up to speed, part two.

So in my best efforts to fulfill my filial duties as a good son, hearing the words, “mother”, and “surgery” in the same sentence not only expedited my plans but changed them.

Having just quit my job and having planned to live life in the A to the fullest simply by doing me, my mood was as consistently good as it had been since my diagnosis. I had wanted to come home ever so briefly and show my mother and little sister Nicole, the made-over me, but that phone call from Nina changed things, and quickly.

There was a hiccup of course with my last paycheck due to overdraft fees, so I couldn’t even afford to fly back home without my cousin’s help. She booked my ticket and I flew back the next day when I realistically could have stayed in my apartment for another two weeks handlin’ bidness and having fun.

Because narrative isn’t my strong suit, nor is it my preferred manner of writing, allow me to share on story that was indicative of the dynamic that prevailed during my time at home.

Of course after getting more news, it turned out that my mother was having something very minor done. My thinking was, if it was so minor, why say anything at all. I would have appreciated if she had kept it to herself or given details so as to not throw people into crisis mode.

Nonetheless I was back at home feeling swell, doing my best to function amidst the chaos. Psychological disorders seem to run matrilineally in my family. My Uncle is bipolar, my mother’s mother’s was suicidal (and successful I would later learn), and my mother, bless her heart, is a hoarder. As someone whose proclivity towards cleanliness, orderliness, and efficiency was probably developed to counter her own foul living habits, let’s just say there is bound to be some friction.

Hoarders, as I’m sure you know, regardless of there reasoning for their compulsion like to collect. And collect. And collect. Furthermore in my mother’s case her stuff is strewn about the house with no seeming method behind the madness. And though she swears up and down, she knows where all of her stuff is, this is the same woman, who, if asked for a cigarette, has to pat down ten different pockets in order to find one (and of course it’s rarely without a sigh or a teeth-sucking seeing as how she is with her nicotine).

In any case, rather than psychoanalyze any further, let’s just say my little sister is essentially a clone of my mother, and as such she adopted her habits to acquire material junk and then spread it around like a virus. And don’t ask either one of them to clean up after themselves as they had both implored my little cousins to do when they stayed with us at the house, because apparently that’s just too much to ask. Ever wanted to make yourself breakfast in a clean kitchen? Me, too. Only thing is at my mother’s house cleaning the kitchen will take a solid hour out of your day to the point where you say fuck it because nine times out of ten it’ll look like nothing was cleaned at all by the end of the day. Attempting to function in that house was like running on a treadmill at world class speed 24 hours a day. If you wanted to get anything done, (e.g., personal goals – I came back from the A with a  8 page typed lists of goals, categorized by type – yes folks, it was that type of party), that required focus, good luck finding a clean and orderly space to do it.

Perhaps my frustration is shining through, and if so good. If not let’s just say cleaning up after two women with these habits, a shedding and unspayed dog (canine blood on your sock is a good way to fuck up anyone’s morning), and attempting to function, simply didn’t work out too well.

Rather than regale you with details of each and every incident that let to my premature departure, I’ll highlight the one that was the proverbial straw that broke mama’s humpback.

On a night like any other my mother and sister were in straight veg mode, watching some vomit in your mouth inducing trash TV. Rather than pace and surf the web in the other room, I decided to take the dog for a walk. Truth be told, maybe it was the boredom or frustration, or them both in concert, but for a good time over my four month stay at home, I was somewhere between elevated and hypomanic. For me this means a relatively low degree of synchronicity (finding meaning in certain stimuli, that to others may be disregarded as insignificant). Combine this was some delusions of grandeur, and you’ve got a recipe for adventure. Back to the chase. I was at the part and it was probably around midnight when I passed the pool, which had recently closed for the winter. Closed for most people that is. I tied the dog up, climbed the 15 foot high chain link fence, and went for a dip.

Of course, it was trespassing, but I’m rather conscious of the decisions I make the consequences that any of them may carry. To borrow from Jules in Pulp Fiction, the what if’s are always contemplated. Worst case scenario, a cop could have seen me, which could have earned me a stern warning or a trespassing charge. The former would have been shrugged off, and the latter would more than likely have been dismissed as the good courts in Newton typically don’t waste their time trying nonsense cases. The risk was taken and nobody was the wiser.

Unfortunately, however, it was colder than had been expected, and I found myself walking around dripping wet when I passed by the middle school and noticed one of those obstacle course that they used for team building activities like trust falls and such. I untied Beta, (that’s the name of my mother’s German Shepherd, by the way) and walked over to the obstacle course.

After messing around on the equipment for about 15 minutes, it seemed like Beta must have been PMS’s in a major way or something. Either that or she wanted to let me know she would be deducted style points from the way I mounted the obstacles, but this bitch ( and yes, I can her that without reproach or hesitation, as she is a female dog), started attacking me.

A german shepherd in the middle of the night decided to use your extremities for chew toys can be a little more than off-putting especially when the motivations and intentions and possible outcomes of her chomping are all unknown. Rather than wait for her to lock down on my jugular and bring the night to a terrifying close, she was ditched.

To this day, I’m still not sure what cause her to turn on me. Maybe her microchip went haywire. Shit who knows, maybe she didn’t take her bipolar meds that morning.

I decided to walk of the pain and confusion, since by that time it was the middle of the night. Knowing my mother had already, locked up for the night, I did my best Forrest Gump, and kept walking. And walking. And walking, somewhat aimless until the sun started to rise.

Of course by the time I got back the door was still locked. Time to get creative. I decided to get in by removing the AC from the side window, because my teeth were chattering by that point. Having ditched some of my clothes at the park, to the best of my recollection, I had on a hoody, soaking wet basketball shorts, and a mean mug, the result of the spots of blood that had collected by the bite marks on my hands and arms.

I’m shimmying through the window, when my mother sees me from the inside. She meets me at the window as I’m climbing in from the outside, and the first thing she says to me, looking disheveled and out of sorts is, “Chris, where’s Beta?”