22. As If No Time Had Passed At All

An essay on loving loudly and reconnecting with friends after prolonged separation

Hello, Beautiful Human,

I loved writing this piece for you this week. There was something magical about feeling my words as they spilled out onto the page. It’s almost as if I was feeling the experience for the first time. Then again, since I was so heavily medicated back then — maybe I really was feeling them fully for the first time. Either way, writing about Maura is always a gift and I am so excited to share more of her with you today.

Whenever I write about Maura, I am always reminded to love my people loudly. Maura had a way of showing up so fully in the moment that I couldn’t help but feel fully seen and celebrated by her. Truthfully, there was an armor to her love. It protected me from my own darkness and the rest of the world’s darkness too. With Maura, it didn’t matter if she made a scene, if her hug was awkwardly long, or if her laugh disrupted the whole room. It didn’t matter how many people stared at us and our shenanigans when I was with her because her love overpowered the rest of the world.

I’ve been trying to reconnect with this way of loving — with long smooshy hugs and gleeful yelps when a friend pulls in the driveway. It often feels scary to do it — vulnerable, naked even. But I never regret it afterward. In actuality, I think I’m grateful for it afterward because it’s brought me so much closer to many friends.

I’m rambling now but I guess what I’m saying is — let’s both give it a try this weekend. Let’s love loudly. It just might bring us our next best friend.

And now, without further ado, an afternoon I remember as if it were yesterday…

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22. As If No Time Had Passed At All

It was a Saturday afternoon when I got the call. The sun was streaming into my little apartment as I sat cradling my empty coffee mug. I had been marveling at the light beams and daydreaming about taking a short walk around the neighborhood. Taking a walk outside was a daydream, of course. At that point, I only left the house for work or squash. Existing in daylight was too terrifying of an experience to brave alone. My apartment was the only place I dared to be.  The outside was not safe and I honestly didn’t think it would ever be.

The piercing ring of the unknown number broke the peaceful moment clean in two and “New Hampshire Hospital” flashed across my smartphone screen. New Hampshire Hospital. NEW HAMPSHIRE HOSPITAL. Why the hell were they calling me? Fear shuttered through my body and it finally clicked — New Hampshire Hospital housed the locked inpatient unit that doctors threatened to send me to if I didn’t take my meds and adhere to the nurses’ orders. The threat of being sent to New Hampshire Hospital was the emotional warfare that nurses assaulted me with to get me back in line when I questioned them. In short, New Hampshire Hospital was where freedom went to die.

The weight of the situation hit me all at once. My best friend Maura wasn’t ignoring me. My best friend Maura wasn’t mad at me. No. Maura — the woman who finally understood me and offered me true friendship for the first time in years — was being held captive against her will at New Hampshire Hospital. She was literally a prisoner of her own mind and a psychiatric hold.

Fuck.

How could I have been so blind? 

How could I have ever blamed her for this? 

How could I have been so mad at her for disappearing and not calling me back?

Above all, how had I not thought of this?!

My stomach dropped and as I spiraled in self-loathing, I almost missed the call. Breathless, I caught it at the final ring but I simply couldn’t find words. Gasping and fighting against the impending panic attack, she found them for me. Effortlessly, the way she always did, she soothed my entire being instantly.

“OH MY BIPOLAR BEAR!!!! Have I found ya speechless?! Well isn’t that a first!!”

She giggled in glee at her own joke and as my body thawed and relaxed for the first time in weeks, I joined her.

My laughter quickly turned into tears of relief as the reality cascaded over me.

“I thought I’d lost you. I thought I’d done something wrong. I… I….”

She soothed my stutters with a waterfall of words and I imagined her stroking my hair like she had done so many times under her maple tree that past summer. Feeling relief wash over me, my tears quickly turned into deep sobs as I realized that without acknowledging it, I had spent the last two months believing she had died. I tried to say it — to explain that I thought she was gone — to justify my tears in response to what should have been unrelenting joy but as always, she knew exactly what I couldn’t say.

“I know, love. I know. But I’m not gone. I’m still here. We’re still here. You and me. And just like you always say, we’re still here and that’s forever enough.”

Maura went on to explain that after her last course of electroconvulsive therapy at the local hospital, she had grown increasingly defiant and after acting out one too many times, they had sent her to New Hampshire Hospital in Concord. She had spent the last month there and after waiting for legal aid representation with no assistance granted, she had conceded to playing by the ward rules. Finally, after two weeks of “adherence” which she mischievously shared were “the hardest two weeks of her godddd damnnnn life” she had been granted phone privileges. She said her hope was that she would be out within a month but if legal aid didn’t help, she would be there for the full 90-day hold before she could finally get out.

We spent the remainder of her allotted half hour of phone privileges in giggles and glee. She told me story after story about the NH Hospital ward fuckery and the new cast of characters she spent her days with. I told her all about my new job, the return of my demonic hallucinations, and my struggles with increasing incontinence. She hooted and hollered so enthusiastically when I told her the news of the job that she almost lost her phone privileges that very first day she got them, but fortunately, a kind nurse was on staff and allowed the outburst to go unpunished.

The subjects of our conversation that afternoon would have been considered offensive and traumatic to anyone else. But to us, the subjects were ordinary parts of our daily lives. They didn’t have morality attached. They weren’t bad or good. They simply existed. And when we shared them together, they belonged and they deserved to take up space. Therein lay the camaraderie we had both been desperately seeking our entire lives. Therein lay the psychological safety we had fought tirelessly to discover in one small corner of the world. And perhaps most healing of all, therein lay the gift of humor – so much humor. Sure, it was deeply dark humor –  one of psychosis and solitary-padded rooms — but it was entirely ours. It was entirely ours.

The call passed far too quickly but when I hung up, for the first time since Maura had been hospitalized, I found the bravery to walk outside in the daylight with absolutely no destination to run to and hide within. That sunny afternoon, I found the courage to hold onto the lingering belief that this messy, madness-filled self of mine belonged in at least one tiny corner of the world. And that self, in that tiny corner, deserved to walk freely in daylight even if she didn’t fit the world’s definition of what she was “supposed” to be.

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That’s it from us this week.

We are so grateful you are here with us and send lots of love from this cuddle puddle straight to you.

With LOUD love.

Kindly,

Kate