blah ya ya

this post contains material that could be a trigger to some.

in a couple of days, it will have been 14 years. 14 years is a really long time. it’s a lifetime, when life is what you chose.

14 years ago, i sat on the edge of a bed in a run-down motel on the outskirts of an equally run-down small town, and i heard the voice of god. and god said, “i will give you and your family safe passage if you will just leave”.

14 years ago, i was a week or so shy of my 19th birthday, and until i heard what god said, i didn’t believe i would see it.

14 years ago, i was about to become a domestic violence survivor.

14 years ago, i had one pair of shoes, two dresses. makeup and hair product were things i didn’t even dare dream of.

14 years ago, i had a job at a local pharmacy where everyone i worked with made fun of me for those things, and because i smelled like the rotten motel i lived in.

14 years ago, i had been brutally raped at gunpoint by my then boyfriend, then beaten severely in my face and body by the glock 9mm he held in my mouth as he violated me. i was being beaten at an alarmingly increasing rate. i had been locked outside of that motel room naked with the barrel of that gun pointed at my through a crack in the door in case i ran.

14 years ago, i knew that i would be killed soon if i didn’t find a way out. i knew that no one was going to say a god-damned thing to help me find that way. i had turned away the only 2 people who ever did ask me to leave. that causes me more grief all these years than any other part or parcel of what happened.

14 years ago, i heard the voice of god. and i did as i was told, for once.

14 years ago, i spent my first night in a women’s shelter. i slept beside a window for the first time in 2 years without the fear of being shot through it. i slept for 16 hours.

14 years ago, i listened to the voice of god and i began to live. i began to become who you know today. i survived.

i wrote this post to tell the truth. i hope that my truth somehow touches someone, anyone. i support the efforts of violence unsilenced in any way i can, and i hope that you will as well. if for any reason you could use some help, to hear the voice of god for yourself, click on their link. there is help there. there is understanding there. god is there, in however you see him/her.

late, late at night when my little hospital is all buzzes from flourescent lights and the crying ghost baby, one would think words would pour forth from my brain and through my fingers. meaningful, important words that would inspire and heal others.

one would be wrong.

when i am at work, i am at best an attention deficient, horny, potty mouthed 30-something woman and at worst an attention deficient, horny, potty mouthed 14 year old boy.

it’s all glo-zell youtube’s and LOLcats and “take me on your buggy”. i’ve got jimmy buffet pandora on the 1′s and 2′s and a coca-cola iv drip. i eat shit like skittles and gas station hot dogs. well, i used to eat the hot dogs. the little town i work in now doesn’t have an all night convenience store. pity them, because i was their best customer.

i send and receive insane text messages from my insomniac cousin and the on-duty law enforcement. if i’m lucky, my bff can’t sleep either and i catch her “online” and text her my undying affection, too.

my momma and i have this weird thing where we can feel each other if we’re awake when we shouldn’t be, and seriously y’all, i wish my momma would start tweeting the shit that comes to her in the wee hours. we could sell a million copies of it.

so, fellow freaks, what do YOU do in the middle of the night???

i wake up tired, i wake up pissed
i wonder how things ended up like this
but i don’t wonder long
because i’ve got another show to do

i open my glazed eyes to blurred piles of laundry. all mine, because laundry is one of my most messy spots. my ceiling looks stark and angry. i need to paint the damned thing. my walls are a buttery yellow, the color of the solar plexus. with walls that color, you should not have a ceiling that feels hostile.

i’m sick at my stomach from the A.Z.T
broke at my bank cause that shit ain’t free
but i’m here to stay, at least another week or two
cause i’ve got another show to do

put another roll of toilet paper on. empty the trash can. empty her bathroom trash. her foley is full, so i empty that, too. clean out the bucket. pile the laundry in the basket and start a load. don’t drag your feet on the floor in those slippers, she hates the noise and any noise she hates will drag her from sleep and it’s too damn early for that yet.

don’t give me no pity, don’t give me no grief
wait til i die for sympathy
just help me with this amp and a guitar or two.
i can’t die now, cause i’ve got another show to do

cereal in the bowl and cold 2%. i have to get something on my stomach, or i can’t take my own meds. and damn if i don’t need to go ahead and take my first dose. this weather has the fire ants in my joints gnawing their way out. i should drink coffee, it keeps me from eating. i always lose some weight when i get on coffee and off the food.

don’t give me no preachin’ no self servin’
and i ain’t no angel but nobody’s deservin’
i can dance on my own grave thank you.
but i can’t die now, cause i got another show to do

flip the tv on, check twitter, check email, check facebook…until the moment about halfway through that routine where i realize i’m hyper-stimulated and my hearts racing and it’s only 8 o’clock in the fucking morning. so i turn down the tv, to where i can barely hear it. i flip til i find some innocuous HGTV sort of stuff. i have to put the smart phone down until my meds have kicked in and i can handle it all.

some people keep sayin’ i can’t last long
but i got my bands, i got my songs
liquor, beer, and nicotine to help me along
and i’m drunk and stubborn as they come
chain smokin’, guitar pickin until i’m gone
gone, gone, gone

luckily, it doesn’t take too long. i fell back asleep for a half hour or so. when i wake, i’m sweaty and stable. i do a load of dishes after the clothes go in the dryer. the back yard looks bleak out the window over the sink. those damned blackbirds are nesting in my tree line again. i tip-toe back in the bedroom, and try for the first time this morning to wake her, stir her, get her up. “not yet” she says. “i’m just gonna lay here a little bit longer” she says. i ask her to take her morning meds, but her belly is upset again and she doesn’t want to move. “ok, but you need to get moving. you know you won’t feel better til you get moving”. i have a feeling she knows that.

i ain’t got no political agenda
ain’t got no message for the youth of america
except wear a rubber
and be careful who you screw. 

listen

i am an ER nurse.

i don’t talk about it an awful lot here at blahyaya, and i started to think that was kind of strange, which prompted the thought for this post. because the fact that i am an ER nurse is pretty much my life off-line. i try not to be completely obnoxious about it, but it’s one of the great loves of my life.

i am a self-professed trauma junkie. the gorier, the better. i don’t wish tragedy on anyone in this world, but i’d be a damn liar if i said that i didn’t want to be there to help fix it when it happens.

sirens make my heart race, hearing radio-talk between law enforcement, medic units, and us is like a fine symphony. blood and needles make me tingle. abnormal EKG’s are the stuff of my dreams.

the strangest thing happens to me when i’m in work-mode. when the shit hits the fan, when everyone else starts running, this crazy, deep, almost supernatural calm comes over me. every sense i have hones in.  my voice lowers, my hands steady. everything in those moments makes sense.

i’ve not had a personal life history that has had an awful lot of that calm. i was an incredibly fearful child and teen, that grew into a young woman with one hell of an anxiety disorder. impending doom became an integral part of my life and psyche.

when i fell into emergency medicine, it was coming home. i had a place for all the trauma in and outside of my head, my heart. and for most of it, i had the healing power. it became evident quickly that i had the gift for it. i don’t believe that would be true if i hadn’t lived through my life, experienced my experiences, developed my own personal neuroses.

i am able to provide something for people in the midst of a tragedy…i’ve been there. in many ways. i have been there. i know that sometimes, your worst nightmare…it comes true. it comes true and you have to keep going anyway. i’ve walked through that fire. and it makes my entire life to be able to reach out a hand from my own flames, to help lift someone else out of theirs.

doing this for a living, i have so much gratitude for it. for how it has healed me. i have so much respect for it. for what it teaches me. i have so much love for it. for what it has made me.

i’m alisha, i’ll be your nurse tonight. tell me what’s going on…

what do you want?

i want to be happy.

what do you really want?

i want to be a mother. i want to hold my child in my arms in this life, and just experience it.

what do you want?

i want to love and be loved.

what do you really want?

i want to be fired up about life and i want that fire to ignite everyone i meet. i want to see that fire burn brightest in my love, the person i share my life with.

what do you want?

i want peace for those i love.

what do you really want?

i want my family to have a run of just really good years. great years. i want everyone tucked in and resting each night and smiles on their faces every morning. i want to laugh more than we have in forever, joyous laughter, not sarcastic or cynic tinged you-might-as-well-laugh-than-cry laughter.

what do you want? but…what do you really want?

my first mistake is probably watching this cute little rom-com while battling a fever, but do you ever wish there were a way to re-claim that part of your relationship where you didn’t see each other every single day? the beginning, where you knew it was special, you knew you were falling in love, but the demands weren’t there. you lived semi-separate lives, so even the most banal conversations had a bit of zip and mystery to them.

i know that’s not really the point of sharing your life with someone. there are so many things i love about the everyday-ness of long-term love. but even when i’m fighting it, a part of me will always be the girl who wants to run away.

must be the fever…

once upon a time, a long time ago, in a place far away…i was 21. when i was 21 i was married, living in a suburb of fort worth, texas. i worked at a cancer treatment center as a unit secretary. i was as full of angst and brood as my 15 year old self could have dreamed of growing up to be.

my best friend was tabetha, a gorgeous, blonde 30-something divorcee who lived off beer, her cats, and getting her nails done. i thought she was absolutely the coolest person on the face of the earth. and she pretty much was.  she drove a red nissan exterra. we talked a lot, drank a lot, then she cried a lot.

after a particularly rough patch with my former husband, who was as far from the coolest person on earth as you could get and still be functional, tab and i had been to our favorite after work, during work, weekend spot. the lone star oyster bar in arlington. i swear i can taste the tap beer in the frosted schooners.

i clearly remember saying to her, “isn’t it crazy how fitting lyrics from songs that were written forever ago are? that song, that reo speedwagon “time for me to fly”…i mean, that’s my life, man. that’s my fucking LIFE”.  it was one of the only times i ever said something serious to her that she busted out laughing.

i don’t think about the women we each were at that point very often, because…well, that time in my life is very, very far away from the grown-up me and the life i’ve made for myself. but when i do think about us, i think about our innocence. i think about how we both felt like we were on the cusp of changing the world in our small ways. i know now that we were finding ourselves. that was the biggest point of self-discovery i’ve ever had.

i miss ol’ tabby, a lot. we keep in touch every so often, but ya know.

cheers to you, tabetha…then and now.