Ramblings of a Survivor

There was a time when blogging was an every day thing…I would cuddle up in bed and share the every day struggles and wins of living on a farm – having moved to a big ol’ property of 72 acres from a little tiny plot in West Los Angeles and having been entrenched in Hollywood life. I was learning how to work in — with– the dirt, learning how to manage life outside of my prior social life, managing a marriage that was…challenging…with wealth beyond what most dream of….

But then everything changed – not suddenly, gradually. The earth, the farm, the isolation started molding me into a woman who was AUTHENTIC. I BECAME the farm; I loved it. I flourished; I found healing…I found in the sharing of my journey that I was MORE. I had an identity, connected with the very ground that I was born from. The plants, the animals, the connection to the stars was more than just “owning” a piece of land. I needed ME, I needed the earth, and I began the journey of discovering who I am – what BEING means.

In nurturing and cultivating that land, I BECAME. I was transformed – changed because of the earth I was nurturing, because of the children I was rearing, because of the memories I was beginning to unpack.

To restart this virtual diary is a bit of a struggle for me. I’ve tried it before, and never quite found that same spark, that same motivation to be open and vulnerable. Thinking about carrying a camera around with me to every tiny little event seems overwhelming and trite….but then again, when I was blogging previously, we didn’t have the phones we have now — I mean for goodness sake — my phone camera takes almost as good of photos as most super high-end cameras did back then. Which means excuse number one is out the window.

SO what is it that’s motivating me to do this NOW??? Well….here goes:

Today I met with my estate lawyer. Nothing new. This is my third edit of my will since 2015. So I should be used to it, right? yeah. mmmhmm. totally used to actually imagining me dying. My being gone. My thinking about what I am leaving to the people who love me…because I”m a lucky one — a REALLY REALLY REALLY lucky one. I have people – and not just my close friends and family – who love me. Like I KNOW really love me. And today I got to think about the big question: What am I leaving behind???? Not just my stupid collection of vintage finds that I’ve hunted down at Goodwills, garage sales and thrift shops, but what is the legacy that I am leaving when I go???

I guess that means I have to explain a little bit about what that means because there are lots of people who write about what they do and did in life, what they want to leave, who gets their baby blanket, who gets their prized saddle that hasn’t been ridden in for almost a decade…but for me? Ouch. Wow. Yikes. This is real. Because death is my every day reality. With a clipped aneurysm and one festering on the opposite ICA, well….death is at my doorstep with every piece of furniture I rearrange (and I am happiest rearranging furniture and decor).

One morning in 2017, I woke, alone in my bed, just a few months after finalizing a divorce that still haunts my every day. I sat up as usual, and waited for the haze and dizziness of waking to shake. I sat, then I sat some more…um…am I awake or asleep still? The walls and the bed were moving as they usually do in that 10 seconds between awake and asleep have a pension to do…am I awake or asleep??? I laid my head back down to the pillow. Closed my eyes and waited. The bed was a ship, shifting from side to side, backwards and forwards. I opened my eyes, wiping the sleep from my eyes, putting a little pressure on them. I shook my head, and sat up again. Surely, I would break the veil between sleep and awake. Maybe if I stand up? Let’s try that I told myself: I stood, unsteady, willing the world to stop swirling….

Ok, well, that wasn’t working, the world is still swirling, but I’ve got two kids to get to preschool and 1st grade: just gotta do what a mama’s gotta do. I stood. Unbalanced, but focused on the door that was only a few steps away. Gotta wake the kids, and then once I pee and get some water on my face, I’ll be ok.

WHAM.

WTF. The door hit me slam on my right eye. Where’d that come from??? I recentered, and walked down the hall to the kiddos’ wing, clinging to the bastions of textured walls. Got them up…get them ready. I’ll wake up at some point. I’m just dizzy.

Bathroom mirror. Swirling. Moving. Double me. I look like shit.

Bacon sizzling, eggs cooked. Kids dressed. Car keys, school…white lines on the side of the road. Teacher. “Hi! They got good sleep.” The keys, the ship moving from side to side. The white line on the side of the road is always what dad told me to watch in a bad rain storm. Home. Stairs. Bed.

Can’t call mom, she’ll worry.

“Hey, Suzie. Um. I don’t know what’s going on, but I”m having trouble with depth perception and I have this crazy pain in my eye. Don’t want to call mom. Just want you to know that I don’t feel right. You’re the best sister-in-law ever for dealing with my constant drama. Thank you. and yeah, i’m fine, just want you to know I’m not feeling right. I did get the kids to school.”

“Miss. Um. You’re slurring. Did you drink last night?”

“No. I just need to lay down.”

I hang up. I lay down. The world spins even more; the pain is bad, but it isn’t a ruptured fallopian. I know that pain…at least I’m not bleeding out again. The pain is constant, and unchanging, so I find comfort in the fact that I know it’s just my head, not my internal organs that have given me so much grief. I can deal with a headache…but then things start to shift. My body is separate from my essence. I’m here, but my body is somewhere else.

Phone rings. I don’t answer.

Text message:

“Suzie said you’re not feeling well, do you need help with the kids?”

“yes”

I close the one eye that I had opened to read the text and lay back down.

Searing pain- like my eye was being skewered from my tear duct to my inner ear. A direct line. I vomit: only nothing comes up — I don’t think.

I hard press the 3 on my phone. It rings. I’m struggling to hold it to my ear.

“Mom. Um. I don’t think I need help with the kids, I need help.”

Blank. Hard core blank.

The next several days are a blur. I remember being in the ER, remember being covered with warm blankets and pushed into a tube. I remember them saying “You’re having a migraine. On another note, we did see an aneurysm, but it’s no big deal, can’t be causing the issues she’s experiencing.” I look up at my sister-in-law. Her face was incredulous:

Susie: “AN ANEURYSM AND IT IS NO BIG DEAL??? SHE CAN’T GET THE RIGHT WORDS OUT. SHE IS SAYING WORDS THAT MAKE NO SENSE. SHE’S VOMITING??? NO FUCKING BIG DEAL?”

I think I remember her saying these words, but i’m not sure, I just remember her profile in the tiny ER room, and her holding my hand, with a face of worry and anxiety that can’t even be described as “contorted.”

Doctor: “We see these all the time, patients come in with migraine pain, we do an MRI, there’s an aneurysm. 1 out of 50 people have them and there’s no reason to be alarmed.”

Susie: “WTF, Missy. I know you’re not ok. We’re going to figure this out.”

Me: “there’s a big sign in my back eye”

Susie: “Huh? what? talk to me”

Me: “You know that thing that’s above everything? It’s in my eye”

Susie: “What? Missy focus on me, what???”

Me: “You know that thing. it’s in my eye”

The light was too much to bear. The noise was too much. I just couldn’t with all the input.

“Shoozie. Help.”

Susie: pushes emergency button….”I DO NOT THINK YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT IS GOING ON”

Nurse: “Here are your discharge letters – have her go see a neurologist. We gave her migraine meds, she’ll be fine in an hour or so.”

I lean on Susie as she guides me to the car with me mumbling things she can’t understand and we head back to my house – me holding a hospital issued blue bag with a plastic ring – and Susie hoping desperately that we get back home before I need it.