Timing
Let’s try one of these. There are a lot of old feels in the air tonight and sometimes a Screed is a way to burn them. I might as well do something with my time while I sneak out of bed to lay here on a hotel floor, hiding my distress, waiting for tomorrow to help me forget tonight.
I got abandoned a lot at hotels when I was young. Being abandoned wasn’t exactly uncommon for me, but it was extra hard when I was someplace without access even to familiar terrain. There were several versions of this but a common one when I was like 11 was for Pete and Joni and the Kids to take me to a hockey tournament, but only stay 1 of the 2 or 3 nights required, heading home without me, leaving me to make my own arrangements for lodging and transportation and good.
Usually getting a ride home, or at least back to town, wasn’t a huge problem. It was awkward to negotiate – particularly if Pete and Joni lied and said they already had – but I did know people who were going there and carpooling wasn’t uncommon. Food was less easy but I could go a day or two without, and often there were some snacks available for the team, and sometimes I could scrounge a buck or two to buy a soda and candy bar, so I wasn’t at 0 calories.
The lodging was more difficult. The existence of bag of equipment bigger than me made it difficult to hide my situation, and I needed to hide it because if adults get too uncomfortable they refuse to help. Closer to home I would have just hidden it outside someplace but at a motel in a tiny town in northern Wisconsin it was often difficult to locate someplace dry and secure and within walking distance. It was also terrifying to let it out of my sight, since it was the only resource I had in the world. While not exactly good winter gear, it did contain equipment suitable for outdoor use, and the bag was big enough to get into if I could stand being curled up inside a gym bag.
There are lots of other ways hotels are hard for me. It was a place I could not get away from people, and so I had to be on 24/7 – still and quiet and compliant and impassive. It was a place I could not access food unless my caregivers volunteered it to me. It was a place I could not be sure of my bodily safety as I slept. And usually it took place in the middle of some already stressful situation, like days of car travel with Joni.
I asked Shanda for help practicing not being abandoned at a hotel. This felt like a pretty easy assignment to me. We already have travel booked – all they have to do is not change their travel plans between now and Tuesday.
But when I ask for help it makes Shanda nervous too nervous to even pay attention to what’s happening, let alone do anything to change it. So instead of easily agreeing to not flee from me for a day or two they showed me fear and couldn’t agree to help. They guessed rapidly about how they must have done something wrong, because why else would they feel nervous. So I offered reassurance and went on with my day, hoping that if I just didn’t share it might make things feel safe enough for Shanda to not leave me in fucking Ohio.
There are 100 other things that are hard today. Dog died a week ago. We’ve been traveling for 3 days already. Shanda has been heighted for longer than that. I’m actively poking at undergrad memories. I’m in a building that smells like the sustained high stress from the first time I lived there.
And while I’m here it’s harder to ignore how much I miss M when they’re not around. I let it sort of fade when contact becomes rare – I force it to fade when I know I will have to wait a long time – but when I’m here in person that feel is much closer. When I’m a day from leaving the fear it will be my last contact is always very close too.
It would be great if it was possible to have just an inch more space between the worst and best parts of my life.
ZiB
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Sent from a phone.
