The Sweetest Kiss I Ever Had

Enough angst for now. Here is a story for you:

It starts with a boy. I know this isn't a very unusual beginning, but bear with me: he's shy, with a dusting of blond hair and soft blue eyes. He laughs a lot, looks good in hats, and comes up to my waist.

He's two. Two and some change to be exact, and he's in the classroom down the hall from mine, five days a week. I'll call him Neil, just for this story, but I'll probably call him something different if he shows up again.

I've changed all the names except for mine, just so you know.

Neil is almost painfully shy when it comes to new people. The first few times I was the aide in his room, he always managed to be as far away from me as possible - not scared, mind you, or crying, just making a point to play not-by-Miss-Laura. I was warned by his other teachers to NOT touch him at nap time. He rarely goes to sleep, but just lays quietly on his cot. Any hint of the normal back-rubbing that we use to soothe tired, high-strung children is met by screaming on his part.

Leave Neil be at nap. Got it!

Sadly, to his dismay, Neil's the second oldest in his room. This means when we're playing the Numbers Game (dear lord, I hate the Numbers Game), he's at risk of being bumped up to the preschool room.

A tangent on the Numbers Game: at a daycare, we have to keep to Very Strict teacher/children ratios. Babies are four to one, toddlers seven to one, and preschool ten to one. So say preschool has thirteen kids that day, and toddlers have eight. If there are only three teachers for the two rooms, an older toddler would go visit preschool: this would mean that the preschool room had fourteen kids and two teachers, while the toddler room had seven kids and one teacher.

This is a very simple senario. I hate the Numbers Game.

Returning to the point, one day during the Numbers Game, Neil and one of the other toddlers were moved up to the preschool room. The other kid was fine. Neil, however, is terrified of the preschool teacher (not surprising; while the preschool teacher is very nice, she has a bad habit of yelling when stressed. Also, preschoolers have a LOT more rules to follow than toddlers).

I was working in the preschool room that day. We had a lot a lot a LOT of children. Hundreds. Billions of children. Why they gave us two more, I dunno, but it was what the Numbers Game had said. Neil, who is as yet unfamiliar with the concept of getting in line, was getting more freaked out by the minute. When the preschool teacher (in not one of her finest moments) told him to get in line and stay there, he burst into tears. When she tried to hug him in apology, he cowered away from her and bawled.

We managed to corral our zillion-plus preschoolers back into the classroom just in time for lunch. Lunch fixes everything, which is why we were astounded when Neil just kept crying. This wasn't the gloopy, gooey sort of sobbing that is the main reason for me having to do laundry far too often. He was terrified.

I was fairly new at the daycare, just learning that yes, I actually knew what to do with kids and yes, they do like me. Therefore it was with trepidation that I approached this terrified, panicking kid I had never interacted with. Th' hell was I supposed to do?

"Neil?" I said softly, turning his chair towards me. He hadn't moved since sitting down at the lunch table, his tray untouched. "Neil, do you remember me? I'm Miss Laura; I've been in your room a few times..." I talked to him softly, gently, about nothing in particular. He was scared, he was alone, he was afraid, he was stuck, he couldn't get out and go back to his teacher, he didn't know what to do, and he had been crying so hard he didn't remember how to stop.

I had been in the same place, less than two months ago. Oh God.

I held out my arms, heart overflowing, barely hoping, and he reached out to me in return. I swooped him up in the biggest, bestest, "you're okay you're not alone I'm here and I love you" hug I've ever given. We got out of there.

I found a lonely couch to curl up on, Neil tucked safely in my arms. He cried for twenty minutes - half an hour? - as I held him, singing softly. Once he was calmer, I read him countless books from the church's kids library. My coworker came to find me - "we need you!" - and he sat perched on my hip or holding my hand as I helped his classmates file to the bathroom before nap.

The first words I coaxed out of his mouth were a quiet, "I want Jenn." So I went to talk to the director Very Firmly and we played the Numbers Game until I could hand an exhausted Neil back to Jenn, his old teacher.

I ended the day with a headache and a quart of black coffee.

A handful of days later, I was put on Toddler Duty, back in Neil's room. It had been a long day (again) so I plonked down on the cheerful carpeted floor and said plaintively "Miss Laura needs a hug."

I love this part about my job - within a count of three, I was being hugged from all sides by no less than four or five laughing toddlers. I gave out six return hugs, four tickles, and one kiss to a finger with an owie.

I turned around and, before I could blink, Neil ran over, gave me a quick kiss, and retreated back into the kitchen. He was smiling sheepishly.

Now, whenever I linger too long at the toddler room, Neil runs up to the gate and yells "Go 'way Laura!", smiling like a goofy idiot. I, smiling in return, yell "No way!" and tickle him until he shrieks with laughter.

And that, my friends, was the story of the sweetest kiss I ever had.

The Ugly

If you're weak of heart or stomach, skip this one.

How do you write about the worst moment in your life?

Do you delve into the story, first person, locking the feelings on paper like a butterfly on a page? Do you show it from the outside, as if the audience was watching over your shoulder? How far back do you go to explain what exactly was happening? Why are you writing this at all?

This is the worst of it. This is the ugly bit.

I'm crying. Great, gulping, heaving sobs that sound more like a wet donkey than anything else. No restraint; I'm crying like you cry when your world's ended and no one can hear you.

I'm in the lobby of the busiest hospital in St. Paul.

The chair is standard waiting room fair. It's red. I'm wearing a red bandana, a faded blue sundress, tights, and battered converses. Glasses. Someone is talking to me from a safe distance. They're asking if they can call someone.

They don't get close. I'm covered in vomit.

I'm panicking, so far down that they almost send me to the ER, almost strap me to a gurney and take my shoes away, almost take me back to 5900. The two stolid shrinks from the outpatient program are called down - they talk to me softly, gently. I met them just this morning, sat through their program. Now I'm waiting for my dad to take me home, only I panicked with all the people, all the busy, and I threw up all over myself, sitting in the lobby of the busiest hospital in St. Paul.

I can't stop screaming his name in my head.

We broke up - he left - less than a week ago. Two days after I had gotten my shoes back. Six before I would start this program, and talk to any therapist. His loss is an unthinkable betrayal, except I deserve it for being so broken. I scream his name again and again, except I can't tell if it's a cry for help or a curse to the darkest circles of hell.

I think it's the former and I hate myself for it.

I can't hear the therapists. I can't hear anyone. I can't bear the look in my dad's eyes when he finds me like this. I can't bear the smell, can't bear the shame, can't bear hurting so much and being so alone.

This is the worst moment of my life. This is the ugliest part of my disease.

The Bad

We were curled up in a dorm room, in what would have been too close for comfort if there hadn't been booze. I don't remember what they were drinking, only that I couldn't have any. I was on a steady diet of depression, laced with self-blame, mock righteousness, and a helluva lota Stop Thinking And Chill Already.

The booze would have been much better, despite all the warning labels on my meds.

She was inches away, eyes dancing with the spark that only comes out of darkness. He was sprawled (except he never really sprawled, there was too much tension, too much power in his movements for him to sprawl. Say then, that he was relaxed) into her nearby desk chair.

It was the strangest triangle I had ever seen. She had asked him out - he refused, but they ended up being very good friends. I had asked him out, and had dated him for most of a year before he ended the relationship when I was two days out of the hospital. I had had a crush on her ever since the moment I first saw her, and recently told her this. She told me two things in return: the first was a secret, and none of your business, and the second was the excellent point that we were both too screwed up to date.

I still brought her a duct tape rose for Valentine's Day.

The point is that they were both making heavy inroads into tipsy, and I was stone-sober laughing and joking, teasing and prodding, all the while trying to hide that this was really really hard and I really really hurt and maybe I should please go and fall into the (frozen) Lyman Lakes so I could just stop feeling and hurting and being so alone.

And maybe I could patch up my heart with ice; it would at least minimize the bruising and keep the swelling down.

Anyway. I was on a tirade about something, you know how it is. I was too busy feeling to pay attention to what I was saying. Perhaps I was trying to argue that I was crazy, having been in the psych-ward and dropping out of school and all. I certainly wasn't pulling any punches. All I remember was this:

"...and you left me because I was crazy-"

"No!"

I stopped in my tracks because they had both answered.

"No?"

"No." he said, but I didn't believe him. I turned to her for confirmation, and she nodded, once.

"Then why did you leave me?"

He looked into his drink for a long, long time. "Because I realized I couldn't love you."

I snorted, mentally. Bull shit. I had heard him leave the instant I told him I wouldn't be coming back to Carleton for Winter term; but maybe that's just because I realized he couldn't love me that day we sat under the moon and I told him I didn't need saving, not from any God or Son-of-God, and he had looked at me with... well, I'll never forget his expression.

I left as soon as socially acceptable - or perhaps a bit earlier, remembering their surprised faces. I chatted about seeing other people, and she walked me out of the room, to the outside door. She asked if she could kiss me, and I said yes. Then I walked outside into the bitter February air and burst into tears.

The Good

I'm scared i'm scared i'm lost i'm scared help please help

"Laura."

please don't know what do to have to i'm sorry i'm sorry scared

"Laura, look at me."

so scared break broke i'm broken take me away gonna take me away

"Look at me."

take me away gonna take my shoes lock me up fail school never come back sorry so sorry so sorry so sor-

You know the magic kiss in the story, the one that breaks the evil spell? This wasn't like that. It was a bucket of cold water, a vial of smelling salts, a slap on the face.

Don't take me wrong, though, it wasn't a bad kiss. Quite the opposite - that's the point.

"You're okay. You're going to be okay."

Reality was a basement dorm room. Half was a huge, makeshift desk/workspace. Half was a mattress, clean green sheets, on the floor. I sat on the latter, blinking into the air. The neighbors were partying. The window was cracked open. The man in front of me was calm, steady. Firm.

"It's okay. You're going to make it through this."

I nodded and tried to take his hand. I already had it. He wouldn't let me let go.

"I'm here." He tucked my hair behind my ear. I studied his hand intently. Rough with calluses. Strong. Warm. Here.

"You're okay."

"Okay" was two days behind me and three months in front of me. "Okay" was just passed hell, then back again. It would take a long, hard road before I found "okay" again. But for a moment, then a minute, then an hour? I believed him.

Meditations with Coffee

How do I tell about God? I wondered, staring idly out of the church window. Outside, the clouds were sneezing a cold, dreary mist onto a world waiting for spring. The choir was practicing in the background, slightly off key, and my mind kept wandering away. My crotchety gray cat climbed out of my imagination and curled up on my lap, twitching an ear in annoyance.

How do you keep a wave upon the sand? Just as impossible to pin down. Do I have to? Not particularly. I sighed, curling around my coffee cup. The gray cat muttered as I settled again. Faith was complicated, unable to be stuck down by pretty little words. Ah well.

I wasn't too fussed about it. I knew about my faith, even if I couldn't define it. But did I need it for the story? "What do you think?" I asked the gray cat but he was asleep, or pretending. This is the story of the ten thousand steps it takes to get back again, and God has a part in there. But how to tell it? I thought of my bumbling, clumsy attempts to explain my thoughts to a Christian boyfriend, and exactly how well that went (read, not at all). Part of me doesn't want to tell anybody anything, because the story's too long and the words just don't fit.

Part of me just doesn't want to get hurt again for being different. Therefore, I shall sneak up on the subject slowly, come upon it sideways. The gray cat purred his content, for he has a place in the story too.