This will be dark

You've been duly warned. This post will get dark.

About two years ago... or perhaps a year and a half ago, I went through what was undoubtedly the darkest, most difficult period of my life to date. I honestly hit rock bottom, and I think that now, since I'm in a much better place, I need to talk about it. Write about it, rather. Sort of purge it from my system.

My mother was diagnosed with advanced cervical cancer, we nearly lost her, a sort-of-relationship that I was far too invested in ended, we moved house, I graduated college, and contemplated suicide.

There. I said it.

Honestly. I've never known desperation the way I did during that time. I oscillated between giving up on God entirely and begging him desperately to intervene and save my mother. I remember sitting in the shower, conditioner in my hair, my father and our old neighbors just outside the door packing together our things for the move, and my mother was in the hospital. I sat in the shower and screamed as loudly and silently as I could, bawling, crying until my gut cramped, begging God not to let my mother die.

I was like a zombie most days at school...I couldn't sleep at night because I kept playing over and over in my mind how I would react if I were to go to check on my mother and find her not breathing. What would I do? Would I try to wake her? Would I do CPR (that I could barely remember) or call 911? The mornings would come all too soon and not quickly enough.

I began to think that maybe if I were to cut myself the physical pain might ease the constant ache in my chest. It was never something I had considered before, but I had read about it and well...maybe there was some truth to be found in it. I went in my father's toolbox, since I didn't have a razor, and found an old boxcutter knife. I did my best to scrub all the rust off of it, reasoned that I had had a tetanus shot recently, and brought it with me into the shower.

Fear kept me from doing any real damage to myself, but I did manage to slice my skin - and what was odd, the burning sensation I felt on my wrist was both entirely new to me and as old as time itself. It was comforting and familiar and terrifying all at the same time.

I wasn't officially "in a relationship" at the time, but I had a relationship in the normal sense and use of the word that I now realize I was far, far too invested in. I put all my eggs in one basket...as my coworker put it, I gambled everything I had, and lost. The one person that I confided in, who had taken years to gain my trust, who literally knew everything about me, pulled away and left me confused and hurt at the point where I was most vulnerable. If he ever wonders why I no longer speak to him, that's my reason. When I lost the one person I could lean on, that was the last straw.

I still rode the train to school almost every morning, and I would stand on the platform of the Long Island Railroad and watch the train approach with its gusty wind and noisy horn...and wonder if it would hurt very much if I jumped. I would picture myself carefully edging closer and closer to the edge as the train approached and then just...stepping...down. I knew the train would most likely drag me, most likely crumple my body as it ground to a stop, and that was the part I dreaded. What if I didn't die immediately on impact? Or worse, what if I survived?

In the end, what stopped me was the reluctance to put my parents through anything more than they were already facing. We already had $75,000 in medical bills for my mother, why should I add funeral costs to that? If she died, why should my father lose me as well? What would that do to him? Would he finally give up? I didn't want to be the reason for my father to finally lose hope.

So I would stand there and imagine it, and the train would slow to a stop, and the doors would open, and I would get on and take a seat by the window and stare out listlessly while my mind raced in helpless circles.

I failed organic chemistry that semester. The final class I needed in order to graduate - I got an F on each of the four midterms and on the final exam. I never had time to study. Between visiting my mother in the hospital, working overnight shifts at my job until 4 a.m., and trying to balance out my other classes, it was probably a lost cause from the beginning.

In the end, though, I graduated. Even though I missed the part of the ceremony where I should have walked across the stage to receive my diploma, (and my brother wasn't there, who I desperately wished to be there, and neither was he,  who I had hoped could be there as well) at least my mother was able to come along with my father and I was able to sit next to my friend from work. Small mercies, right?

After that debacle, I retook organic chemistry at City College and barely passed it. I went to school four days a week and had to hurry home in order to drive my mother to radiation therapy each day. She was so weak during that time. We drove the borrowed church van, an old, beat up Dodge fourteen-seater that made every bump in the road feel like a pit. Still, it was transportation and better than the bus...

We celebrated when my mother took her last radiation treatment. The hospital had a tradition where patients would strike a gong on the day of their final treatment, but my mother wanted to shake a tambourine instead, so we videotaped that and took a ton of pictures. She gave a really, really long speech to all the doctors and nurses there...

That was a long summer. Some days I thought I hated my mom. She was so needy, and I was exhausted and depressed. I didn't know how to care for her or please her, and she was always in pain - so sore from the radiation treatments. Her hair had thinned from the chemotherapy, and she was literally skin and bones. She'd lost nearly seventy pounds in a few months. When we went out, I didn't recognize her.

Slowly, though, she began to regain strength and we started going for walks in the afternoons. I put off starting grad school for a year. Our walks gradually became longer, and her hair began to grow back. She regained color in her cheeks. I went into the basement and dug around until I found her clothes from before she had me...tiny, flimsy little things that when I held them up I couldn't imagine the mother I was used to fitting into those.

When I brought them up to her, they hung on her like rags.

The doctor said she needed to eat six meals a day to gain weight. I set alarms on my phone...every three hours. I grew to hate every alarm sound that my cell had to offer. I tried to decorate my new bedroom and make the house look like a home. Topaze was my constant companion when I cleaned and decorated. I discovered that if I climbed out my bedroom window I could sit on the roof of the den and look at the sky, feel the sun on my face and space all around me. I took to doing that at sunrise and at night, where I would try to count the stars as they popped up in the sky and tried not to think about the time he drove me all the way out west to see the Milky Way.

It took me a long time before I could look at the stars without wanting to cry.

A friend of ours came and spent a few weeks to help out...although I'm not sure whether she really helped or not. Other friends came by to help my mom and give me a break so I could study during the time when I was in the summer class.

September rolled around, and my mom made it to another birthday. She was still skin and bones, because her weight fluctuated so much, but the next day we went to Elmont park and she got on the swings. I have a picture of her from that day. She was smiling and looked happy. I think I was happy too.

My dad went back to work - he'd taken more than a month off when my mom was at the worst of it all. I don't know how he managed to hold up through all of it. I really, honestly don't. I know he cried a few times...though he tried not to let me see. I know he got irritated and angry and snapped at my mom sometimes, but I did too. I was a horrible person then.

By the time the leaves turned brown (they don't turn orange here) my relationship with my mom had improved marginally. I still avoided her as much as I could because I felt so drained, but she was much more self-sufficient and less cranky. I suppose the fact that she could actually sleep upstairs in the bed instead of having to be in an armchair for two months might have had something to do with the improvement.

We had gotten fairly settled in the house, and Thanksgiving came and went peacefully. Christmas came around, and she had a celebration event with the family, my brother's family, and a few close friends that doubled as an anniversary party. It was my parents' twenty fifth wedding anniversary.

So many milestones, and so many...trials. All at the same time.

Things looked up from there. I got very depressed for a while when it seemed like I wasn't doing anything with my life...I wasn't in school, I wasn't working, I couldn't see how I could begin either and felt terribly underqualified for anything I would think of doing...but my mom came through and found me a job that's actually two blocks from where we live. Things are looking up now...I was able to start grad school and complete two semesters (although I only took two classes in total...slow and steady wins the race, right?) and I bought a car.

Things are looking up.

My mom is so much better, and my dad and I survived. We've even been able to help out someone in need and give them a place to stay.

Things are looking up.