Best Friends

"No one is going to want you if you can't decide what you want."

Gravediggers and Gunslingers

Until now, though this blog is hardly an hour old, I've been content with posting what had already been said. Ghosts of thoughts past. But now it's time to be current.

Despite how my last entry may have sounded, I'm perfectly happy right now. I haven't felt down on myself since Tuesday when I called Melanie, the hotline receptionist. She first enquired if I was in crisis. I explained that I didn't think that I would come into harm that night. She likely didn't believe me. I'm not too worried about what a stranger thinks about me. Maybe she had a right to doubt me. I was calling for a reason, right?

My mind is much clearer than it's been in months, maybe years. Everything seems simpler. And the best part is that I like it. I like life. Perhaps I was closer to the edge than I thought. I'm seeing colors all over again. My rose-tinted glasses have been repaired.
I'm still worried about the future though. I need some goals. Something to move towards. Otherwise I'll likely land where I was a week ago.

Last week I told a childhood friend that I was in love with her. I don't even know if I understand the meaning of the word. But that's the closest I can possibly come to it. I told her all this and she told me that she is engaged and that if things were different she might consider things, but she can't. So, doing the only mature thing I've done in my life I told her that I was happy for her and that I wouldn't miss their wedding for the world. If you love them, then let them go. I didn't think I got the meaning of the phrase until now. I'm glad she can find someone to settle down with for the rest of her life.

As a small solace, she did say that part of her heart will always be mine. That doesn't sound like the start of a healthy marriage. I don't look forward to that in the next few years.

From the same comp. book

April 30th

I've found, journal, that I only write in you when I'm feeling pensive and down. It's been over a month since my pen last touched your pages. I've decided to write about current events rather than the past since it never does good to dwell on it.

Several paragraphs that are best left off the internet...


This seems to be another problem of mine, book. I think, or am lead to believe, that I have a huge inferiority complex. But it isn't a complex if it's true, right? Most people are just better than me. I've come to accept this. Maybe I'm just being sensitive. I don't know. I feel adrift in a sea of hopelessness and doubts sometimes. Occasionally I'll find a piece of driftwood for a brief respite. For the most past I think I might just be depressed again. Or still. Do other people feel this way? I don't think you're helping me much. You never have answers for me, just more space for more questions.

That might be your primary function though, yah? Let me ask the questions and come to my own answers. Sometimes it's nice to just be told what is right and wrong. Thanks for the quasi-help, journal. I'm confused.

Later that day

I've been thinking about religion a lot recently. I turn to God if I ever end up praying and I've always sort of believed in a Heaven and Hell. But what if that isn't right? I fancy the idea of something more sentient than a human created the universe, cosmos, and everything. It seems less random and comforting. However, that means that we have to live up to certain standards in order to enjoy a peaceful 'afterlife'. I don't want to be judged by whatever made everything. I couldn't ever be deemed worthy.

However, if there isn't anything at all after death, why do we live at all? What is our purpose here? It all seems too cruel.

Perhaps each person has their own legacy to fulfill. They all have a destiny. That doesn't sound so bad. Each person is born with a purpose that they must discover for themselves. That idea proposes a lifetime of self-discovery. And it gives life meaning.

I've had a change of heart about you, journal. You are an excellent listener. I wouldn't know how to word these thoughts to people without being judged, but with you I can elaborate fully without that fear. Or without being proven wrong. Thank you. I just wish you could give me some input. It would be the conversational icing on this cake.

I think my parents might have forgotten my birthday this year. That sounds incredibly selfish. But they didn't even send a card. That makes me sad. What makes me more sad is how sad it makes me that I didn't get anything.

Sometimes I feel like I embody too many of the Catholic cardinal sins. I'm by no means a Catholic, but I do enjoy entertaining the idea of these seven sins being, above all others, harmful. As a refresher they are: Lust, Gluttony, Envy, Pride, Avarice, Sloth, and Wrath.

I exhibit all of these in excess. Except perhaps pride. I wouldn't get into Catholic Heaven. Maybe each person gets into their own version of Heaven. That seems awfully lonely. I don't want to spend the rest of eternity alone. I think my Heaven is a hotel. Each room is saved as each of my friends' and family's Heavens. I wouldn't want to be away from them for so long. Eternity is forever. I suppose the penthouse is reserved for me, but I don't think I would spend much time in there. I'm not very fond of being alone. When I'm alone dark thoughts creep in. My friends probably wouldn't want me interrupting their paradise Heavens anyway.

May 14th

Am I a loser, book? Sometimes I'm pretty sure I am. I have no goals in life. I'm not doing anything. I'm really not worth anything. I thought about not existing. That doesn't seem so bad, book. Would you be okay without me? Could you survive without me? Maybe someone else would pick you up and make good use of you. I know everyone else can. I'm not okay, book.

May 22nd

I called the Suicide Hotline tonight. I don't think I was going to hurt myself. But that's what I said last time when I actually did. I had to have my stomach pumped because I took 17 Vicodin. It was nice just to talk to somebody about my problems. I don't like burdening my friends with it. Sometimes I think they get tired of what I have to say. And I have to constantly keep them interested otherwise they won't like me anymore. I didn't know who else to turn to.

Taken from a comp. book

Hi. My name, as it appears on my birth certificate, is Nicholus Troy Frank. I suppose I intend this to serve as both a narrative of my life and an unedited proclamation of my emotional wellbeing. Let's start from the beginning...

My mother, the official epitome of a middle-child, grew up in a relatively small city called Lewiston, Maine. I'm not even certain if it appears on a map. It's but a blip in the cosmos. Both of her parents are accountants, as is her older sister. She, however, decided to take a different path and became a cardiologist. She moved away from po-dunk Lewiston and made a name for herself in San Diego, California. Bear with me, it doesn't start to get interesting for a little while longer.

My father is the youngest of 9 boys, from 6 fathers. He, in stark contrast to my mother, in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. His father spent most of his life working for the railroads. Conversely, his mother was both an alcoholic and prescription pill addict. In and out of rehab, she tossed her family's life down the drain only to develop early-set dementia. At seventeen my father had already moved out, worked two jobs, and went to school. However, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. and was stationed at Miramar, which just so happens to be in San Diego county.

Two twenty somethings met at a bar called The Rusty Spur and hit it off right away. They got married and without delay soon moved again. This time to Middleton, Tennessee. Unfortunately these two weren't quite rolling in the dough yes, so they happened to be living in a rented trailer.

Four months into their marriage my mother gets pregnant with little old me. As luck would have it my father was shortly deployed to Saudi Arabia for operation Desert Storm. This would be around July 1991. Not long after he is deployed, they are divorced. Easter comes and on April 19th, 1992, I'm born.

Diane, my mother, respects only one of my father's wishes and makes my middle name his first name as has always been in the Frank clan.

I was born a blonde-haired, blue-eyed ray of sunshine. I hardly ever cried. Potty-trained at one. Walking and reading at two. Impressive for a single mother. Several blissful years go by. As of now, we've moved back to California, and all is well.

Little did I know that one of the saddest and most poignant days of my life was to come.

It happened on May 12th, 1999. My seven year-old self was playing in the living room while my mother and her best friend, Lisa, were enjoying a bottle of wine in the kitchen, adjacent to where I was. Our house always smelled like my mother's perfume. At the time I loved the smell. Now it brings only dark thoughts and fears to mind. It's called Raspberry Glase and it's produced, or was, by Victoria's Secret.

Lion King was playing in the background while I played with some sort of toy. Probably Power Rangers. I remember hearing the offensive tinkle of a glass breaking and an immediate thud. Something similar to dropping a heaving duffel bag from the top of the stairs.

I ran into the kitchen, or started to, when Lisa came rushing out only to scoop me up and grab our home phone. The next thing I remember is watching two paramedics carry this tiny woman, whom I later found out was my mother, out on a stretcher.

She had cancer. And it was bad.

Stage two ovarian cancer, to be exact. The doctors, who happened to be her co-workers, claimed she had an expiration date. And a short one. 6 months. And all of that time would be spent in that hospital room. One night all of her friends gathered around her bed in loving memory and sang a song for her, holding her hands to show support. I still can't listen to In the Arms of an Angel without wanting to cry and break something at the same time.

Two two things must be made very clear. The first was that I was, am, my mother's everything. Her whole world. If there is a definition of unconditional love, it is that woman. I can be a fucking asshole sometimes and that woman has never loved me any less. The second, and slightly more important one was that she had never seen or mentioned my father in 7 years.

That night I was brought into her hospital room in the I.C.U. She told me everything. She sat me down and explained that sometimes bad things happened to good people. And usually there's nothing we can do about it. But we have to accept our losses because they are our burdens to bear. After she was sure that I understood that, my mother told me that she wasn't much longer for this world.

I don't know if it's just me, or what, but I can't even begin to fathom having to tell your innocent child that you're leaving them forever and that there isn't anything they can do about it. It almost seems cruel in an entirely necessary way.

Regardless, given that news I was pushed off to be with my father in Oceanside, California. Only a stone's throw from my mother, but I couldn't have felt further.

Here I was, 7, mother dying and forced to live in the care of a man I have never known. Granted, I was only with him for a year or so. In that year I experienced the closest thing I would ever call a miracle. Somehow, someway my mother's cancer went into sudden remission after my father had dragged me and his third wife to St. Louis to live.

It was late February 2000. One of the worst snowstorms downtown STL had ever seen. I am woken up by my father shaking me. The dim light outside setting a stark contrast against his sillouhette. But I can barely make out his red-rimmed eyes. He had been crying. Confused, I'm handed a phone. My mother's child-like voice cuts through my drowsiness.

'Hi Bubba! It's mumma. Were you asleep?'

I croaked out an unintelligible response. "Well, I need you to pack your clothes and toys, okay? Can you do that for mumma?" I nodded. Though she couldn't hear me, she knew I understood. "Good, I'll see you in the morning. I love you." Something my father had, has, never said to me. Something I hadn't heard in the past year at all.

Something clicked in my brain when the receiver shut off. I was going to see my mother again. I guess it's relevant to say that somehow she passed her expiration date and was now headed to come get me. Don't get me wrong, she was still very sick. But she was getting better. Enough to take care of a child. But she was going home to be closer to her family, in the event that she would still pass on.

Tears leaked down my father's face. To this day I've only ever seen my father cry twice. This time and the when I came out to him. Both times I've felt awful about it. I was taking something away from him.

The next morning comes and I haven't gone back to sleep yet. My mother's triumphant return into my life consumes my every thought. So much so that by the time she actually does arrive I forget to spare my father's feelings and don't say goodbye in person. Some part of me thinks he prefers that.

I jump into the Uhaul my mother's driving, with my every possession, and we take off to West Paris, Maine.

Fast forward, if you will, to 2009. My mother and I have been living in our new home in Maine. I happily visit my father every summer for two and a half months. But... there's one detail that has been overlooked. She has remarried a man named Keith. Keith, as it would turn out, is my own Hell on Earth. They married late in 2001 and stay together until 2010. We stop, however, in 2009, for a very pivotal moment in my life.

I had already been battling with mild depression. When I was 13 I was sexually molested by my uncle no less than 16 times. But... I'd rather not get into that story right now. Needless to say, I had quite a bit of baggage.

Late one night my stepfather woke me up and tugged me out of my bed, screaming the most awful curse words he could possibly think of. I wasn't unaccustomed to his rages by now. At 14 I had already gotten my fair share of 'punishments' which usually resulted in a series of bruises that I had to explain to friends and school faculty alike. They all suspected something, but no one knew the extent of what was going on. I didn't invite friends over and no one asked me twice about a black eye I had received doing something clumsy.

Either way, this particular evening was particularly interesting. Pulling me out of bed at some god-awful hour of the night, my stepfather slaps me across the face. It might be the humiliation of being slapped or just the fact that I've just been woken up, but I immediately start crying. I haven't told anyone this before, but this night is the reason why I take such serious offense to physical violence. Specifically being hit across the face.

"Oh, this is precious," he would jeer at me. Later did I find out that in the midst of me crying he got a video camera and taped this entire interaction between us. He would occasionally have the tape running to emotionally attack me or my mother. The tape hasn't been found by anyone but him, despite our best efforts.

"Stop crying you little faggot." This particular sentence has stuck with me for six years. I have never cared about derogatory named. They really don't bother me. Except for this moment. "I said stop crying"

The next thing I hear is a crunch and I'm on the ground, writhing in pain. My nose is broken and bleeding profusely. He punched me in the face. I've always assumed that he was drunk or high at the time. It helps me keep my faith in humanity. I literally had done nothing to provoke him.

My mother tore into my bedroom and started screaming at him. The tape shows the two of them getting into a physical altercation which ends in him slapping her and throwing her to the ground only to turn around back to me and drop a potted cactus on my head. He had gotten so frustrated with my crying and her screaming that he picked up the nearest thing to stop it. Unfortunately for me it cracked my skull and left a rather impressive scar on my forehead.

My mother got ahold of her cell phone, I was out cold, and threatened to dial the police. She is slightly vindictive in that she wanted to see his face when she called.

Keith wasn't going to have that. He held her at gunpoint for several tense seconds before she lowered the phone so he could smash it. The last thing on the video is him telling my mother to bring me to the emergency room to have me cleaned up and that if she ever uttered a word of this night to anyone that she would wake up with my head in her lap.