Tag: life and death

Marooned on an Island pt.3

by Jen Roby, posted in America, life & death

I became good at projecting what people wanted to see. It didn’t help that older men would arrogantly say “Why don’t you smile?” without realizing how sexist they sound. All the negative emotions, those are my memories to examine, mine to shove into the pit of my stomach, mine to hide. Whenever the conversation of my parents came up, it became instinctive to pretend they were both still very present in my life. Over the years I learned how to respond to this question, because when people actually find out what happened, their reaction was incredibly disappointing. It is bad enough that we do not have the answers, but to carry their pity is unnecessary weight that only makes it worse. I decided it was easier to deny his death toward others, and ultimately myself.

So I did what came naturally. Seemed fitting for the concrete jungle, seeing as everybody keeps their emotions to themselves anyways. It really was the perfect place to isolate my heart. Trapped on this island of bittersweet numbness until someone would rescue me, or perhaps, I would rescue myself.

It takes a lot for me to trust someone. I learned quickly in college that partners are selfish, uncompromising and continued to see it in every relationship I attracted. I was content with close friends, both men and women, and simply enjoyed that kind of love. No need to complicate it with passion that would inevitably fade. Despite the chip on my shoulder, there was one man who slipped through the cracks and appeared as a sudden beacon of light in a dark restaurant bathroom line. He came off so incredibly genuine and caring, that I couldn’t help but let my guard down as our friendship blossomed. It didn’t take me long to figure he was also carrying a small piece of baggage, but I didn’t care. It fit so well with mine. Together we took our luggage and adventured anywhere the wind took us.

Weeks turned into months and life suddenly became purposeful. Slipping into routine, I found myself looking forward to our weekly hangouts. I had never felt this way about someone before; the calm satisfaction of knowing who you are when they are around. With each romantic dinner, with each mundane bagel morning, there was this…je ne sais quoi.

It carried on like this for a while; I was regaining trust and confidence that maybe the universe wasn’t that savage after all. Life was good. So good, my roommate and I wanted to host a celebration. We decided to throw a rooftop, speakeasy-style (later got busted) taco party on our Chinatown apartment. I invited him, and to my disappointment, he avoided the text completely only to reply a week later that he was not in town and now wanted to hang out. Thus began the conflict of my close friends urging me to ditch this joke. I was confused: how could we continue to have these movable moments, yet feel so stagnant at the same time?

As silly as it seemed, this taco party was the tipping point for me. Familiar feelings quickly resurfaced. I shouldn’t have let him in. I wasn’t strong enough to go through another heartache. I soon realized that I was depending on this person to replace the people I have lost. I had not forgotten about my best friend or father, but he was distracting me from reality. What would happen if he left me and I had to face that sorrow again? I couldn’t bear the thought of crawling back into that dark hole. So I did what I do best: I ran.

I took a life-changing trip to clear my head. It was enough to give me hope for a better future and meaning to life. Months after, my job and housing situations were stuck in this vicious cycle and once they conveniently and simultaneously crumbled, I decided to take my exit. I put in my two weeks and gave notice to my not-so-nice landlord in Dumbo. I hammered the nail on the coffin by purchasing that ticket to Norway at the end of February. I would be damned if I had to spend what is always a depressing month in this lonely city. There was no turning back now – I was leaving NYC and everyone there behind.

Yet there was one thing I didn’t account for. I was so empowered and certain of my decision that I failed to predict how he would react. I assumed it wouldn’t effect him much and wrote it off. For someone who was so uncertain about their emotions, he certainly knew how to confess them all at once. Words were flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup – the sweetest love-struct sentences one would ever hear. Perhaps I hurt his ego and he didn’t like the idea of knowing yet another woman left him because of his incompetencies. Perhaps everything he said was true and he was really bad at expressing feelings. All I knew is he was depriving me of feeling wanted and I deserved someone who wanted me. At the time, I wasn’t proud of my actions, but his words never left me. I desperately wanted to believe the best in him. After all, love makes you do crazy things, right?

Wrong. It took me three years of sorting through the confusion. It became clear that he only wanted what he could not have. What kind of person is so bitter about the breakup that they don’t want you to move on either? It was bad enough that I wasted a year of my life trying to convince myself I finally deserved love. Yet he took it a step further and prevented me from experiencing love with anyone else. I may have been miles away, yet he was controlling my actions, well aware of everything he falsely promised, later writing it off as an unhealthy time in his life. If you are somehow reading this, I forgive you for being so cruel. I am at the very least thankful for the memories shared, and hopefully showed you how to love the next woman. You certainly taught me the value of feeling secure in a relationship.

So here I am. Marooned on this island, compiled coral by coral of all the lies I have stacked. Everything leading up to this moment has been one big fantasy. I was silly to think I could actually replace someone. I subconsciously held on because I didn’t know what else to do. He reminded me both of my father and best friend, so I built up this image of someone who is not. To acknowledge that it is over is to acknowledge that my dad is gone, and Mylena as well.

Life is great at sending storms, but it also has a way of providing a life raft. Question is, will I take it? Do I know, nor care where it is going? I am so tired of carrying this self-loathing. Tired of putting my hope in false promises. Surely anything is better than this paradise of putrid.

I can now see that I deserve love. Despite my attempts to fend it off, I have wanted it all along. Perhaps you have to be deprived of all the love in the world in order to realize there is so much to be shared.

Thank you Michael, for the endless nights of listening to me babble on your boat.

Marooned on an Island pt.2

by Jen Roby, posted in Uncategorized

Mylena’s passing at such a young age was a complete accident. It was well past midnight when the driver fell asleep at the wheel, losing both his sister and father in the same night. Once again, a complete accident that could happen to anybody. Perhaps if they hadn’t driven home through Beaumont, Texas they would have missed that section of the road altogether. Perhaps if they had one more cup of coffee or just pulled over before falling asleep. There are so many what-if’s that should never be dwelled upon.

I shifted my pain into the things that were present, establishing weekly phone calls with my dad to talk about life, ask him questions and lean on him. His father left him at an early age and he felt equipped to relate. The Christmas right after her passing I flew down to Texas, where I was able to have one of the best holidays of my life. December was always so depressing because it was a reminder of how I had to step up the year my mother left; cooking, helping buy gifts for everyone, someone had to help my poor old man pretend life was worth living after the news. Those may have been estranged years, however this year felt different. This year was simply full of laughter, and I even saw my dad smile. He had started dating again and I had never seen him so carefree, loving and silly. It was like the real man was buried all these years.

I will never understand why life threw me a serious curve ball as I was barely standing up again. His birthday rolled around in early February and I had this sense that I should be there. Caught up in finding another job before my contract ended, I decided to save the money, make him a birthday card and call him instead. He sounded distracted and I later figured why. He dreaded that year: it was the age in which his father passed. Two short weeks later, he would too.

I will spare the details of his death – the moment leading up to the heart attack was subtle and I feel remorse for not seeing the red flags in those final text messages. Each of us played a part, and all of his children carry the weight of wondering if they could have saved him. There are so many what-if’s that I can’t help but dwell on. What if I just flew down to see him one last time? What if my phone wasn’t on silent and I answered his last call? What if he was in pain and didn’t want to be alone?

Nobody tells you exactly how much you’re going to miss someone until they leave. I immediately canceled the rest of my contract and flew down to Texas. The four of were all dealing with it in our own way, and we were incredibly grateful that we at least had each other. I buried myself in sorting out his accounts and researching funeral homes to provide to the group. I can’t tell you how many homes cared more about profits and actually tried to take advantage of the grieving family. His brother, our uncle, was so kind during the process to step in and help the four of us, who were clearly not prepared for this sudden responsibility. When we finally found the right location, I met the funeral director in person, he claimed he was shocked to realize I was just a kid. The woman he spoke to on the phone was pictured to be in her brittle, cold fifties. I guess nobody tells you how grief ages the soul of those left behind.

I was no longer the same when I flew back to NYC. Everything was pointless and I lost my way again. I’m not sure how those months would have unraveled if it weren’t for the kindness of an old friend. He had personally reached out to all my friends, new and old, and asked them to mail a coin to my apartment in Harlem. This may sound silly, however he knew this was the conversation my father and I last had, about coins, and he also knew I had been collecting them from all the countries I visited. My heart filled with hope as random little coins flowed through my mailbox. It was a constant reminder of the people we touch and the memories forever carried with us.

Not a day goes by that I don’t think about my father. It will be over a decade soon. Hard to imagine I haven’t heard his voice for several years. Aside from the few live acoustic nights out in San Antonio. I regret never saving the voicemails on my old phone. I even picked up lucid dreaming to sneak conversations with him but can never form the sentences when I finally see him. Yet sometimes, when I listen carefully, I’ll hear a train whistle or see a big black bird, and hope it’s him.

I don’t care what the calendar says, Spring immediately follows February 27th. The sorrow of his life blooms into celebration of new life. My brother had a son recently, and man, Caden Scott is the spiting image of him. Throughout the years I’ve made a promise to myself to leave the decay in February; after paying him tribute I must soak up every minute of life. That is what he would want.

However it has taken me a long time to get to this place of peace. I couldn’t understand why life was so harsh as to give me the false hope of a fresh start. I was just getting to know my dad, and while the last six months of his life were spent in appreciation and humility, I was angry that it was cut so short. He had set each of us up to be frustratingly, independent people, yet we still had so much to learn from him. I finally understood why he was always teaching us to do it ourselves, because his father left him the same way.

It was this moment in my life in which my insides turned cold. Perhaps the city, with all the constant career and housing hurdles, was pushing me in this direction. I embraced the single-serving friends that came in and out of my life during this time, yet always kept a distance. We needed each other to distract ourselves from what really lied beneath. I’ll admit, there are a few close friends to this day that stuck with me, and I am grateful for the many happy memories. Yet there was a growing, unsettling pit in my stomach that infrequently woke me in the middle of the night.

Nobody tells you how grief changes the core of your being. I watched each of us children go through different stages and have noticed one thing in common. We don’t like to talk about it. It was too hard for me to just let go and accept he was gone. I was afraid to feel the raw emotions of love and couldn’t bear the idea of losing anyone again. Nobody was going to be let in.

Thanks for sticking to the story – here is the last piece of the trilogy.