those green eyes that
every woman who has loved you
has loved.
I wonder if
they ever saw ‘em like this,
brimmed red
clashing with the swirl
of the colors of your shirt.
I wonder how many
were in it this long,
this far.

And yet--
the red green of your eyes
light up
like Christmas decorations,
when I call you names
when I tap into that secret language
that is only ours.
When you grab my hand,
and hold
me still.

But when I hear you
saying ‘look me in the eye!’
I stand up to leave.
I could not stare any longer
or hear any other words
that might bring me closer
to you,
you old man
you terrific mess.