When A Stabbing Prevents "My Time"

Ingredients for this My Time: a variety pill pack, a cell phone, a fear that others think "it's all in your head."

Sometimes you have your whole week planned out for some necessary, calming, agoraphobic, distrustful-of-the-world My Time.

Then upon elegantly crossing one leg over next in your 'UAR (That's my Jaguar. Most call it a "Jag," but that sounds too much like the one-syllable-named men my mother dated in the 90s, or like my favorite man of all time, GAR, from Mask):

Come to think of it, maybe my 'UAR can be called from now on my GAR, which is close enough to CAR that people won't notice, and when/if they do, they will simply be delighted.

I digress. So you're elegantly crossing one leg over your leg's companion (that's your other leg) in your car after taking a couple of "clouds" to calm the appearance of an old flame in public (lesson one: going into public has consequences) in front of the furniture store you plan to go into once you feel the "blue calm" of your "clouds" kick in so you can spend, spend, spend away that pain by purchasing large, fake branch coral mounted on plastic and scream that you'll take ANYTHING THAT IS FREE TRADE BECAUSE YOU'RE ETHICAL OH LIKE THAT GREAT PLASTIC RUG. Then your phone rings (lesson two: having a cell phone has consequences). It has been so long since it rang that you've forgotten what that sound was, so after first being alarmed that you took the wrong "clouds" you laugh quietly (good, they're working) and answer the phone which has an unknown number on it (excitement! who could be calling little ol' crazy me?! is it my dream man? is it Publisher's Clearinghouse? is it GAR?). And you get told that your sibling got stabbed by his girlfriend, in the jugular vein, with a ball-point pen. That little philly who manages a Southern California Forever 21 has got some real need for My Time, clearly. And yours has been ruined! For shame. Better call your doctor in Juarez who gets those great deals, because this is going to require immediate Botox to hide the terror, worry, shame for not stealing your sibling while he was a child, and love for men from your face.

Well, that was a waste of xanax, wasn't it? I mean, CLOUDS. So now what? Well, you listen to your mother.

She explains that he survived but has refused a hospital stay, that the police and EMTs arrived immediately, and after caring for him, even one officer felt comfortable enough with his not-gonna-die-today-so-suck-it-jugular-vein to joke, "do you like to write on yourself?" because of all the pen marks on your sibling's neck. The only thing more hilarious is their polyblend uniforms. Oh, Honey. You mother takes a long drag off of her Capri Lightl, adjusts her diamond earrings that you hear scratching her diamon-encrusted Iphone, and seeks to calm you, her only daughter, her beloved child, by reminding you of her moral center, remarking that she even told your sibling that "love and violence don't go together." As you pour some CALM SPIRIT Chinese supplements down your throat, there we go, that's nice, and attempt to repress some memories in your' UAR, you hang up the phone with her after she tells you that he is staying at a woman named Paris's house and has memorized your phone number, so will call after some much-needed healing. It's true, her moral center. Love and violence don't go together, hooray for moral truths! Which is why she doesn't remember having an axe in her head, preferring to call that time "when I fell on a lamp," as most women, tall as trees, are physically capable of.

But who knows what you remember? There is a difference between truth and fact, and since you've been feeling like no one thinks you're sane anyway, maybe she's right. She is Mother, after all, your first authority figure. Oh, while that occurs to you, take another pill. Maybe nothing has ever happened as you remember, or as Mother says, "Dagmar, why do you remember your life so wrong?" and maybe the actual words that you've heard that hurt the most, that make your neck throb not out of sympathy, but out of a wish that you had been stabbed instead of him, that you could protect him, (and secretly) that you would have physical, factual evidence of being fucked with instead of anecdotal references to what ails you (that anecdote being your own words, for what facts do they represent besides the fact that you are talking?). Your mother sounds so calm on the phone. She is comfortable with these kinds of situations, for they are usually her own--that is, if you trust yourself, your own memory, and your own ability to remember the actual events of your life and the actual words that have been spoken to you. And this is where the My Time is needed. You think it matters what other people think about you, your words, if what you say happened is true, but it doesn't matter, Honey. (lesson three: Oh Honey, staying alive, loving, breathing, speaking, they all have consequences, and the other option, well, it's so final for a girl like you who is still deciding what to call her Jaguar and what pills to take.)

The real ingredients for this My Time: do what the expensive, ambiguously European shrinks you pay just to be able to provide the world a totem of your sanity tell you to do: breathe deeply, Honey, you're safe. Give 'em Hell because you know what that is. And it's a gift being able to actually know the truth of Hell instead of speculating what could create it and how you might be involved.

As your favorite "martini mornings" advice column, Dear Sugar, tells you:

"You have my deepest sympathy and my most sincere understanding, but you’re not thinking clearly on this. You’re granting the crazy lady [in your head] way too much power. Your sorrow and fear has clouded your ability to be reasonable about your mortality. And if you continue in this vein it’s going to rob you of the life you deserve—the one in which your invisible inner terrible someone finally shuts her trap."