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My status on Facebook: E: got into the new school’s mfa program holy fuckkkkkkkkk
MM comments (on my wall): FANTASTIC! So proud of you. Love, MM [seriously, she signed it "MM"]
Talking to MM, via Facebook chat:
E: your future son in law treated me to dinner
MM: nice of him. he is a keeper
E: yes, i think so
MM: i believe so. and by the way i don’t see how in the world fuck could be holy
E: i’m sure you’ve said “oh my god” during sex
MM: possibly.
E: so you can see how it is holy, then.
One of my closest friends sent me an email yesterday apologizing for not getting in touch, specifically during the week of 9/11. I thought my response would be a good way of sharing with you how I’ve been holding up.
Dear AP,
It was actually the best anniversary so far. I think going away at the end of August helped my mental countdown, because every year prior to this one, I usually start counting in my head how many days until the 11th. This year I counted down toward St. Maarten, even if I was sick as a dog the week before the trip and then the week of our vacation.
I was actually thinking about you yesterday and then I got an email from you! I was going to send you another email and stalk your Facebook profile until you got back to me! I was thinking that I never gave my high school teachers credit for how busy they must be. And then there you were!
I’m really glad you were thinking of me, and also sort of glad that you were one of the people who let me have some space on the anniversary. It’s really nice for people to let me know that they’re thinking of me during that time, but when I get texts and emails and phone calls with everyone wanting to check up on me, I have to either put on a show about how good I feel, or delve into the complexities of the anniversary–and then I’m drained.
But, in truth, you’re probably the only person who would accept how I felt about the anniversary and allow me to feel it. What I mean is, sometimes it’s so difficult for others to see me upset that they can’t help but try and inject positivity into our conversation, and then I feel like I can’t actually experience the emotions that are natural to me because I don’t want people to feel like their efforts aren’t working. I’m sure you know what I mean, because you’re a caretaker like most of they are.
The anniversary was actually really nice. We drove up to New Jersey on Wednesday night and slept in Thursday morning. I showered and dried my hair, something I haven’t been doing, but I wanted my family to see my new hair and how it looked blow-dried. I have a long history of coming home from DC badly in need of a shower, and I adhered to my tradition on Wednesday, arriving greasy and with my hair in a bun, as expected. Thankfully, though, my mom wasn’t home (she left the house in a fury, but not before flinging her plate of Chinese food all over the kitchen–more on that later. We walked in the house and Darla starts licking the duck sauce off the french doors, and my mom’s dog is having a field day with a discarded egg roll in the corner of the kitchen). My mom lost her shit because 1) my stepdad is being an asshole and they might actually get divorced, 2) it was the week of the 9/11 anniversary, and 3) a couple days before, she had a patient in her operating room who, before he went under anesthesia, made her promise to him that she would tell his wife he loved her. He knew that since this was his 3rd bypass, he probably wasn’t going to make it to celebrate his 40th anniversary that week. So my mom went to the wake the evening of the 10th and told his wife.
September 11th itself was good. Number 2 and Bee were at Villanova because they had class, so it was just the 29 of us at home: Me, BMW, Mogwog (15), Kaggle (turned 13 on Sept 13th), Chief and Boss (17) and my mom. My stepdad put the flag at half-mast that day, which was one of the only nice gestures (toward us) I’ve seen from him in a long time.
My mom was stressed out and insisted on cleaning to relieve her tension, so I fucked around for the morning while she tried to calm herself. She asked if I wanted to go to the fabric store with her, and I said that it wasn’t what I had planned on doing for the anniversary, and I think then she was confronted with the fact that we were, in fact, all home for a reason. That it wasn’t just a weekend away. For me, though, that’s how it felt—it was so refreshing to be with family, but at the same time, I was allowing myself to experience sadness for once.
My mom and sisters and I went to get pedicures, and BMW and Chief and Boss stayed home and prepped dinner. We ate lasagna, and it was yummy. And then we hung around the house and went to bed early, and for the first time in MONTHS, I slept most of the night without taking Ambien.
The next day, BMW and I drove out to Philadelphia to visit Number 2 & Bee. Number 2 had just moved into his apartment with his best friend, so BMW and I bought him a set of dishes and glassware and some kitchen shit because all they had were 2 plates and ONE bowl that they took turns eating cereal out of. We went out to this DELICIOUS restaurant that I’d been to before with my roommate from college–she grew up in the next town over.
Saturday began family weekend at Villanova, so my mom and the rest of my siblings (with the exception of Boss, who had something for band) drove out to Number 2′s apartment for the Nova-Lehigh football game and a huge dinner of 18 people at a typical Italian restaurant (during which various debacles occurred–more later).
And then Sunday, BMW and I went back to DC and I cleaned the house to get rid of my own stress. And here I’ve been since then, getting through my GRE guide (I take the test on 10/25), and trying to get myself to work on my stories (my first application is NYU’s due on December 18th, and I need to get my stories to my old professor/editor).
You don’t need a reason why you haven’t gotten in touch–you just need a reason to stay in touch. I think that even despite the short amount of time we had to get to know each other, we always connected every time we were together, and that both of us wished we had known the other for the important times in our lives when we had no one. I just want to hear what’s going on with you.
And that’s true for everyone I know. Sometimes I need to be listened to; other times I don’t want to talk about how I feel. Sometimes I just want to enjoy the absence my feelings, sad or otherwise, in order to focus on the feelings of my friends.
It’s sort of like Jamaica, except better.
We’re staying in a gorgeous resort (though not as good as the Grand Mayan in Playacar–today we came back to the hotel room and all three of our keys were magically not working, so I scaled the ledge to climb over the balcony and open the sliding doors to get in). It’s nice, but hazy. Probably better that way, since BMW’s already been branded with a tourist backpack tan. It’s pretty awesome.
View from Fort Amsterdam
Anyway, our resort is on its own mini peninsula, and at the tip is an old fort that served to protect the dutch capital, Phillipsburg. The fort is situated atop steep cliffs overlooking Great Bay and Little Bay. Cliffs that I wanted to climb down and take pictures (I was pulling an MM– BMW told me not to climb down because I only had flip flops on, but he turned around and I started climbing anyway and almost tore up my Reefs on the cacti. It’s strange–the landscape is arid in parts, but the humidity is around 83% right now. I hope I’m sweating out some of the guavaberry–a liqueur native to the island.
Fort Amsterdam (the old battalion and one of the must-see spots in St. Maarten, conveniently located at the end of our resort) has signposts and historical stuff, but is pretty unkept and we found it only by research. None of the staff thought it was a big enough deal to tell us to check it out. Some vinyl siding had been tossed over a rock in one part, looking like someone had a little campfire action going on.
Roosters!
It offered gorgeous views of Phillipsburg, and there’s even a protected pelican reserve where about 15 pairs mate from May to November. We stumbled upon where the resort gets their poultry (a bunch of roosters at the top of the fort), but they scattered before we could catch any.
Yesterday we went snorkeling, since our resort offers one of the best off-beach dive spots on the island. There were a ton of wrecks to dive in, and one sunken submarine that some diver wrote “MIKEY’S TOPLESS” on it with his finger. The marine life was pretty good, but the visibility was low and there wasn’t any coral. We swam for about an hour (I had a life vest on so that I didn’t have to swim too hard, and I felt like looking like a major tool, also), and then when it started raining we swam for a little longer and then went back.
From the Tip of the Fort
We’re going to the casino tonight and eating a gourmet meal, which hopefully will be better than the rest of the stuff we’ve had (which has been pretty unimpressive–I think all the produce is shipped to the island, since most of the land isn’t arable because of the rocky soil). We’re also going to do a super extreme zip lining course (somewhere in between the canopy jumping MM & Dad did in Costa Rica and what I did in Jamaica).
Keep you posted the next time I hack into the resort’s internet.
