CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - A NEW DAY

It’s time to look on the goddamn bright side already.

Dearest Nurse,

I have a new lease on life. Like the sun coming out again after months of grey. And don’t worry, it’s not a date with some random herpes dude - though Plays Scrabble did write me back after my ridiculously embarrassing series of messages. No, dear Nurse, everything is shining a whole lot brighter today for one reason and one reason only: I am finally getting some sleep.

I have had issues getting proper rest for a couple years now, as I mentioned previously. When Little was a baby, it made sense. She woke up at all hours, so naturally, I woke as well. Then, from about 12 to 20 months, she had a very unfortunate habit of waking up at 5AM. As she and I shared a room, she in her crib, and I in my bed, I woke with her. every. single. day. After nearly a year of that, despite the fact that she started sleeping later, my body had been trained. 5AM or bust. I couldn’t sleep past it. I started going to bed at 9AM to compensate, but I knew that wasn’t sustainable. Even Big goes to sleep later than that on weekends, and she’s 7.

After leaving Paris and my crazy week with Romeo, the sleep issues got worse. My eyes would fly open at 4:30 or even 4. As much as I tried, all I could do was lay there in the dark, unable to stop my mind from racing. And a few nights, I’m honestly not sure if I slept at all.

Back in my graduate school days, I would experience occasional insomnia. One or two days a month, usually around the onset of my period, no matter what I did, I could not fall asleep. I would lay there, more desperate, sad and angry with each passing hour. Getting up, going to the bathroom, back to bed, and closing my eyes again. Breathing. Attempting to clear my mind. Everything you’re supposed to do, but still nothing. Sometimes on these nights I’d erupt into a fit of tears, beating my pillow, and sending Paris to sleep in the other room. I did learn eventually, however, that stressing about it does absolutely nothing but make things worse. If I just stayed calm, even if I layed awake for six hours, usually by 4Am or so, I would drift off. And hey, two or three hours is better than nothing.

My problem now, however, was not falling asleep, but staying asleep. Or rather, falling back to sleep after having been asleep. But the general issue seemed similar. I knew that freaking the fuck out wasn’t going to help. I just had to be patient with myself and make subtle changes in certain areas to try and alleviate the problem. So, I did two things: I stopped drinking black tea and coffee entirely, and when that didn’t work right away, I stopped drinking water past 7PM. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve always been someone who needs to pee a lot. Now I know that has a lot to do with Tilty the Uterus. Perhaps if I could keep my bladder happy, I could stay asleep longer, and avoid the 4AM wakeup altogether.

But now, on the third day of having slept for approximately 8 hours a night, I’m not sure the answer lies in either of those things. I think I was unhappy. I think I was stressed out about almost everything for a long time. And then, I left Paris and turned my life upside down. I’m pretty sure any therapist would tell me that was likely the cause of my sleeplessness - and since I’m losing my fancy insurance in a few weeks, my hunch will have to suffice. But things are beginning to settle now, almost a month and a half in to my new existence, and with it comes easier smiles, deeper breaths, and better sleep. And let me tell you, dear Nurse, those things combined put a new spin on just about everything.

I’m tired of thinking about all the things that make me insecure. I’ve done that work, and now I’m exhausted by it. So, from here on out, for the final ten days of the Juliet Anonymous Project, I am going to focus solely on what makes me great. The parts I like best about myself, and celebrating who the fuck I am after all these years. So, if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to share a few of my favorite moments with you.

When I was sixteen, I brought a homeless woman home with me. When my parents found out the next morning, they were horrified. She was seven-months pregnant, and I had given her every cent of babysitting money I had saved over the past four years. I didn’t care. She needed it, and so far as I know, put it all to good use.

Later in high school, I had a hopeless crush on a guy in the grade above me. The two of us had been in a play together, and after every scene he would high five and chest bump me in the wings like a weightlifting buddy. This should have been a clear sign that I had been friend-zoned, but like I’ve said, I’m really good at hearing what I want to hear.

I couldn’t wait until closing night so I could tell him how I felt. I planned out the whole thing. We’d go to the wrap party, then I’d ask him to go for a walk. We’d settle on grassy Suicide Hill by the Brooklyn Bridge, overlooking the cars speeding by beneath us, and then I’d finally say it. Tell him exactly what I’d been thinking about for the past month.

He left the party with me. Everything was going to plan, until…

He took the time alone as an opportunity to confess his secret love for another girl in his grade who, much to his dismay, liked someone else. I listened and nodded as my adolescent heart crumbled. Then, something on that grassy hill triggered a massive allergy attack. His face and throat swelled steadily as we talked, until he simply had to go home. One of his eyes had swollen shut. He must have been completely humiliated, but in spite of everything I had just seen and heard, I still had a mission to complete.

“I know you like [Older Girl], and that’s cool, but I just want you to know that I’ve had a huge crush on you this entire time, and… I really like you.”

He just stood there, looking at me with his one, barely functioning eye.

“Oh, wow… Thanks.”

Needless to say, we never ended up getting together, but that wasn’t the point. The point was, I had decided I was going to be brave that night, and hell or high water, unrequited love or a trip to the emergency room, I was going to do it. And so, I did.

In my early twenties I had a few gigs working camera department on various indie films. One such film was shot in the middle of the Nevada desert. Miles from a decent restaurant, let alone a camera repair shop. We only had two camera batteries - heavy, romance-novel-sized plastic boxes with metal holes on the underside where they plugged into the back of our massive HD cameras. With our crazy shooting schedule and minuscule budget, if a single one of those batteries went down, it would mean disaster for the entire production.

While the A unit was off shooting a car scene with camera one, I noticed the other battery had melted on the charger. Plastic goo had filled the metal holes and hardened there. There was no way this battery would work in this condition. But as soon as the A unit got back, they would need it. The director of photography would shoot his hand out of the car window, hand me the old battery, and expect this one, fully charged and in working order, before speeding off for another take.

My heart raced. The assistant director had given me such a hard time thus far. Berating me. Making me feel useless and slow. I couldn’t stand the thought of giving him another reason to treat me like shit. I had to find a solution, and judging by how long they had been gone, I had about seven minutes to do it.

Thinking on my feet, I remembered the steadicam operator randomly showing me his wireless soldering iron a few weeks before. I dove into his personal belongings, found it, and fired it up. Thankfully, it got just hot enough to melt the plastic. I dug all of the sticky, black mess out of the metal holes in record fucking time.

When that car came rolling back in, without a word, I tossed the DP the battery. He caught it in one hand, gave me a nod, and off they went. In that one magical moment, I felt like a superhero. No one involved in that production had any idea, but I had just saved the day. I never said anything about it. I didn’t need to. It was that good.

When Big was two years old, she shoved part of a peanut up her nose. Paris was at work, so it was just the two of us, and she was terrified. We both were. That piece of peanut had gotten very far up there, and no matter how much she blew and blew and sneezed and sneezed, she couldn’t get it out. She was crying so hard as I probed around with one of those infant nose suckers, trying to dislodge it, while attempting to soothe her. But the truth was, I was panicking too. My heart was pounding, I felt completely helpless, until, much like the soldering iron bit, I had an idea.

I ran to the bathroom and grabbed my pimple extractor - a long, thin bar with a loop at the end in the shape of a tiny spoon. Big’s eyes were wide with horror as I made the slow approach toward her nose, tears streaming down her cheeks. I held her and looked her right in the eye.

“You have to trust me right now. Do you trust me?”

She breathed, measured her mother’s eyes, her tone, and the instrument in question, and nodded. In that moment, I’ve never felt more empowered. She trusted me more than I trusted myself, and no matter what, I would not let her down. She lifted her head, and with the tiny zit popper spoon and a flashlight, I finally managed to scoop that damn piece of peanut out of her tiny sinus.

Afterwards, we hugged and laughed. It sounds so silly, but that was one of my proudest moments as a mom. I was cool under pressure. My amazing little patient had put her trust in me, and I had delivered. It was such a high.

Today, while I was on my way home from Friar Laura’s after a much needed catchup sesh and tarot reading, I got a series of texts from Paris.

I have to come back!!!

This fucking sucks.

I will come back and finish this Wednesday morning. And then you will be free.

Paris had gone down to the courthouse to file his response the the summons. Apparently, the forms I had supplied him with weren’t the correct ones. They had given him the forms he needed to fill out, but refused to give him a pen. A fucking pen. So they sent him packing.

It’s just like… don’t they know your world is flipped upside down. This isn’t the dmv, have an ounce of compassion.

She treated me like a criminal/neglectful father.

I could see him on the other end of the line. Feel his despair. It’s not just that his wife left him, that he’s heartbroken, broke, trying to put his life together and rebuild his self esteem, he also has to deal with this fucking inherent bias. A world that just assumes if you’ve been served with papers, you’ve done something wrong and you’re an asshole. Never mind the fact that the court forces you to serve your spouse whether the divorce is contested or not. Never mind the fact that he would never, ever withhold anything from his girls, yet he is still forced to pay the minimum child support. (I’ll never ask him for it, but in California, you can’t waive child support. So dumb.) Never mind the fact that he’s a good man trying to do right by a woman who no longer wants to be with him. He’s the man in this situation. He’s the one being left, and as such, he is guilty, guilty, guilty, and undeserving of something as benign as a pen. A fucking pen.

I had just spent the past two hours with Friar Laura confronting my truths and demons. Understanding there was still much work to be done, and that I must keep my feet on the ground. In another world, or if I was another person, I probably wouldn’t have had the time or the energy to be there for Paris in that moment. But, here’s another thing I like about me: When it matters, when it’s right, I will always make space.

I’m so sorry. This is a very sexist system.

Don’t let a bunch of assholes who don’t know dick make you feel bad. You’ve been handling all of this so well. Fuck them. They don’t know you.

And I mean every word. Every. Single. One.

But there’s one more thing I need to do right now to start letting go of my negativity and embracing what I love about myself, and that’s forgiving. I already have. I’ve forgiven N, but I need to let him know that. Not for him. For motherfucking me. And so, finally, after letting his message sit in my Facebook Messenger inbox for a week or so, I responded.

Thanks for writing me back. You could very easily have not responded or blocked me, but you stepped up, and that shows a lot of courage. And it's not bullshit psychology. Anger sucks and it doesn't really do much good at the end of the day... I just want to let you know that your message helped. You confirmed suspicions I had held onto for a long time, and while it hurts to know you knew what you were doing, it gave me a sense of closure. I know you're not a bad person. I've always known that. I think you're probably a very good person, who made a shitty, thoughtless mistake. So, I want you to know that I forgive you. You completely upended my world and changed the course of my life entirely by giving me this virus, but the truth of the matter is, I love myself and my life is beautiful. It's taken me a beat to realize that, but it's true. So, maybe everything does happen for a reason. Either way, I want to thank you for responding and being honest.

[Juliet]

And… send!

These are the things I love about me, dear Nurse. I am compassionate, I am determined, I am dogged in my goals, I am courageous in the face of fear, and by fucking god, I can forgive. I can forgive and I can move on, and I am going to be the happiest god damn version of myself there ever fucking was, because that’s who the fuck I am.

Woo! That feels good!

Sincerely yours,

Juliet