Rules of Despair

Sixteen years ago next month, Eric and I had what we'd forever call "The Summer From Hell".

We had planned to travel to Alaska together for the summer -- I had quit my job, and we had given up the rooms we rented in a shared house -- but that train was derailed when my brother was killed in Southern California. Eric followed me down to Long Beach to be with my family. I was sick, and distraught, and there was conflict with my family, and we soon hightailed it out of there.

We left Long Beach in the van we still hoped to drive to Alaska, but I became even more ill. Without a job, health insurance, or a place to live, I was admitted to a county hospital in Los Angeles for a week. Eric stayed in the van in the parking lot.

After I was released from the hospital -- still in shock that my brother Mark was gone, and still in pain -- we set out for Alaska again. Ah, youth. We made it to Oregon, but Eric injured his leg. We were doomed. So... we limped back to Oakland, and were crashing on a friend's floor while we regrouped and figured out what to do.

By the second day of crashing, I had had it. I was done. My brother was dead, and I felt I'd lost the rest of my family along with him. I was sick, and tired. I had no job, and no home. I said to Eric, 'Please, find us a place to live. Just the two of us."

Eric had been my boyfriend for just over a year.

He went out that day and found us a place that we could move into immediately. (That's Eric for you.)

I was grateful for the space, but depressed by the apartment. It was technically a studio, but there were french doors separating the rectangle into living and bedrooms. As we unpacked, I lamented the blue grey carpeting, the tiny kitchenette, the old bathroom. I questioned the dubious location -- across the street from a car alarm installation business. If you haven't lived across the street from a car alarm installation business, you've really missed something! It makes me laugh now to remember it.

But I wasn't laughing then. I was sad... not just about the apartment, but I was beaten up in general. I kept saying, 'This place sucks," and then I'd enumerate it's failings. And the whole time, Eric was beaming sunshine. He'd say, "Look, it's not so bad! Look at all the light it gets! We'll decorate it and make it cute! Look how nice the front door is!", and on, and on.

And then Eric went to set up the stereo. He looked for an electrical outlet on the wall where he wanted the stereo to go, but there wasn't one. He checked adjoining walls: none. He checked the "bedroom"... one outlet, far away from the living room. None in the bathroom. One in the kitchen.

Eric sat on the floor and put his head in his hands. Now HE was done. He said, "This place sucks! I hate it! There aren't any outlets and it's too small and..."

And I sat down next to him and said, "Honey, it's not so bad! Look at all the light it gets! And we'll make it look cute!"

That was a looooong time ago, and our lives and circumstances are very different now. we're heading off on a new summer -- a summer of fun, but without entirely sunny skies.

I'm sad sometimes. Sometimes I bemoan my fate, and sometimes I'm scared. Eric's always there, loving me up, as hopeful as he can be. I have some dark things to say. Eric hears them, and counters with whatever light he can find.

But when there are thunderclouds on Eric's face, and I ask him what's going on, and he struggles to even say the words: You're dying -- I hold his hand and squeeze, and say, "But first I'm going to live, right?"