I guess if I am to explain what I am now – I have to start with what I have been. I’ll try to get to the point directly, but I admittedly don’t tell short stories. When I was thirteen, I lost both of my arms. But I need to start at the beginning, I had a best friend, Emma – just like best friends do at thirteen we went everywhere together, there was no separating us, we were as thick as thieves, whatever that means. A big storm blew through our town(I grew up in the South) around this time of year, Emma had come over to wait it out. There are so many things I don’t remember about that day(like where we were going, what we were going to do when we got there), likewise there are so many things that remain permanently etched in my memory, like the ice cream wrapper caught in the gutter and the bright orange VW beetle with a cracked windshield cocked sideways, because one tire was up on the curb… and Emma, her face, I guess I was in love with her, even then but what does a thirteen year old know of that.
They looked like ropes, about 6 inches off the ground, it happened so fast I had no time to process it, or get that feeling of your hair standing on end. Emma reached down and grabbed one just like that, if I had come to it first, I would have done the same thing and maybe she would be telling this story, but it’s not that way. Those ropes, downed power lines and Emma had grabbed a live one, and it hung on to her for dear life, next thing I knew I reached out, there’s no time to think, you just react, I grabbed her to pull her away, I knew I could pull her away, and that’s it, lights out, I woke up in a hospital, no arms and Emma had been in the ground for two weeks when I had any sense about myself. Can you imagine being 33 years old and in love with someone that will forever be thirteen, sometimes I try to imagine how she would look now, but it doesn’t work so well. It’s weird because there’s no closure, they’re just gone and all that’s left is that love with no where to go, but to mourn and grieve and haunt you – and you can’t curse them and tell them to go to hell, believe me I’ve tried ,because they’re the same, they’re always the same, they’ll always be the same.
So the years did pass and I did fairly awful with no arms and no best friend. My folks moved out of that town soon after and I didn’t even have the comfort of everyone feeling sorry for me at my new school. So I endured the torture of being the handicapped girl, no one wants to talk to you or even be caught sitting next to you, I swear there were many a fight about who had to sit next to me on the bus to school. I went through prosthetics by the boat loads, hoping for that magic bullet. The one thing that would let me have hands and fingers again, but how do you replace your hands, or your fingers, your sense of touch, the sensation of water running over your fingertips. There was one boy that was especially kind to me, he wasn’t bad looking either, ya know a lot of folks think that us armless girls can only net the generally unattractive types. I wondered for a long time whether it was just because he was brought up to be nice to the crippled. I learned later that this was him, we started dating and by the time I entered college, I guess I was thinking of marriage, although I don’t recall being excited by that prospect, it was just the thing to do. That was the case, until I met his sister, older and until that point away at college, I later thought if I was to ever have a ‘you had me at hello,’ moment per Jerry Maguire, and we’re only allotted one per life, I definitely spent mine right then and there. She was kind and interested in what I had to say, and didn’t care about what I didn’t have, just like her brother, but unlike him, she popped and shimmered and I wanted to hold her, not because that’s what you do, but because I wanted to, I wanted her.. And that’s the way it went, she became my lover and remained so for seven years. And as for her brother and marriage, I’m afraid I hurt him, I recall speaking to him only once more after he found out about us and oddly enough, our last conversation was probably repayment in full for crimes I had committed.
Seven years passed and even though we remained in our twenties, our lives together grew tiresome and aged beyond our years, to a point where it couldn’t be repaired. So we mutually agreed to get on with it and go our separate ways and that was ok, I still thought I was young and had plenty of time to figure it all out. I moved to NY, she moved to California and the plan, if everything were to go as planned was to slowly fall out of touch. In July of 2001, I got a call from her brother, I immediately had that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, the same sick feeling I had that March at age thirteen. He told me, his sister, and the woman that I lived with and loved dearly for nearly seven years, had been killed in a car accident, instantly, from that very moment on, I've always wondered exactly how long instantly actually is… then he said, ‘I thought you would want to know’ and he hung up. I could have easily lived my life until now without knowing that, I may or may not have ever found out, but he thought I would want to know. 2001 is a year that almost everyone that can remember, will remember and I promise you, I’ll always remember 2001 for none of the reasons that you remember 2001 for…I guess my only regret is I never could hold her like she deserved to be held. I use to tell her this all the time, she begged me to never repeat that to anyone else, on the count of, I’m cheesy.
And here I was, another friend in the ground and three months later, I sat in my car pointed directly at a brick wall wishing I could just disappear. I would have hit that gas and splattered myself all over that wall, but I’m good at breaking things and living to tell about it, so I did the next best thing. I quit my job and moved to another country to work on my Master’s degree and forget or find, or just find a place to be.
So the good news is, I’m back and I have a new job, and a new life, new arms, new city. And guess what, I here they have a small but present gay community here. I’m 33 and life seems to be speeding by, and I realized I’m this old dyke that doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing. So much time has passed by and I’ve never even been to a gay bar or a pride parade. I have one friend that lives 1000 miles away that tolerates me. . I guess I would be classified as a woman with issues, but I can at least say I haven’t broken into tears for at least 72 hours:) I also have a slightly weathered therapist that loves to hear that I’ve been crying, apparently that’s a good thing.
I’ll always have my ghost, my quiet times when I don’t speak. The women I've loved are gone, but who can tell me about love and be on fair ground? I know, if I’m not capable of anything else, I am capable of this… love. Loving again.
How do I start again? It seems all these new ways to meet people, it’s full of false stops and starts… I’ve never experienced that, I’ve always been full speed ahead or not going any place at all. I have concerns about my appearance, these strange devices that act as arms, I still intimidate people, I’m working on that, but it’s hard, I often feel like I’m back on that bus to school. I don’t know if I’m suited for the bars, or ready for personal ads and emails, but I have to start somewhere and from the comfort of my sofa sounds like one of the safest places I know… but if by chance you do see me about, please, say hi.
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