graceland's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm hurt I'm hoping that Friday night closed an ugly chapter in my life. Time will tell. A friend had an out-of-town guest with him. Only on my second drink, this guest disclosed that he has cancer for the second time. Testicular. His testicle is being removed next week; his hair has only recently grown in for the first time in 8 months. "I don't know what to say," I admitted after this stranger shared this jarring news with me. The conversation fell silent among four us. "Well," I said, "sometimes I think it's good to put all of your cards out on the table to begin with and just see where it takes you. So there you go." Shots. He ordered shots of sambuka. I can't drink sambuka. I did it. As soon as I did that shot I felt buzzed. The evening progressed. I got drunker and drunker. Confessional drunk. I started to tell my friend these horrible stories of things that have happened to me in my life, things so unspeakable me that I've never written about them. I don't know why I told her so much, it was like a tidal wave of information crashing out of mouth and as I spoke each troop of words marched, I wanted them to halt but instead I found myself speaking faster, telling more until my story stood between us, a battlefield filled with fresh kills. Let's get out of here, she suggested. I don't want to go, I said. I can't leave here, not yet, not now. I suddenly realized that I had two completely different drinks in front of me, both mine. "I have to finish my drinks," I said. Anything to stay among the crowd and the music, anything to avoid silence and having to hear what I had said, to have to hear her say one more time that I need to see someone to process some of these things that have happened to me in order to get past them. She made me leave, I tried to stall and the bartender said that someone else had paid my tab. Some guy whom I had briefly spoken with outside. He wasn't even left for me to thank. We stepped out of the door and I began to descend down the 4 iron steps to the sidewalk. I look down at my feet and I watched as the pointed tip of one shoe caught in the hem of my jeans. I think I may have tried to stop myself, but I had no equilibrium. I tried to grab onto both railings but it was too late and the momentum of my body pitching forward was too forceful for my arms to stop. Like a tree, I fell face forward down the iron staircase and landed with a smack, on the cement sidewalk. I thought, when I went down, I should stop myself, but I was already flying through the air - one of my heels flipping off of my foot and landing behind my body. On impact, all I felt was pain. Unidentified pain. Laying face down, the thought entered my mind "get up before anyone sees you!" and I made a move to push myself up. The effort was too much. There was no one around to see. I stopped pushing and just laid there, face down on the sidewalk, and moaned. This is the end, I thought. This is where the movie ends. The camera pans out, the final image is indelibly left in the audiences' mind to process. My friend and a guy who had been on the phone outside lifted me up. I didn't help, I just let them pick me up and someone put my shoe on my foot as someone held me steady, maybe it was me. As I stood upright, looking down at my clothing that was now soaking wet from laying face down on the sidewalk, I thought, at least I won't have to talk anymore. Everything hurt. I looked at my palms and they were lightly scraped. There was a small rock embedded in my right palm. I lifted up my jeans and saw that my knee was skinned and bleeding. The other was swelling. As I limped home with my friend who held onto my sleeve like a sherpa guiding me, I realized that I had gotten my wish. I had finally suffered a greater injury, real physical pain, and I had been right - it did make me forget about the other things troubling me. I felt good as I walked home. I hurt. Everything hurt, but now, finally, I had physical evidence to support that this pain I have been feeling was real. I'm hurt, nothing is broken; I will heal in time. 11:53 p.m. - 2004-03-27 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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