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