Chapter 16 – Friends and Family

There were only really a handful of people that I hung out with before my accident that I saw after. Of them, I saw Tyler just a little while ago when she came to help during an emergency, and I still talk to her and one other friend, Naomi, from time to time, but I haven’t seen or talked to the others in years. I don’t think anything less of them, generally, I feel the same way about all of them; however, when friendships are built around particular activities or situations and those things are taken off the table, it’s not really surprising when those friendships change or dissolve. Looking back, my life can basically be divided into different time periods defined by different friend groups. Periodically, something in my life would change and I would find myself in an entirely different friend group. I think these switches normalized the idea of conditional or situational friendships. I don’t mean that in a negative way; my inability to really connect with people on a social level, with very few exceptions, meant that moving on from friendships, while not great, was entirely manageable and almost logical. That meant that when my entire life changed, I didn’t take it personally when people slowly backed into the metaphorical bushes, à la Homer Simpson, and we just stopped talking. Again, I was difficult to be friends with before my accident and it definitely didn’t become easier after; I’m impressed by anyone stuck around. Well, technically, of the people in Colorado, Tyler and Naomi were the only ones who really did.

I met Tyler when I was living in Japan but visiting my friend Adam back in St. Louis; he was working at a bar and I would bring my book and read and drink while he worked, lingering around like a lonely puppy. At busier times, I would hop behind the bar and work as their barback and busboy and would be paid in drinks, a great proposition when you enjoy physical labor, are bored, and want to drink. She was working as a bartender one night and I immediately began failing to flirt, and quickly began asking my friend Hanna, who ran the kitchen there, about her. I’ll spare you the details, but even though we never officially dated, she was definitely the person I was closest with before my accident; as evidenced by the fact that not only was she one of the first people to get to the hospital and was there all throughout my ER and hospital stay, but she has stuck around as a friend since. I can’t imagine those first few weeks in the ER without her; she was there before my family could arrive and would take over helping me when they needed a break. Her continued physical and emotional support has been invaluable. I’m sure it was at least a little weird that for weeks, I couldn’t talk, so I couldn’t explain who she was to my family; for all they knew it was an Annie Wilkes situation [Kathy Bates in Stephen King’s Misery]. In reality, I was just struggling dealing with affection when I couldn’t move or talk. It felt like I needed to know someone was there and that they cared, but it was also really uncomfortable not being able to reciprocate; being a complete passenger in any situation, but particularly in a relationship, was a bit more than I knew how to deal with. I don’t even think I knew why I was uncomfortable, at the time. To be clear, I don’t mean that she made me uncomfortable, just that I was uncomfortable in my own skin and that discomfort soaked into everything else.

I met Naomi in a Calculus II class at CU Boulder; and if I am remembering things correctly, I think our first interaction was during one of those super fun in-class group assignments. Without some sort of forced interaction, I’m pretty sure I would have kept my head down and not talked to anyone; so, in retrospect, I am oddly grateful for the group assignment. Between her red hair, personality, and intelligence, I was definitely a bit infatuated. Beyond that, and I guess by definition, it was nice to be around her and we did homework together a few times. At some point I attempted to explain how anti-social I am and that I wasn’t the easiest person to make plans with or try to hang out with; even so, it’s difficult to believe someone telling you that something isn’t personal when their actions consistently seem contradictory. Until I am very comfortable being around someone, usually meaning I don’t think I’m going to upset them and don’t think they will judge me, it’s really difficult to get over the anxiety and discomfort and actually spend time with them. The problem gets worse the more that I like the person, and thinking back, I have definitely sabotaged multiple relationships [romantic and non-] with people in the past because I was scared… of rejection? of judgment? of failure? Of something. In any case, with Naomi, I think it basically eliminated any romantic prospects while delaying any deeper friendship. She has been great, she has had every opportunity to just let the relationship fade out, but instead has consistently kept in touch and made an effort to hang out. From coming to visit while I was in the hospital to random visits after, we don’t interact super often, but I’m always happy to see or talk to her when we do. Plus, she is a geologist, traveling the world doing bad ass science, so there are always good stories.

As a random side note, she also sent me a message a few days after I broke my neck; literally no one knew anything had happened [outside of my family, Tyler, and Alex] but I received an email from her saying, “For some reason I am worried about you. Just this feeling? I'll explain more if you respond to this. Let me know if you're okay!” I was, in fact, not okay and did not respond. And keep in mind, we would go for significant lengths of time between messages, so there really was no way she should have or could have known.

Of the people I hung out with before my accident, there were a few people who I knew from the physics department, people I had met when I first got to Colorado, and a woman I informally dated prior to my accident who came and read to me in the hospital. I didn’t really have a lot of people that I saw. I’m sure if I called any of those people and they were around, they would happily meet up. Sometime after my accident, I reconnected with two people I had known or met before it all but hadn’t talked to in a while.

I met Jonel through Tyler a few years prior to getting injured, I actually slept in her basement the day I met her. She was really the first person, outside of the paralyzed community and my immediate family, who I felt like really tried to understand my situation; not out of pity or obligation, but out of genuine care and curiosity. I think that her dealing with her own medical issues through her life, and maybe not feeling seen by people, made her incredibly empathetic and gifted her with the ability to make other people feel seen. She has been basically the ideal person to interact with. If she is curious about something, she asks; if I’m having an issue, she doesn’t immediately try to fix everything, but she tries to understand what I’m experiencing; and importantly, she doesn’t hesitate to voice her own issues, understanding that my paralysis doesn’t trump her problems. 

I met Erin at my friend’s cousin’s house party in my early twenties, after which we dated for a number of months. She was, and still is, an amazing human; and while we were both kind of a mess as human beings, she was the type of person who made me want to be a better person. I’m not going to talk about her side of things but I was still trying to cover personality flaws with band aids made of drugs and alcohol, not a great foundation for healthy relationships. Needless to say, things didn’t work out and we didn’t really keep in touch, aside from a few random conversations. The last time I had seen her was just before I moved to Japan, we were both close to our messiest forms at that point. After my accident I found out that she was living really close by with her husband and two kids. I don’t really remember when or how we started talking, a Facebook message maybe? but gradually the messages got longer and more in depth.

Part of what made talking to her so easy was her understanding that I would reply when I could and that might be a long time, sometimes months for a proper reply; another part was that she was also ideal to interact with, similar to Jonel. At some point, the spacing between messages grew shorter and now I talk to her more than anyone else, other than maybe my sister. She is probably my best friend and she knows more about my current life than anyone, including maybe my sister and Autumn.  She showed up in every way possible; dropping off food when I didn’t have the energy to even order something, listening to my complaints, telling me about her problems and issues, checking in on me, etc. I am also a huge fan of her entire family. I have met her two kids a handful of times and her youngest, I call him Charmander, quickly became my best friend. They are both amazing, but I think Charmander’s penchant for nonverbal communication makes me more comfortable; knowing there is no pressure to talk makes socializing, even with a child, much easier. Her parents also came and checked on me and brought me cookies when I was having a tough time.

Erin is 90 – 95% of the reason I have continued writing this whole thing [It’s really disheartening the number of people who enthusiastically ask or agree to read a draft and then never mention it again or I just stop hearing from them]. She gave feedback with each copy I would send, providing a sliver of hope that I wasn’t just the proverbial monkey banging at a typewriter. It goes to the whole feeling seen thing, it’s like if you told a story during a dinner party and while you are talking, some people stop listening and start a separate conversation, other people waited until you finish to turn and start other conversations, but one or two people ask questions or just acknowledge that they heard the story. Of course, the story might have made you want to repetitively smash your face in broken glass due to sheer exhaustive boredom, and if that’s the case, you can’t really blame them. Though, if that story was really important to you, people’s disinterest still doesn’t feel great. On the other side, when someone enthusiastically reads and reacts to all the things you have been pushing down and not talking about out of fear of people’s disinterest, it makes you feel seen and feel more ok with who you are… Well, at least for me.

My family has also been amazing throughout the whole ordeal. English is not my dad’s first language, so expecting him to understand me whispering or just mouthing words before I could speak would have been a bit unfair. The frustration that I felt with myself at not being able to communicate with him during the early days, was definitely visible and probably misdirected at him a lot of the time. I mean, I can’t even understand where one word ends and another begins when people sing in Japanese… full honesty, I barely understand people singing in English. He has a lot of weird quirks, needs, and preferences, something I definitely inherited from him. For example, let’s say that he is planning on cooking dinner at 6 pm and all he needs to do is boil noodles and maybe grate some parmesan. Come 1:30 pm he is gathering the ingredients and utensils necessary, really just the noodles and pot, and laying everything out. 3:30 pm and he is back in the kitchen weighing out an exact weight of pasta [generally 80 g per person, or up to 100 g if you’re really hungry], which was either arbitrarily determined or significantly researched, and grating the parmesan. 5 pm and he is doing the final check to see if he has everything laid out exactly as needed. 5:30 pm and he is in the kitchen visibly restraining himself from starting early. All in all, something that could be done 5 min before cooking, has become an all-day event. I inherited his obsessive need to pre plan and organize but I seem to also have the ability to completely ignore it when needed; probably being overwhelmed by my social anxiety, knowing how weird it is to do – The Battle of the Anxieties.

This whole experience must have been really tough on him for a variety of reasons, but he dealt with it all amazingly well and supported me through the whole experience. He helped me laugh through the majority of issues while weathering my abrasive personality when things were going particularly poorly. Thankfully, his work and financial situation allowed him to drop everything and come take care of me for the better part of a year; he did do some work at a nearby hospital and as a consultant, but taking care of me was a full-time job for the majority of that year. I am outrageously lucky to have had him there for me that whole time. When he comes into town, it’s always fun to hear and see his amusement with some new piece of equipment or technology or with some new trick or skill I’ve learned. Even with that, it’s hard to shake the feeling that I’ve been a massive disappointment; thankfully, my sister has been and continues to be the perfect child, so he’s always got that.

I just realized that my dad was my age in this picture.

Speaking of my sister… Nadia occupied the opposite side of the spectrum from me for most things; where my medical files as a child occupied the enormous binder, my sister barely had a manila folder; where I have done the vast majority of drugs that were around, my sister has never tried drugs and might have been tipsy once; where I’ve been arrested or done a myriad of things I should have been arrested for, she has basically never even approached that line; we are both intelligent enough, but where I struggled in school and barely got by, despite being in “gifted” programs and “advanced” classes, she was Homecoming Queen and went to Yale where she graduated magna cum laude. Throughout my recovery she was a much-needed raft in a sea of confusion. She not only handled the vast majority of administrative and logistical issues but she provided that essential emotional reference point for me. For a while when I couldn’t speak, she became my voice. It was almost like she was telepathic at some points. I mean, just try telling someone your head itches using only facial expressions; it’s always impressive if they somehow figure out what you are trying to communicate. I think she was just able to read and recognize micro-expressions that she could use to steer her line of questioning. She has mentioned that among my expressions, my “are you fucking stupid!?” face was probably the easiest to read. I’m 99% confident that I could have probably dealt with things had she not been there, but I would have almost certainly come out with a significant amount more emotional damage and baggage.

 My sister is supposed to be holding that purple rope… she was, in fact, not holding said rope…

She has taken our mom’s place in trying to fatten me up whenever possible. Obviously, her priority was to give me healthy food but she had no shame in taking advantage of my love of corn dogs to suggest them as a bedtime snack at every opportunity.

Speaking of my mom, as I mentioned before, she passed away in 2013 from ovarian cancer. I remember getting a call one morning from my dad saying that she had fallen out of bed and was going to the hospital. My sister and I were living in Nakameguro, on the south side of Tokyo, and when we got the call we jumped on the train down to our parents’ place in Tsurumi, near Yokohama, about an hour away. Even though we all knew that day was coming, it was still a pretty big, “oh shit” moment and suddenly the thing you vaguely talked about as happening in the future has fully manifested itself, here and now; and of course, you aren’t ready for any of it. Externally, it probably looked like we had our shit together but, internally, all of the alarms were starting to go off, or at least they were for me. When we got there, she was back in bed and they were getting everything ready to be taken to a palliative care unit of a hospital back in Tokyo. I remember riding in the back of the medical transport van and thinking how strange it was to see the city from a car that wasn’t a taxi I had to take when blackout drunk after fucking up and missing the last train home. Everything else from that particular day is just a blur.

I don’t remember how long she was at that hospital before the finality of the situation became an unavoidable truth. She quickly lost the ability to respond or communicate, and the sight of a blackish brown sludge constantly being pumped from her lungs made it very clear there was not much time left. I went back and forth from sitting next to her, holding her hand, transfixed by her struggling to breathe, to just walking laps around the hospital. I don’t know if she could hear or understand anything but I was too shell shocked to think of anything to say. I mean, I know she knew I loved her, but the fact that I didn’t actually say “I love you,” will surely haunt me for the rest of my life. Truth is, I think I assumed she couldn’t hear or understand, so saying anything just felt self-serving. In reality, I was probably just too self-conscious to be vulnerable. To be clear, our family was never big on the verbal “I love you” thing; it was just understood. After she died, I couldn’t even stay at the hospital to help with all of the arrangements; instead, I hopped on a crowded train home and tried to bury my head in the corner as I cried uncontrollably. Just breathing felt difficult, I was almost gasping for air each breath, just trying to hold it together [at this point that just meant remaining standing] until I could make it home. All I was capable of was remembering to buy tissues with lotion in them on the way home; I highly recommended them if you know you will be crying for a while, which, after getting high, is exactly what I did when I got home.

Before the day she passed away, I never understood the flashbacks that you saw in TV or movies or read about in books, where the character would get suddenly flooded with vivid inescapable images from the past. I guess I always thought they were more metaphorical than literal. However, watching my mom slowly die in front of me, burned a short video clip of those final few seconds into my brain, and it likes to pop up at the most random of times. I have lots of positive memories of and with my mom, but they all feel like they require effort or energy to recall in detail, while that final memory requires effort and energy just to suppress.

I have always told myself that if there was one positive to her passing away, as dumb as that may sound, it’s that she never had to see me break my neck [again]. Though, selfishly, I wish she was here, I miss her.