Sunday, July 8, 2012

Grief

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT MY PINK POSSE BLOG ON OR NEAR
Sun, Sep 12, 2010 at 10:54 PM

I'm not sure where this is all coming from, the emotion of it, so read
at your own risk.
I was reading at a Law & Order: Special Victims Unit fan fiction site:
www.svufiction.com
I love the site, & of course, LO:SVU, which goes without saying.
Usually, I can watch or read the fic, & it takes me outside of myself,
into a different world. While it's usually not so comforting, I do get
true enjoyment out of seeing people brought to justice, & in the fan
fic world, true enjoyment out of Elliot & Olivia *El & Liv* finally
pairing up whether it's just a passionate one shot, or a multiple
chapter story where they get together & have a family of their own.
Usually, all of this affects me in a less noticeable way, in fact, I
love seeing them paired up as I said. As for the TV show itself,
seeing them get the perp & gain justice for the victims is glorious! I
love when El gets pissed off & goes off halfcocked, as that's how I
feel sometimes in my own life, & I can live vicariously through him,
having the courage to do something I'd probably never do myself. What
makes the show so great, is the fact that I'd place bets with anyone
that I could walk into a real life SVU squadroom & find 4 outstanding
detectives & a captain like El, Liv, Fin, John & Don. That's what
makes the cast so great. I would also bet that I could find a DA/ADA
like Alex or Casey. However, sometimes it seems that real life & fic
life can mold & form & shape & morph into a life of it's own, taking
me & completely spinning me out of control. Tonight is one of those
nights I guess, though they are extremely rare, which is why I watch
the show & read the stories so often.
Fan fic story:
Olivia gets lost, they find perp, perp won't confess. Sequel: Elliot
nearly kills himself with his temper, without Liv to hold him afloat &
the bottle tearing him down, not to mention the glaring agony & guilt
of failure. So he visits perp, perp won't confess to him, though he
comes close, then perp commits suicide & El gets the answers he's been
longing for in an envelope. However, all that does is lead them to the
body of Detective Olivia Benson. The agony & grief are still there,
only now the rest of the squad, DAs' & the Medical Examiner aren't
left languishing in the agony of waiting, their left languishing in
the agony of knowing, realizing that this is real, that Olivia will
never be a member of their family again, that she will never walk the
halls of the precinct, chat with them at some Cop bar in the middle of
Manhattan in the middle of the night, etc. Her voice, her laugh, her
smell, the way she looks when she smiles, the way she looks when
she's staring so hard at a casefile, the way she looks when El has
done yet another gigantic stupid thing are no more. These things, they
will never see again & it seems to break them. While they do come back
together, to each other, they will never be the same again.
& for some reason, it occurs to me, how this mirrors real life.
Usually, I don't allow myself to wander this path. Even when I felt at
my worst, which was before I joined PP, before I had all of you
wonderful people in my life, pushing & encouraging me & helping me,
all through the words typed & read on a computer screen, I still
didn't allow myself to go here hardly. I guess tonight it's just built
up though & so, it is here that I find myself, feeling as crazy &
insane as Elliot had before he new & after he new, once he had all the
answers he desperately wanted & didn't want.
Last night was my NONPOINT concert, & words can't express how much I
was looking forward to it, what it meant for me to be going & seeing
the guys, one of them in particular. Words are never enough for
something like that. Then my friend canceled on me. No explanation
other then that something had happened once again with her. On top of
that, Dad threatened to not take me to any concerts anymore, period
unless they were at the Machine Shop, however, we had an agreement
that said he would take me to concerts period, if I let him keep my
car instead of selling it. Yeah, your all confused now, why does a
blind woman own a car. Super short version, I wanted to go places, his
cars were unreliable, I bought car, he started taking me where I
wanted to go as long as I bought the tickets & paid for the gas &
bought him dinner. It was a win win situation for all involved,
because now that he's bought the car from me, he has a reliable
vehicle in which to transport us. So anyway, he wanted me to call my
friend & tell her that he had a birthday party to go to & that once a
person says they'll do something with you, they should do it, period.
In other words, unless there's a death in the family, a person's word
is their word, & they had damned well better follow through on it. I
told him I wouldn't call her & bitch her out like he wanted me to.
Instead I said I'd go to the concert alone if he'd just drop me off &
give me the Safelink phone we have from the government. For some
reason, that wasn't good enough, he said he wasn't taking me to
concerts anymore unless they were at the Shop, so I said I was buying
the car back & selling it out from under him, because he & I also had
a binding agreement that he was now trying to back out of. Needless to
say, rebecca jumped into it which was none of her business to do *& of
course, which I myself am guilty of having done before* & it only got
worse. She tried to tell me that my friend couldn't keep leaving me
stranded like this & that I needed to call her on it, whether I yelled
& screamed or did it quietly was my choice. She said neither of us
could back out of our agreement & that we'd better enjoy each other
while we had the chance to, because eventually I'd move out of the
house & Dad wouldn't have the opportunity to do this anymore, whether
he enjoys it or not having been put aside for the time being. So we
went to the show, I had a great time & I'll write about that later
where it belongs, in it's own post. Then today I'm checking & I've
still gotten no farther explanation from my friend. She stood me up
saying that 'something' had happened & then boom, went off the grid.
I'm actually used to this, because whenever something bad does happen,
it's her coping mechanism to retreat, but it still gets under my skin
because I allow it to as much as I try & stop it. Finally, I haven't
written this before, but Dot has been taken to Last Chance Rescue,
where I adopted Sadie from. I know they'll take great care of her, &
get her seizures under control, which is something I've been unable to
do, but the grief that I've tried to keep away from all day is
overwhelming & mindnumbing. While I'm glad that I don't have to bear
witness to her seizing anymore & am able to do nothing but quietly
hold & pet her, the agony of giving her up is searing my insides. I
nearly broke down at Petsmark where I dropped her off, but I didn't. I
nearly broke down in the car but I couldn't. So I got home & read
everything at svufiction, & it was like a slap in the face. I haven't
fully acknowledged the anniversary of my brother's death yet either,
nor all the feelings that come up from 9/11. I was one of those people
who just sat there & watched the whole thing for nearly 2 weeks until
things 'sort of' went back to normal. I was home recovering from my
last major surgery *they'd taken 2 ribs & put them into my face to
build up bone structure*, & I was the only one home while everyone
else was at school or work. I sat there all day bearly thinking about
food. I listened to all the songs & watched all the coverage, & my
parents never stopped me. They never dragged me away from the TV. We
didn't talk about it, about whether or not it was a mentally healthy
thing for me to be doing, just watching day after day. We never
discussed that. For me though, as much as it hurt, it was like I
couldn't pull away, I couldn't make myself watching. I'm not blaming
my parents, I was a responsible kid, 15, almost 16 & could have
stopped watching, but I didn't think it was right. I felt like I
should have been at Ground Zero helping out, & since I couldn't be
there, then I had to watch, to remember & never forget. & while I
didn't watch any specials yesterday & I was thrilled to be seeing
NONPOINT that night, it still burned me when they played "Frontlines"
& dedicated it to the soldiers, the victims & everyone who went
through it. I was never innocent, but it was a different type of 'loss
of innocence' that happened when the towers fell. I could practically
see myself there & feel the suffocation of it all. I thought about my
brother & the victims & it was all I could do not to cry as the song
blared & I sang along, forcing the words up & out of my throat more
then actually singing them. During the first SVUfic titled "Lost" the
author takes you through the agony of not knowing. Of wondering where
Olivia went & who took her & why she was taken. In the next part of
the fic "Mercy" we find out not necessarily why she was taken, but
how, & how her death came to be. It was an 'accident' in the words of
the perp. & it occured to me then, that in real life, if we allow
ourselves to, we can be sucked into that vortex of wondering. My
mother was sexually abused, I always say raped, because that's the
truth of it, sexually abused sounds to clinical & kind for my tastes,
& for as long as I can remember, I've wondered what her life would
have been like if she hadn't been raped, if her childhood hadn't been
taken from her. What would my life be like or any of the other lives
she touched throughout the years. My parents divorced when I was 19,
mom left when I was 18. What would our lives be like today if they
hadn't split. I've been in love with people who can't or won't
reciprocate my feelings. What would it be like if I weren't in love
with them, if one of them could reciprocate my feelings, if I weren't
so attached to them? So in it's own way, real life & Alternate
Universe life collide here, because both kinds of loss can & do occur
on a daily basis in real life. What would my brother's life have been
like if he'd been put on medication for his bipolar disorder & gotten
away from the drugs & alcohol. What would life be like if my paternal
Grandfather hadn't died 11 years before I was born. What would life be
like if my maternal grandfather hadn't abandoned my mother when she
was a kid. The what ifs are stark & stunning in their tragedy,
however, their only tragic if I dwell in them. I usually don't, & I
know I won't be here for long, but tonight I suppose I've felt like
dancing with the devil, trying to find answers, not to those questions
themselves, but to the universal question of now that I know what I
know, how do I move on? Where do I go from here? What's the next piece
in the puzzle that I need to find to get me to that next step, & the
next one & the next one?
I'm definitely not all cried out, but I do feel better writing this
all down & getting it all out in the open.
Now, it's just a matter of knowing where to go next. How do I get there?
Love,
Chelle

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