Page 25 of Alarm Fatigue

Chapter 18

My chest is burning by the time I get back through my front door. In the end, I did not, in fact run all the way home. I made it for about two miles and then ordered a ride share for the last mile. After unlocking my door and letting myself back inside, I lean back against the door before sliding down to the floor. I am gutted. I do not want to begin to think about how off-base my thinking on Mark has been. Whatever feelings I have been having on my end of this relationship, the sentiments were clearly not mutual. Or if they were mutual, he is clearly in a relationship with someone else, and that is almost worse.

I just sit for a while, until it feels as though my feet have fallen asleep from the position I am in. Eventually, deciding that I have the energy to pull myself back up, I do so. Glancing at my phone I see two missed calls from Mark. I have zero interest in further embarrassment today, making the decision to turn my phone onto airplane mode, a no-brainer. I head back to my bedroom, peeling everything off, and I put my pajamas back on. Now it feels as though everything hurts, like I suddenly have the flu. Or maybe I suddenly just have a broken heart.

Of course, the ache in my chest is not just about my impromptu race through town in a pencil jean skirt. That must have looked insane. It is the mortification of deluding myself into thinking Mark was on the same planet I was. I have no one to blame but myself for the humiliation of having had all of those feelings for someone who is clearly not reciprocating them. How did it not even occur to me that I could be off-base? I am older than him by years, he was friends with Eli, and he is totally gorgeous. What on earth did I expect him to make of me?

Honestly, now that I am sitting still with my disgrace, I do not know what feels worse: the guilt over pursuing my late husband’s friend, or the fact that I was not even on Mark’s radar as a person of interest. His message to me, apologizing for his behavior that night, must have meant that he had crossed a line that he had not meant to with his dead friend’s wife. He must have just been trying to tell me that he was full of regret over a drunken mistake. When he said he had been waiting years for that moment, I can see now, that must have meant it had occurred to him that I am a woman over the years, but not that he actually wanted anything like that kiss to happen between us.

His intention must have been to apologize for his behavior while intoxicated. Not only that, it is clear now that just because he wanted to kiss me did not mean that he had wanted to be in a relationship with me. Sheltered and naive, how could I have known that? I am so uncomfortable with what has happened today that cannot bear to think about it any longer. So at least for the rest of today, I will not. This is what I am really well versed in: hiding out in my own little world. I will just shut myself in and shut everything else out.

Even if I do not want to think about what has happened, however, the feelings are rising in waves. The feeling that I fear more than any other, is being embarrassed, because that feels more out of control than any other emotion I have ever experienced. Involuntary tears fill my eyes as I send a text to Amalie to let her know my phone notifications are off and why.

On the other hand, as I continue to rehash all that has transpired, I know that I do not regret calling things off with Seth. Even if Mark is not available, dating no one is preferable to being in a relationship with someone that I cannot even be myself with. Oddly enough, I suppose that in a way I am glad that all of this has happened. Maybe not the date with Jacob Gold; I could have lived my entire life without meeting that prince. To be clear, I am certainly not ready to embrace the events of the last day. Still, I am proud of myself that I went out of the house, and started to move forward with my life instead of continuing to hide in my safety zone. Today, however, is not the day to push that boundary any further.

More than anything I am hoping to God that my upcoming shifts are all going to be Mark-less. I definitely need a break from him and time to regroup. With that thought, I decide to take some melatonin and finish out this day in the quiet comfort of my room, hiding under my covers.

∞∞∞

Several days later, I now have some space between my nearly mortifying confession to Mark and trying to reset and reprocess everything within myself. I have kept close to home and played it very safe. I have baked all of my favorite comfort foods. I have eaten some of them too, but mostly I just keep putting them in containers and freezing them. For entertainment, I have stuck with “Murder She Wrote” like it holds the secrets to life within its script. Who knows, maybe it does? In any case, nothing triggering ever seems to happen in Jessica Fletcher’s world and right now I am living for that.

On occasion I find myself crying—while I am in the shower, when I am cleaning the litter box, even while eating pie. I do not feel sorrowful as much as I am feeling shame. That seems to be my predominant emotion. Knowing I do not deserve it and intellectually understanding that I am not a complete idiot—he did kiss me by the way—is one thing. I can know all the correct ways I should feel and think, but the reality of being the woman I am, with the childhood that is behind me, the shame of feeling like a fool and feeling unsafe, is my current truth. I know better, but I cannot deny that a part of me still believes that I am trash, that this is what I deserve, to have unrequited feelings, because who would want me? The other unpleasant sensation is I feel older than my years. Primarily I have a sense of being exhausted by life in general.

∞∞∞

Several more days pass and I am still in a daze when it is time to return to work. I know, because now I check ahead of time, that Mark is supposed to be here. I had moved my schedule around, but it seemed he moved some of his shifts around as well. He has not called again. He has not texted. In fairness, neither have I. Maybe his supermodel girlfriend felt so sorry for the frumpy American woman that she had not even mentioned that some lady had banged on their door and had run away at the first sign of the goddess Mark had found to keep his bed warm.

Unusually, I have not really talked to my children the last few days. I told Amalie what happened and asked her to let the girls know. At the same time I begged her to tell them all to leave me alone for a little while. I am having a hard enough time with listening to my own thinking and I know I do not need to hear anyone else’s thoughts right now. I have not felt this embarrassed for myself in so long. If only I had not declared my intentions before I confirmed he was actually interested in me. Actually, the only other time I felt this mortified was due something that had happened with my father, not something that I did to myself. I shudder at that memory.

I was in the eighth grade and it was the one time I had a boy come over so we could walk to the library together for a study session. In trying to protect both myself and my few friends, it would never have occurred to me to invite anyone over to my house. I knew better than to put myself or anyone else in that position. This particular boy felt like a safe bet, however. Not only that, he was not going to come over and hang out. We were just meeting up to head to another location. It should have worked out. It should have been fine.

His name was Daniel, and he was secretly homosexual. Well, it was a secret to everyone else. He had told me and so we had bonded over having to keep secrets from the world around us. He knew the little that I told him about my family. I had shared with him enough about how my father acted to give him a general idea. I also told him how my mother had died. Daniel was my friend but it is one thing to intellectually know about something and another whole experience to be directly involved in what happens behind closed doors.

I was still upstairs when Daniel arrived, and my father had invited him in. By the time I came downstairs, my intoxicated father had offered Daniel a six pack and a joint on the condition that Daniel tell him if I was a “good lay.” Needless to say, Daniel and I did not speak much after that. While I knew Daniel well enough to know that he understood my father’s behavior was not a reflection of me, I could tell it was all just too real and too awkward for him to bear. The truth was, in our community, people just did not act like that. It was just too much for a couple of messed-up kids to be adult about what happened. We basically avoided each other from that day forward. This was why I rarely exposed anyone to my family. But even that event was something that humiliated me from the outside.

This thing with Mark, however, is different. The truth is, this is the first time I have made myself feel ashamed of how I have behaved. I have always been so careful to keep myself safe—until now. This time, I was the one that embarrassed me. Even if Mark does not know the extent of how I feel, I know it, and it is a tough pill to swallow. I start to think about what an idiot I have been and it burns through my heart like a poison.

This primal drive to avoid being made a fool of—this has been what lies at the core of my deepest fears. It was my mother’s daily reality. Forced humbling, the crippling of her spirit, the way that, up until the end of her life, she could still be led to hope that something good might come to her, only to have it vanish in front of her eyes with purposeful calculation that was meant to keep her feeling small. I worked so hard to build myself a secure life and it took every bit of patience Eli had to be allowed inside my walls.

Look at me now, Eli.

Once Eli was gone I assumed the role of my own protector and constructed a haven for myself. Sure, I may have kept some of life out but at least I was secure. I cannot believe I allowed the deconstruction of my safe zone. Thankfully, I am still so surprised at how the plot changed course that I am mostly numb. At this point, I am too in shock to feel sad. I am sure it will come, but for now? I just need to be professional. I actually thought seriously about handing in my notice but I realized this fugue state is probably not the best time to make life altering decisions.

The surprises keep coming, of course. After I have gathered all my courage to show up to work with Mark tonight, hoping against hope that he has no idea that I was even at his home the other day, I arrive at work to find he is not even here. I walk into the office and see that Michael Grant is my attending. I feign nonchalance as he explains that Mark is not here tonight because he is interviewing for a new position. Apparently he is visiting a refugee camp in Greece and thinking about taking a job there. I did not see that coming. Trying to pretend to myself that I am indifferent, I go through the motions of my night. Adding insult to injury, work is painfully slow. I only have eight patients to round on and there are no events or new admissions. Plenty of time to think, which is exactly what I have been trying to avoid.

I eat my lunch alone, with reruns of my other extra safe show, “The Rockford Files”, playing on my tablet to try and distract me. What on earth is happening—is he really leaving? I meet up for morning sign out and go through the events of the night with the NP that will be taking over for the day. Someone has brought bagels and after going through the motions of washing and taking a tasteless bite I sit with everyone for breakfast and pretend interest in their jokes and stories of their own lives. Part of me is waiting for more gossip about Mark leaving, but there is no way in hell I will be asking anyone directly.

It is only when I finish my prayers after eating and get out to my car that I start to cry in earnest.

I wonder, vaguely, if I will ever stop.

Chapter 19

I do eventually stop crying, of course. All living organisms will eventually dehydrate if they continuously lose fluid. Given the luck I have had recently, I decide it is time that I am granted a change of pace. I need a break and so I do something for myself that I have not done before and I call out from my next two shifts. This has the added benefit of giving me the rest of the week off. It is not exactly a lie to say that I am unfit to work, of course, and I do not feel the obligation to explain what it is I am sick with.

In addition to that moment of mental health care, I have been making myself call Amalie, as well as my children, and reopen the lines of communication. It would be so easy to become a complete recluse. I know that is not true for all people, but as I am naturally inclined to be an introvert, I can feel the pull towards total isolation. So I fight it off by calling the people I know that I need to stay in touch with. For my own self-protection, the reopening of contact has been on the condition that we only speak about them and what is going on in their lives. The events of the recent past still leave the taste of definitive humiliation in my mouth and it feels too soon to rehash it all.

My grandchildren are the safest segue into re-establishing contact with the outside world, of course, so this is where I have begun. The twins are too young for their own phones, but Ariella and Rachel both have flip phones and I have been calling them every day. In the past, I would just talk to them a few times a week, but as they are the least likely people to grill me about my love life right now, I have been calling them daily—after school, after Shabbat and on Sunday evenings. It has been wonderful and just the remedy my heart needs. At first we just spoke about how things are at school, but more and more I am hearing bits about their friend groups and things that they worry about. They also like to spill the tea on their siblings which is kind of adorable. I wonder why on earth I have not kept in close contact with them like this before. These chats have become the highlight of my day.

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