and so it begins
Continued…
I’m sitting at Gatwick in a wheelchair. I have enough money to last two weeks. Two weeks. Then I need a job. I need a job now. I also need to figure out how to use the public transportation system, how to get a dial up connection and how to not get raped in an alley. These are all things my sister says are important.
I got sick on the plane. This psychiatrist they sent me to see once, said that if I can talk myself into it, it’s probably not a seizure. The neurologist who was in the same room said, if it hurts, it is.
You may as well be in outer space. You may as well be in another world. Big deal you’ve been here before. Who do you know? Who do you have? Nobody. And what do you have? A life compacted. In a blue American Tourist and an over sized Adidas bag. And forget about school. School is something else all together. You have to find out if you really have a roof over your head first. And if your room mates are serial killers. And if you can actually afford to be here to begin with.
I was thinking all this when I blacked out. It hurt. I may have thrashed about some, I dunno. But the guy sitting beside me wasn’t sitting beside me when I came to. A crew member was. She got me a wheelchair because they didn’t trust my legs to carry me. I didn’t tell them my legs probably wouldn’t have carried me anyway.
One of the people I’m suppose to be living with – I’ll believe it when I see it – gave me her number. I talked to her last week. She told me to call when I got in. She’d pick me up. I hope she hasn’t changed her mind.
My connection’s here. I think I’m gonna throw up.
14 August 1998
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15 Responses to “and so it begins”
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hey i remember the large carry-everything-in-the-world-but-stephanie to england adidas bag! oh how i wanted to be the passenger of that plane! I would have held your hand….:)
Amazing. In some way, reminds me of myself when I first arrived to Leeds, worrying about the very basics (which were taken for granted in Spain). But life’s about adventures, isn’t it?
I love it, Buffy. Strangely enough I find it is like reading SK’s stuff. The style is quite similar. I can’t wait for more.
I don’t think it’s anything like SK’s stuff. Stephanie is self absorbed and often too prose like ..for a blog anyway.( which is why I like to read). Buffy’s post is much more raw. Not soo dramatized.
Buffy, I’ve been visiting your blog for awhile. Enjoying reading your adventures. I’ve often thought the late nineties have been very underrated – glad to be getting a flashback through your writing. And after your first sentence on 1998, I’m hooked.
Cheers to the courage to leave. To seeing beyond. To not letting other people’s silly fears become more important than your dreams.
Christmas Eve 1998. MY mother followed me to the airport and tried to stop me from boarding a plane headed for NYC. My gma shoved $500 into my pocket. No one had ever left before. They all thought I would come back broken by the city and ready to spend my life in a country home surrounded by corn fields and tobacco-spitting men. I knew I would never return. And there isn’t even an ocean in the way.
Well, that’s one way to start a new adventure. I’m certainly going to keep reading!
You and your writing is a gift to this world. And to my world.
You say so much in so few words. TT will be very touched by this post.
Wow, this is nifty.
Half of the time I don’t even remember 1998
Lisa….clearly you had a better time than I.
caution: you’re going to start a stampede of folk revisiting their trauma-induced-blog-inceptions, and I’m not excluded from that sorry bunch!
you brung it. Just so’s you know…..
(there was a wink after that last comment, btw)!
Wow! I rarely go back and read my journal entries b/c it puts me in a weird mindset.
Buffy – Doesn’t this entry make you realize how brave you were and how far you’ve come in creating a new life for yourself? I find it fascinating!
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