The Good Witch

I went my entire life without a decent nickname. I hand them out like candy. Well thought out, not always flattering, but to the point that if I said Mike, or Joe or Bob, literally no one knows who I am talking about.

Once upon and Annex 20 years ago, I was Sarah with the long hair. It was long, down past my ass. The other Sarah had a bob. Made sense. Lacked imagination, but it made sense.

In perdition I dated a guy, very briefly, we called him White Hat. He told me he had me saved in his phone as the Good Witch.

Things ended badly, then I got over it. But I shirked the nickname because of where it came from. And then I really got over it.

It has never mattered where or how things happen to us, it is what we do with the gifts we are given.

I am what I am.

He saw it.

And I see it too.

I’m seeing a lot of things lately.

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I have done myself a disservice with my hyper independence and my free giving of love and support while asking for nothing in return.

It is near impossible for me to ask for help.

I pushed away a man I love because it took me over a year to wrap my head around the idea that he liked being needed, that it satisfied him. It doesn’t matter anymore. Just another lesson.

I have started reparations with my family, but after 32 years of not being around, it is difficult.

And now with the pandemic, physical closeness is an impossibility.

I am having surgery sometime soon. Don’t know exactly when.

And by leaving perdition, I have left behind all of the people who could physically care for me.

I used to have 5 besties in the town I live in, that’s why I moved there.
One is gone forever, one heading to perdition herself, the other one just can’t, and two moved away while I was gone.

My son has really left the nest this time. Lives 2 hours away with a union protected job and is now enjoying his first apartment of his very own.

Attica is 3 provinces over nesting in her own way.

Most of my friends exist only online.

I could ask a few other people for help, but I haven’t really maintained any relationships since I left 3 years ago.

I feel like I went home, shoulders slumped in defeat. And it isn’t even home anymore. Just where my stuff is. It’s the roof I have been given and it is a good roof, but it isn’t mine. I never planned on staying, one perdition straight into another. But I am lonely here and I don’t have a job to go to anymore.

When I thought I had Lyme Disease at least I thought, “Okay, I take the meds, get rid of this bacteria in my system and then my body can start healing. Might not be the day I take my last pill, might even be a couple years from then, but I will heal.”

And because I had been quasi functioning with it for x amount of time, we figured about 2 years, I thought I could keep going.

But it wasn’t that. And even as I sit here typing this, more silicone is leaking from my stupid implant and wandering around my body causing havoc.

Take them out, sure, easy answer…but what about the rest of it? How do I get it out of me?

I honestly don’t know what to do and I am scared.

Flashbacks of pneumonia in Milton. 7 days of fever and delirium. Alone.

Well, I had the dogs, Nina nine times, Alice and Mika.

Never underestimate the healing power of 3 dogs refusing to leave your side.

Alice is gone, Mika too. Nina lives with her daddy a million miles away.

Kidlet has the kittens.

It’s just me and my attic and my house plants, and a car that won’t start.

And this is going to be 3 times that 7 days, bare minimum.

I could ask Giant; I might have to. The first 72 hours is going to be near impossible to survive alone. But that runs the risk of forever altering our relationship.

The impending vulnerability is almost as terrifying as the aftermath.

There is a distinct possibility of permanent, life altering mutilation to get these things out.

I am Tobias Funke in Arrested Development, graft versus host. Desperately trying to justify keeping my implants even as I get sicker and sicker every day.

I have headaches, debilitating hip pain that stops my legs from working, lethargy, numbness, inflammation literally everywhere, shooting random pain, dizziness, and vertigo with the occasional fainting spell. I used to drink 4 or 5 times a week to function and that was not sustainable.

I have always had stripping to fall back on and the ability to use my body to support me.

Even with missing one third of the things that make a woman a woman, don’t get at me about this, I am judging myself and no one else. I have a birth defect and it has colored my entire existence.

I have been a dancer on and off for over half my life.

It has saved me from every disaster that has befallen me.

It is an integral part of my identity and my livelihood.

I have always handled everything life has thrown at me. Always survived, but this feels like too much.

Every shake up and loss of this last year and I am not close to being out of the mess.

I have to get through this, there are no other options besides giving up and dying.

And as I looked into my future and saw nothing but blackness, I wondered if that was possible.

Is that what is going to happen? Is my heart going to give out? Has the silicone leeching through my body damaged me in an irreparable way?

Am I always going to feel like this?

I remembered being on a plane last year and hoping to god it would just crash because I couldn’t keep going like this.

I did keep going.

That’s what we do.

Other than once before in my life I never really wanted to give up.

Mid farm fuckery I had a handful of pills ready to swallow and just check out for good.

High school sweetheart called me out of the blue, after 5 years of no contact. He kept me on the phone til the battery died. I didn’t tell him. I didn’t tell anyone. I kept taking the pills instead two at a time, numbing out instead of checking out.

Eventually I left and things got better. Then worse, then better again.

I always had this tenacity masquerading as optimism, that things might not get better exactly, but they would be different, and I wanted to know what that would feel like.

I don’t have that this time.

I am flip flopping between Eeyore and Chicken Little.

I already know this year is going to be hard, call it a self-fulfilling prophecy if you want, I am past caring.

I am pre-tired.

I am literally always tired.

And I am really scared.

I am okay being alone, but this loneliness and forced isolation is too much.

I know what Chuck Palahniuk said, and I am holding onto that as much as I can.

It is only after we have lost everything that we are free to do anything.

But this is a lot to lose. I feel like everything good and stable in my life is being ripped away from me violently.

I can’t see the other side and my Pollyanna optimism is gone.

My Kittenface girl helped me make a Patreon account.

And this is as close as I can get to asking for help.

Help.

Please.

https://www.patreon.com/sarahthegoodwitch