This is a Story

This is a story about a girl and a friendship.

About six years ago, give or take, I met a friend who I will call H. We met online, on the same forum that I met a good chunk of my other friends on (some of whom I've known for over ten years now, and who I consider my closest and dearest friends). We started talking, and soon realized we had a lot in common; we hit it off almost immediately.

The first eight months or so, things were fine. H was cheerful, friendly, supportive, funny and sweet. We got along famously, texting and talking constantly. We wrote stories together, drew together, met up a few times when had the chance and the money to (she lived quite a ways a way). She made friends with my friends, and all was well. We became best friends very rapidly and without any sort of hesitation in any way.

But it didn't last. Slowly, without me really realizing it, she and I became dependent on each other, so much so that it was almost impossible to do anything without the other. It became, in a broad sense of the term, obsessive on both sides. I wouldn't do anything without H, and she would't do anything without me. It had gone from a lighthearted, easy and fun friendship to an all consuming one.

It didn't stop there. I became, as time went on, more aware of how uncomfortable I was starting to get. How I felt stretched too thin. The enjoyment was beginning to fade; all the excitement and happiness that had been at the beginning of the friendship was slipping into something, something I didn't know what to call at the time. I couldn't quite put my finger on the reason for this - or maybe I just didn't want to. But everything that had once been a highlight of my life was now steadily becoming harder and harder to do.

H did not like this. She would pressure me to write with her and got mad when I said I was too tired, or that I didn't have the mindset to do so. If I talked about another friend, she would grow distant and cold, but wouldn't explain why. If I said I was excited about something that didn't involve her, she got waspish and snappy.

It got worse from there. I've always had memory issues, but H remembered every little word of every conversation we'd ever had. If I didn't remember something we'd spoken about, she'd lecture me. If  I forgot about something - even the tiniest, most inconsequential thing - she would accuse me of either not caring as much as she did, or tearing up and calling herself unworthy of my attention. I would apologize constantly, over and over and over again.

I was always apologizing.

"I'm sorry I forgot to text you."
"I'm sorry I didn't realize that you were upset."
"I'm sorry that I didn't answer you within ten minutes."
"Sorry I didn't say good night, I fell asleep before I could."
"Sorry I didn't say I love you too, I fell asleep."
"Sorry I spoke to another person who wasn't you."
"Sorry for not making you my number one priority in all things of my life."

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

From great, it got good. From good, it got bad. From bad, it got worse. From worse, it got horrible.

All the time we had been friends, H had been steadily isolating me from the rest of my world. She made friends with my friends to get closer to me, but she never really cared about any of them. She texted me constantly, every minute of every hour of every day. Wake up, text her. Eat breakfast, text her. Take ten minutes to myself? She'd text me, angry and hurt, either accusing me of ignoring her or being so standoffish and cold to me that by the end, I would be begging her to talk to me again - which was exactly what she wanted. Every little issue - or non-issue - was turned into a monumental one.

And everything was my fault. If it wasn't my fault, it became my fault. H's apologies were always loaded with phrases like "I'm sorry you didn't care enough about me to notice. I'm sorry I'm so worthless you forgot about me. I'm sorry, maybe I should just disappear." Not angrily. Not in frustration. Sad and upset and pained. And in the end, I would be the one reassuring her. I would be the one apologizing, and crying, and telling her I loved her and that I would always be there for her. In the end, I was the one who was wrong.

I've always had severe anxiety and depression. H took my memory issues and my mental health issues and used them against me.

The friends I had already had before H were starting to become hurt and angry, because I was talking to them less and less. Doing things with them less and less, because it was easier, in some ways, to try and appease H's constant moodswings and sobs of devastation over things I did than anything else. I was constantly telling myself that I was doing the right thing; that she had had a hard life, and that her behavior was the result of that. She needed me, I told myself; she needed someone to be able to be with her through all the bad things. I was good for her, I reasoned, because I could help her and I could keep her mind level.

Except that wasn't my job. I just didn't want to admit htat.

My best friend - my real best friend, the one who had stuck faithfully by me and who was one of the people most hurt during all of this because she was being shunted aside in favor of H - came to visit me. It was the first time she'd ever come to visit me, and we had been planning it for years. I tried not to let H know, because I knew she would be upset, which should have alerted to me that there was a real problem here, but I pretended otherwise because it was easier to think that than face the realities of my situation.

H did find out eventually, because it was hard to hide and because I was excited. She nearly lost her mind, crying and sobbing about how "we had been best friends for less but our friendship was more." How "I've been trying to visit you for ages and you keep making excuses about why I can't visit." How "all I've ever wanted was to come hang out with you but you'd rather do things with other people than me." She reminded me of conversations from so long in the past, I had no memory of them, but as usual, she did, picking apart every word I'd said to create a scenario in which I had denied her the chance to come visit me, even though it wasn't true at all.

I was exhausted and frustrated. I couldn't think of what to say, how to placate her. I tried every apology, every single thing that I could to explain things, to say that I still loved her and that I was still her best friend, that I wanted her desperately to come visit, even though by that time it wasn't true anymore. She refused to accept any reasoning. My mother told me to ignore her, and to not let H ruin the visit that had been planned for so long.

I gave up. I tried to be liberated. On my way to the airport to pick up my real best friend, I sang along - very loudly - to the tune of "You Don't Own Me" from the movie The First Wives' Club. I felt exhilarated for the first time in months. I picked up my best friend, and we had an amazing week. She and my mom hit it off immediately (they had already talked many times before this, but this was the first time they'd met in person), and she was integrated into my family very fast. Her kind heart and kinder soul were met with love and adoration.

But then the week ended and I had to face the music of H's explosive moods again. It was like I'd had a breath of fresh air and now I was back underwater.

She was still angry and hurt. We fought, for quite some time, and then finally came to a weary resolution that, while not explicitly stated, gave the impression that if I didn't talk about my best friend, then we wouldn't have any issues. H was my best friend, not this other person, this intruder. If I only pretended there was only H and me in the world, it would be fine. She still loved me, she still cared about me.

It went on like this for some time. I didn't talk to her about my other friends. I didn't talk about anything that wasn't something the two of us were doing, or that she wasn't related to. I became obsessive about making sure she was okay, because I didn't know what else to do, and because any time her moods took a turn for the worse, I would blame myself for them. I shouldn't have done this, I shouldn't have done that, I should have known better. I didn't talk as much to my mom about is I should have, because I was ashamed and because I was scared.

H had taken everything that I had loved and was pushing it away from me. My best friend, and another close friend at the same time were hit the most by this impact and saw me isolating myself. I was sacrificing myself and my friendships for the sake of someone who couldn't go ten minutes without accusing me of something. I knew, in my heart, that something was very, very wrong but trying to accept that and face it was too hard, too much, too overwhelming.

My mother died in 2015. It was the worst period of my entire life, the only thing that could ever truly leave me in a state of pure devastation and grief, so much so that I felt consumed by it. My mother, as most know, had been my best friend my entire life, my strength and my support. Losing her was a gaping wound and a physical agony I have never yet experienced since that time. 

H, and several other friends, came down for the funeral. It was a long drive and they got here in the middle of the night. Out of the four that came down, one was H, one was my best friend, and two were lovely, incredible people just wanting to support me. My best friend was the only one who had met my mother in person; the others were just there because they knew how important my mom had been to me and their willingness to drive 10+ hours last minute for the funeral of a person they had never met just because they wanted to make sure I was okay is something I will never forget.

My best friend was distraught and grief struck, as I was. She had become close with my mother, and she had loved her too. We sat on the stairs together for a while, just crying and being together, and then we went back up to my room, where everyone else was.

H was curled on her side, away from everyone. I tried talking to her. She refused. I tried hugging her. She wouldn't respond. I eventually managed to get her up and out as we ran to get snacks, but she was distant and quiet the whole time. I had no idea why, but it was hard to focus on her reactions when the rest of my mind was dreading the viewing and the funeral that were in the next two days.

I managed to get through both, with the support of those same friends, my family, and some other dear friends who drove or came up to support me. It was incredibly hard to say goodbye to all of them, and I cried a lot when they left. Their presence made me feel like I was back on solid ground again.

But H was different. In the weeks after the funeral, she was distant and cold. I tried to get her to talk to me, but she would just brush it off and say it was fine. When I finally managed to get her to tell me what was wrong, she said, in accusing tones I have never forgotten, "All you cared about at your house was [your best friend.] You didn't even care about me. You didn't even see that I was hurting too."

It was possibly one of the worst things she had ever said to me. It was the funeral of my dead mother, my favorite person. Of course I hadn't been thinking about anyone else. Of course I wasn't focusing on her. 

Of course it was all my fault.

I apologized. To this day, I can only hazily remember the rest of this conversation. At the time I didn't even realize what kind of person would have wanted all the attention for herself at the funeral of her best friend's mother. I could only, wearily and exhaustedly, apologize again and again for disregarding her.

There were two mes now - one before my mom had died, and one after. After-me was constantly tired, constantly grieving, needing time to myself to know how to put one foot in front of the other. I was talking less to people in general, because talking was hard, and it was an effort to know how to handle things. My brain was on auto-function most of the time, because that was the only way I could survive.

I moved. She came to help me move, and to visit my new place. Six months after I moved, I started working at the museum, which turned out to be one of the best choices I'd made, because in spite of the fact that the hours were long and the work was hard, the people were incredible. I finally felt, for the first time in a very long time, that I was beginning to feel okay again. My museum friends became a pseudo family for me while living in Pittsburgh; they cared about me and they invited me out and they made me feel good about myself. 

H texted me once, at 4am while I was working an overnight shift, to accuse me of hiding a secret blog with another friend. It was true, but in order for her to have found out, she would have had to do some serious digging and some obsessive hunting and puzzle piecing to get that. I had hidden it from her because I didn't want her to know I was doing something without her - a massive red flag, but I was still not admitting things to myself. 

I lied. I told her I didn't have one, I told her everything was fine, and she argued with me, until almost 5am, until I told her I had to work and needed to stop texting.

We eventually "made up," meaning I apologized and she forgave me. Mostly. Things like this happened again over the next few weeks, except that I had never done anything to be ashamed of or anything wrong and yet she always found ways to make it into a problem. My best friend and a few others I hold dear were growing impatient and hurt (and rightfully so) with my inability to see that I was essentially abandoning them for H. I very nearly ruined precious friendships for the sake of one person whose sole object in life was to make sure she controlled every aspect of mine. I came so close to losing people that it still scares me to this day how badly things almost ended.

By this time, things had turned into a nightmare. I was finally, finally starting to admit to myself that things were wrong - very wrong, so wrong that it had become unbearable. I set her texts to a specific tone so I could distinguish when she was trying to talk to me, and every time I heard that tone, I felt nauseated and afraid of what I would have to deal with. I was being suffocated, except I didn't want to cut things off because I was too afraid she'd do something drastic.

I didn't want to wake up. I didn't want to hear that text tone. There was a terrible, gut wrenching feeling in my chest and my stomach every time I saw that I had a message from her. I felt like I couldn't breathe, like I was losing my mind, like I was going crazy. My head was in such a terrible place that I couldn't possibly see a way out of it, drowning under waves of guilt and fear and shame and embarrassment and frustration and exhaustion. 

I don't remember the breaking point. It was another fight, another explosive overreaction from H, another onslaught of baseless accusations about how I never thought of her at all, and how I was the one who was making her feel the way she was feeling, about how it was all my fault, always. All I remember is the breaking, calling my aunt at midnight to sob because I couldn't talk to my mom anymore, and I couldn't handle this friendship, or whatever it was, anymore. It was killing me inside with every breath and I couldn't do it.

My aunt listened, with the patience of a saint, and the heart of one too, to my frantic and desperate cries for help. She calmly talked me through things, carefully reminded me of my worth, and let her know she loved me.

After that, I felt slightly stronger. I texted H and told her it was done. I wasn't going to talk to her anymore. This was it.

It was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. I spent countless nights panicking if I'd wake up to a text that something terrible had happened, that she'd done something drastic after all. I would stay awake, anxiety ridden and terrified, wondering what was going to happen next.

She had a meltdown. She begged me, desperately, via a third party friend who had the unfortunate circumstance of being caught in the middle, to talk to me again. She said she wouldn't push things, that she would let me have my space. Out of respect for the third party friend, and an attempt at getting her out of this mess, I told H yes. I said she could only text me in the afternoons, because I needed my space in the mornings because after losing my mother, I sometimes woke up forgetting she was gone and needed time to myself to grieve again.

She agreed.

It lasted a week, if that. Within a few days, she was demanding to know why I had set these arbitrary lines. Why I wasn't talking to her 24/7. How the fact that we always were constantly texting and talking was "something she didn't have with anyone else," even though I told her the amount of talking didn't matter, it was what we talked about. She couldn't handle not being in my life every second of every day.

I said no. This time the cutting off was complete. I would not talk to her again, I told her that was it, I was done.

It was excruciatingly painful.

She sent me one last message after that. One message that said I had clearly never cared about her as much as she had cared about me. How I had clearly ruined everything, how everything was, of course, my fault. How hurt she was that I was doing this to her for no reason.

All I said was "if you thought this was easy, you really never knew me at all."

And that was it.

Over the course of the next few months, she still tried to invade spaces I was in while simultaneously and crushingly, agonizingly and ruthlessly dropping any friend of mine that she had pretended to be friends with for the sake of getting closer to me. I got panic attacks just seeing her name pop up in group chats or in the games I was playing online. I very quickly learned to keep my distance, but just seeing her name was enough to send me spiraling, nauseated and panicky and upset. It was one of the worst times I've had to deal with; everything was magnified because of the loss of my mother already and this just made it worse. I wasn't sleeping well and I was trying to do everything in my power to not fall apart.

It's been almost five years now since I cut her off and only about three since I fully allowed myself to accept that what H had done to me was mental abuse. I didn't want to use that term; it felt like I was making too much out of what had happened. That I was overreacting and oversensitive - a byproduct of what H had taught me to feel, twisting situations to suit her narrative and making sure I was the one who thought myself wrong so that I was constantly apologizing for things I didn't need to apologize for in the first place. Over a year of severe manipulation, gaslighting, accusations, and insults to drag me down so that I would only be focused on her.

All this time later, and I am at peace, or mostly at peace. I don't get sick or nauseated or panicky seeing her name anymore, but I do feel a small twinge of uncertainty or soft alarm, a warning to keep my distance. I've heard she's doing okay now, that she found a significant other, that she is moving forward with her life. I don't harbor any anger or hatred to her; all I ever wanted was for her to be able to survive without me. I don't feel resentful, but I do know that what she did to me lingers, in spite of my lack of hatred. I have a lot of issues that stemmed from her abuse, so much so that it became an issue in future friendships - and the friendships I almost lost while under her control - but it's something I'm working on and something that I've tried to overcome. The people I nearly lost during that time have truly been saints because they forgave me for my behavior even though I nearly dragged them down during it. They are worthy of love and happiness and I can't actually say how thankful I am that they gave me a second chance; that they let me back into their lives. 

This isn't a story for pity or praise, or to drag up old memories or to make anyone, especially those who had to deal with me through this, relive how awful it was. I never thought I would be where I am now, because I thought there was no way out, no light at the end of the tunnel. I thought I would suffocate under all the pressure and the pain and the loss. I never got to think of what a life would be like that was any different.

But there was a light, and I did make it, and now I am in a good city, with amazing friends and family and people I love. I still have things I need to work on, because I'm in no way perfect, but I have been finally able to move forward, and that is an accomplishment in and of itself.

An Open Letter to My Cat Sitter

In all fairness, you don't know who I am, and I don't know who you are. And yet, you still felt the need to pass judgement on me and my life without ever giving a second thought to whose life you might be affecting.

Did you know this is the first time I've lived alone? No, of course not, you never asked me. You wouldn't know that I've struggled from day one to provide for myself, or that I work 12 - 14 hour shifts at a low income job so I can give a good life to my cats. Maybe I can't afford fancy wet food each week like you suggested when you told me I was feeding them wrong; but I can provide them with healthy dry food and water and treats when I can, every morning and every night, so that they're healthy and well-fed. I can keep their litterbox clean and scooped, and I can give them cheap toys to play with, even if they'd rather play with the packaging they came in.

Did you know that I have severe depression and anxiety? No, you never thought a 27 year old could possibly be going through a rough time because her best friend in the world, her mother, died of cancer last year, and that she had to move to an entirely new place on her own, leaving her little brother in another state because that was what was best for him. Or that her older siblings moved across the country and her grandmother, one of the sole reasons for her happiness, is nearing her mid-eighties and that she's more fragile than ever. Or that her two cats might actually be unofficial therapy animals because they're not dogs. Maybe they aren't officially declared as such, but they keep me sane, and they keep me from drowning. Maybe my apartment isn't perfect; maybe there's too much clutter, maybe there's too many overflowing boxes that keep getting knocked over when the cats play, maybe it hasn't been vacuumed in a week because my vacuum is making a weird noise and I spent an hour trying to fix it to no avail and I can't afford a new one, so I have to wait and borrow one from a friend when she has the time to drop it off. Some weeks are harder than others; some weeks I slack in cleaning, and some weeks I excel in it. You just happened to be cat sitting for me in a stretch of time where I was constantly working and constantly depressed and cleaning was harder than normal.

Did you know that there is very little that I care for more in this world than my cats? These are the cats my mother adopted as kittens - Zorro, twelve years ago, and Weasley, four. These are the cats that I grew up with, that cherished my mother as much as I did, that grew up in a warm, loving, imperfect, messy family who struggled for years. These are the cats who lay beside my mother during her last days as she struggled to breathe and hold onto life when there was precious little life left inside of her. These are the cats that I held in my arms and cried onto when my mother died, the cats that knew I was devastated and heartbroken, who could sense my grief and who stayed with me during the hardest time of my entire life. These are the cats who I chose to come with me when I had to move, because I knew I couldn't live on my own without them, and they needed me as much as I needed them.

"I have four cats of my own," you said. "They are my world. Every client's animal is an animal in my heart when I take care of them."

If that were true, you wouldn't have jumped to conclusions. You would have listened to me when I told you at the start of you sitting for me that Weasley had had a bad reaction to a new collar, and that the vet had said it would be okay until I had a chance to take them in. You wouldn't have kept me in the dark about how my cats were doing; I didn't hear from you at all the entire time I was gone, and it took two tries at sending messages until you replied, and even then all you said was an implication that I was doing something wrong. You wouldn't have kept from me the fact that you talked to the inspectors at my apartment, or the fact that you told them things that were only half truths or not true at all.

If it were true that you keep all animals in your heart, then you wouldn't have reported me to the humane society.  I wouldn't have had to open the door to a man who said "I'm here because of a report of animal cruelty and neglect." I wouldn't have had to stand there, terrified and humiliated and angry and upset while he checked my cats and my apartment, only to tell me that he could tell my cats were healthy and alert and that Weasley's neck condition was extremely mild and obviously from a bad reaction to a collar. 

"Your sitter also said you were using a closet as a litterbox?" he asked me. 

"No." Because what kind of half truth is that? "No," I told him, because it's the truth. "No, I have a closet I keep the litterbox in. It's lined with a tarp, and I set the litterbox in there because it's a good place. There's no room in my bathroom, so I keep it separate."

Except imagine that being said with a lot of stammering, crying, and mistakes because I'm standing here with a man who could take my cats away, because I'm standing here with a man who was told I was being cruel to my cats, by someone who thinks that I'm capable of that sort of cruelty.

"Oh," he said, nodding, "I get it. That's okay. There is a slight odor, but it's not overwhelming, you just got back from vacation, right? Just keep things tidy and we're all good, it's okay."

I wouldn't have had to wonder, petrified, if my cats were going to be taken away from me. I wouldn't have woken up with nightmares of them being gone, of being scared to leave my apartment because I'm terrified of coming back and finding out they've been taken away. You're a cat mom who loves her cats and does the best she can for them; how would you feel if someone who didn't know you or your life or anything about you told the humane society that you were abusing your cats? That your cats were obviously ill from neglect and therefore needed to be taken from you?

As I'm writing this, Weasley is lying next to me. He's afraid of thunderstorms, you know, and he doesn't want to sleep unless his head is on my hand and his paws are around my arm. Zorro is in his favorite spot, on the pillow above my head, because he likes to put his paw on my face to make sure I'm still there. Every time I come home, I'm greeted by happy, snuggling, meowing cats who like to sleep on my chest when I'm trying to draw, and who like to bat lollipops across the floor, because my grandmother always sends me the big round ones, and Weasley likes to pretend they're toys. He doesn't want to eat them, just chase them.

But you wouldn't know that. Because you just assumed you knew my life and that you knew better for my cats than me. 

The next time you decide to report someone to the humane society for animal cruelty with no basis or basic understanding of their lives, maybe you should take a good, long look at whether or not you'd want someone doing that to you. 

Keep Moving Forward

Let's talk about depression and anxiety.

Depression and anxiety manifest in different ways for every single person.

Depression for me is sitting in my apartment, not wanting to even wake up until noon.

Depression for me is changing what I'm watching or reading four or five times in the space of an hour because I'm not satisfied with anything.

Depression for me is having dreams of creepy things, constantly.

Depression for me is putting things off and putting things off because I just don't have the energy to do them, even if it's something like putting up a shelf or organizing my room.

On the contrary, anxiety for me is not being able to sleep well at night because I keep having recurring images of spiders crawling on me from two tiny spiders in my room a week ago and waking up every time my cat meows because I think that he's seen a spider on the wall. It's staying up until the wee hours of the morning because I'm afraid of going into my room at night in case there are spiders.

Anxiety for me is sitting in my car for twenty minutes outside of Applebee's trying to work up the nerve to go in and ask about my application, in spite of the fact that I've been a waitress for the better part of five or six years now.

Anxiety for me is getting lost on the way to a familiar place even while using a GPS, getting frustrated, and then sitting in my car for another twenty minutes after I get to said place late because I'm too embarrassed to go inside after getting lost and coming late, and then finally turning around and going home instead of just going inside.

Anxiety for me is rewriting a text four times until it's right just in case it's wrong, and then changing my mind and not sending it at all.

Anxiety for me is forgetting things constantly, having to be reminded of them on a regular basis, and then still forgetting them and then having to deal with the consequences of people getting frustrated over my severe lack of memory.

Anxiety for me is thinking about Mom constantly, every hour of every day, and wondering how I will ever do this without her.

There is no catch-all for depression and anxiety. People who have it could look at this list and think "Wow, THAT'S what makes them anxious? That's so easy for me, they have no idea what REAL anxiety is! REAL anxiety is blah blah blah insert their own definition here."

People's minds don't work in the same way. One person will look at a math question and say, 2+2=4, whereas someone else will look at it and say, 1+3=4. They yield the same result even if the method is different, and neither method is right or wrong, they are just different.

There is really no comparing one person's depression or anxiety with someone else's because you can't quantify someone else's pain to suit your definition. People have told me before just how impressed they are at how strong I am, how amazed they are that I'm handling things as well as I have been, but I've always been incredibly uncomfortable with being told both of these things, mostly because what you see of me isn't necessarily everything. I'm not strong; in fact, I'm barely holding on, and I think that's what I need to hear rather than "wow, you're so strong!" Just people to tell me that they're proud of I've made it this far, even if every step that I take is painful and takes a great deal of effort and heart. I don't want to be called strong, because I'm not, but even if all I do is wake up and move from the bedroom to the living room, it's still an accomplishment, however small.

Living by myself has been simultaneously exciting and terrifying. I'm absolutely, horribly lonely, in spite of the fact that I think I've started to maybe make some friends here, if I don't manage to screw it up first. I only have my cats to talk to, my neighbors are antisocial (and loud), and I spend a lot of time wondering how exactly to go about integrating myself into a group of people that are already established as a friendship, regardless of how friendly they've been to me.

The point I'm trying to make with all of this is that age old adage: don't judge a book by its cover, and don't think that just because your anxiety/depression manifests in one way, that it's the same for everyone. Sometimes it's stronger in one person and smaller in another, but it's no less important to that person that has to deal with it. I had someone recently exclaim to me that I couldn't possibly be depressed because "I look so put together." Well, thank you for that astoundingly off-base observation, but there is no standard mold for depression, nor is there one for anxiety. 

People suffer in different ways. Rather than try to tell them that their suffering is wrong because you suffer differently, respect the fact that everyone has hardships that are hardships to them, even if they aren't to you, and be that supportive person that acknowledges, even if you might not understand yourself. Sometimes all it takes is for someone to hold your hand through it and remind you that you are doing well, even if you're not doing perfectly, you are still accomplishing something by surviving at all in an unkind world.

A Briefing About Grieving

The thing about grief is that it's not the big moments that are the hardest. The big moments are hard, and they are painful, but the smaller moments eat away at you, settle deep within your stomach and just serve as a reminder that the person you love most in the world isn't within your reach right now.

I wake up (when I actually sleep, and sometimes it's hard, because sometimes I dream about her and waking up from those is like waking up being doused in hot and cold water simultaneously), and I almost don't remember for a few seconds - but then I become more lucid and it hits me: oh yeah, Mom isn't here anymore. She's not down the hall in her room.

When I stayed up too late, Mom would sometimes come and check on me and scare the wits out of me when she hissed "What are you doing up, go to sleep, it's three in the morning." There is no one to do that now, but I still find myself looking at my doorway, waiting for her to appear and to click her tongue at me, tell me to get off my computer and go to sleep. 

I put on a good show. I smile, I laugh. I go to the movies, I go to visit friends, I write, I draw, I eat good food (sort of). Almost everyone who was at the funeral and the open house told me how strong I was, how brave I was, how glad they were that I was smiling and laughing. 

But that's the easy part. That's the part of me that is just going through the motions. The rest of me is steeped within a sadness so stark that sometimes I find it hard to even breathe. It happens at the most random times: I take a picture, I think of Mom, and I start crying. I go to shampoo my hair, and I remember out of the blue that I won't get to call Mom and tell her about the apartment I might be looking at. I watch a movie, eat a bite of rice, and suddenly I can't stop crying because I remember that time that Mom used to play with my hair and how I'd bother her every night when we talked to play with my hair.

Sometimes I think I am going forward, and I'm excited about the prospect of moving. I can't wait to be in a place of my own, to decorate things, to put all of my touches on the walls and the windows and the shelves.

Sometimes I am absolutely terrified of living on my own, by myself, in a new place that I've never been before. I can't comprehend it, because I've never experienced it. I make mistakes, say dumb things, do stupid things, things I shouldn't do because it's just so much easier to pretend that I've got it all under control, when really I don't. I'm great at keeping up this facade of holding it all together, but really underneath I am just a giant, tangled mess of confusion.

People don't seem to get that being called "strong" is a positive, but it's also a weight to bear. I feel like that's all people see, and that's all they expect, that's all they are capable of seeing. It's mostly my fault; as a private, shy introvert underneath it all, I don't like to let people see that side of me, so the only thing that's visible is apparently that "strong" side. But I've had depression and anxiety since I was fifteen; I took medication for it all the way through college, until I lost my health insurance. I know what it feels like to be depressed and anxious and worry about every little detail of every little thing. Being called "strong" is a good thing, but it's also painful because sometimes I forget that I don't have to be strong all the time. I don't have to pretend.

This is grief, though. This is all of that wrapped up in a mess of emotions that I just want to tamp down, put in a box, and be able to understand and grow and move past.

I don't think I'll ever get over the grief, but like Mom said when we lost my stepfather: "Grief does not get easier, but it gets easier to bear."

I'm still waiting for the "easier to bear" part.

Where is it Written

NOTE: This is the extended version of the talk I gave at the funeral, so it is a little longer. When I gave the talk, I just picked and chose what I said from my cluster of things, but in this case, this is more of what I wrote down from the time that mom went into hospice on February 6th, 2015, to the time of her death on February 17th, 2015.


 I have here about sixteen pages of things that I wrote down about my mother. I began writing them down when she first went into hospice because I was afraid that I would forget; but also because I was afraid that I would have to say them all like this. I wasn't in denial; I knew that ultimately death would happen, but I had fervently prayed that it would not happen until I was old and gray and toothless, married with sixteen children and seventeen cats - or maybe just the cats. Sadly, it came earlier than expected, but I won't read you all sixteen pages of things, because we'd be here all day, and even then, sixteen pages would not be enough for all that I have to say about my mother. Everyone who knows me knows that I am the world's biggest mama's girl, and that hasn't changed, even now. I will always be my mama's little girl, regardless of where either of us are.

1. Mom was an extremely intelligent person. She could understand and speak multiple languages, and read several more, most notably Russian, in which she majored at college. She absolutely adored learning about other cultures; they fascinated her, and she would read up on them as much as she could, absorbing as much knowledge and insight as possible. This was also unintentionally true of her spouses; my father was a Vietnamese immigrant, while my stepfather was a full-blooded Maori from New Zealand. She embraced other cultures and ethnicities with an open mind and heart, never judging, always tolerant and patient and kind.
2. This was true of everything in life. She had always wanted to be a teacher, a dream that didn't get to be realized until much later in life, and it was much shorter and more painful than it should have been. A belated alimony check from my father when I was in high school allowed my mother to take night classes and get her teaching license. She became a special-ed teacher at Stafford Middle School, teaching those students with heavy emotional issues like anger management. Printer throwing was not unusual for her classroom, as she soon discovered. These kids were rowdy, rambunctious, loud, obnoxious, violent, stubborn, laced with profanities, and she loved them to pieces. The other teachers, however, did not. They treated her as though she didn't exist, as though she was somehow less of a teacher than they were. When they weren't ignoring her, they were talking about her behind her back, tattling on things she supposedly did and didn't do to the principal. I remember she came home in tears one time because she had zero friends and zero allies at her work. Yet she still went, every day, because she loved her broken, messed up kids; because she cared so much about their well-being. I don't think anyone truly understood just how hard it was for her to get up and go to a job that she had wanted all of her life, only to be mocked, under appreciated, and eventually forced out.
3. Mom always wanted a million kids, from the time she was a little girl all the way until she died. It didn't happen; my father and her divorced before I was born, and she didn't get remarried until I was thirteen. After my little brother was born, my stepfather passed away unexpectedly due to septicemia - blood poisoning - and it broke my mother's heart, literally, because she knew then that she would never get to have her large household of children that she'd always wanted. We did foster care for a while when I was in high school, and had some wonderful kids pass through, but nothing was permanent, and I was always acutely aware of how hard it was for mom to sit in church and look at all of the families with two parents and a ton of children and not feel some hurt and envy. Our lives were not meant to be that way, and it was something she always struggled with. My stepfather Mac was the great love of her life, and she was not going to remarry after he died, knowing one day she would see him again.
4. There was nothing I couldn't talk to my mom about. She was always willing to listen, always willing to help. I regret now more than ever being too stubborn with her sometimes. I hurt her many times with my refusal to acknowledge her intelligence, thinking that I knew better, when I didn't. I told her a few days ago that my biggest regret was wasting time and not getting to go through the temple with her. She told me, "There are no regrets, just moving forward."
5. She was lonely. She felt isolated from the people who couldn't understand or didn't even want to try. Sometimes she'd cry because she didn't have anyone to talk to anymore. Her husband, her father, and her best friend had all died within a few years of each other, and there was always a part missing because of that. But she held onto life because of a deep, endless, overwhelming love for her children, for whom she dedicated her life. Near the end, when I talked with her about my fear of being without her, she told me that I was the one she was the most worried about. My older brother and his wife had each other; my little brother, though young, was strong and faithful, and she was so proud of him. But I was the emotional, attached one. I was the one who felt too much, and thought too deeply. She was so worried that if she wasn't here, that I would fall apart; and I genuinely believed that I would too - that without my precious, adoring, wonderful mother here to help me, I wouldn't be able to do anything at all. It wasn't until close to the end that I realized I couldn't see her in pain anymore. That watching her struggle just to hold onto what little sanity she had left, the effort it took just to stand up and sit down, that it was me who needed to let her go. When the blessings changed from "your time is not yet" to "well done, thou good and faithful servant," I knew that it was important for me to let her have peace and trust in the Lord, however painful it would be. And I told her late one night, that I finally understood; that I was finally able to say that I would be okay if she had to go. It was the hardest moment of my life, but I knew it was the right one.
6. Near the end, she started having panic attacks. It was hard for her to breathe, and she'd panic about not breathing. Her body and her mind would force her awake every ten minutes, telling her that she needed to get up, because she couldn't breathe. She was confused, disoriented, and very childlike. She didn't understand what was going on most of the time, and it was incredibly hard to watch. I missed the mother that I could just lay next to in bed, snuggle up to, and convince to play with my hair for the umpteenth time. That was one of my sadder realizations; that my mo was no longer the woman she was, not by choice, but by a body that betrayed her. I used to curl up beside her for hours just because I could. We'd talk, laugh, goof off. I'd put my head n her chest and listen to her heartbeat. But I couldn't do that during her last several months; it was too painful, she couldn't breathe. I had to sit near her, but not too close.
7. She always knew what to say. When I was in college, I called her, every single day, sometimes more, even if it was just to say goodnight. When I went to Canada, even though it was a dollar a minute, I still called her to make sure she was okay. I literally never went a day without talking to her, even if it was just for thirty seconds. I proudly told roommates and friends that I was a mama's girl, through and through; that there was no one else in the world whom I loved more. My mother was, is, and always will be, my favorite person and most important to me.
8. It's terrifying thinking that I have to wake up without her. Sometimes I think I'm okay, and other days I can hardly breathe out of grief. When I told mom it was okay for her to let go, she and I both cried into each other's arms. I asked her how she felt, and she said she wasn't scared of death, only of leaving us behind; that she knew there was nothing to fear, but that she couldn't help it because we were her precious children, and she loved us and needed us to be okay.
9. When I was sick or in pain, Mom was there. I crawled into her bed in agony more times than I can count, and she'd stroke my hair, kiss my forehead, and yell at anyone who was too loud when they came into the room. One time she was feeling sick herself, but she drew me up a bath in her own bathroom because she knew it would make me feel better. She was my protector, my comforter, and my guardian, and she still is. I managed to return some of the favor during her last little while, because there were times when she would wake up disoriented, scared, confused, not knowing where she was, or what was happening. She'd reach out to me, and I'd take her hand, and tell her how much I loved her, and that everything would be okay. Even when she couldn't find the words to speak, we'd hold hands and remind ourselves that we were in this together. Sometimes in the middle of the night, we'd share a few quiet words, just the two of us; I'd cry, of course, and so would she, but she'd be just lucid enough to tell me how much she loved me, and that would be okay. There was one day that she had enough of her senses to record, at my request, a message for me, so that I could always remember her voice. The contents of the message are private and precious, but it was a moment in time that I was very blessed to have. There weren't many moments after that where she was capable of understanding a lot.
10. My mom had four brothers; she was the only girl, and she was very close to her mother. In turn, I am extremely close with my grandmother as well. Three generations of women, who all loved and respected one another. My mom always taught me to respect and adore my grandmother as she did. I know my grandmother didn't expect her daughter to go before her; if I had my way, neither of them would go until I'm ninety, with those seventeen cats.
11. I told Mom that I was sure there were some important people on the other side waiting for her. Melody, my mom's best friend who died about twelve years ago, would be standing there impatiently, a smile on her face while saying "My best friend will be here soon!" Meanwhile, Mac, my stepfather, would elbow Melody in the side and go, "Hold on now, that's my wife, I've waited thirteen years to see her, me first." Even our beloved fifteen year old cat Pickles would be riding on Mac's shoulders, and he'd give a yowl of protest and try to climb his way to the front of the line. But then another man would push through them all and say, "That's my daughter, that's my baby girl, everyone stand aside, that's my baby girl." Where I had been a mama's girl, my mom had been a daddy's girl. They hadn't always gotten along like she and I had, but she loved him and he adored her; mom was his only daughter, and he was SO proud of her.
12. Gabriel may have been the youngest child, and some - including my siblings and I, on occasion - thought he was too spoiled sometimes. But truth be told, in spite of our bickering and squabbling, all of us were so proud of him, especially Mom. She loved and adored his bright, cheerful spirit, his intelligence, and his kindness. "Just like his daddy," she'd say fondly. "He gets that from his daddy." Which was true, because Mom herself was a shy wallflower growing up, a trait passed onto her daughter. When we shamefully questioned Mom's parenting skills for Gabriel, she told us very directly that she knew what it was that he needed; that we had to trust her, because he was so much younger than the rest of us. She knew what she was doing. My little brother is one of the smartest, best, and kindest kids that I know, and I am incredibly fortunate to be his sister. I wish I could take back some of the arguments that I had with him, because all they did was stress mom out more and more, but we all learn from our mistakes; no regrets, just moving forward.
13. Waiting for death is hard. You don't want to say goodbye, but at the same time, watching someone you love struggle as hard as they are just to live is equally, if not more, painful. And you feel morbid and awful and guilty and mean for thinking, "Please, please just let them die, let them be at peace, please." Selfishly, you want the passing to be sooner, because caring for a dying person is both mentally and physically exhausting. You get little to no sleep, and you're constantly worrying, constantly thinking, "When will it happen? How much more of this can my heart take?" Especially since Mom was consistently in and out of  bed, trying to move, just to get up, because her mind kept telling her she needed to. She didn't have the strength to stand on her own, so someone always had to be with her. And it wasn't that we didn't want to help; it wasn't that we didn't love our mother, it was just the fact that all of us were so mentally and physically drained that it started being less, "Mom, please stay in bed," and more "Mom, pleaseeee pleaseee stay in bed" at three o'clock in the morning, for the third or fourth time in an hour. You tell yourself to have patience, that there's just "one more time," but sometimes that isn't enough.
14. I was irrationally irritated with everyone by the end, probably because I was so exhausted. But I've never been good at accepting help, or sympathy, and I'm extremely awkward with pity most of all. I didn't want to see people looking at me and going, "Oh, poor you, you've lost your mother." I was able to have my beautiful mother for almost twenty-six years. She is in my heart and everything that I do. I celebrate the life she is and the end of a very long ten years of struggling. She was a woman filled with love and wisdom and kindness; of intelligence, and wit and beauty. Even if she never thought so, I always thought she was beautiful. When she lost her hair to chemo the second time, I shaved my head with her to try and make her feel less self-conscious about herself. She hated the stares that she got, the blatantly questioning looks. It made her feel, as she put it, like an "alien" or a "freak." She tried not to let it bother her, and I reminded her repeatedly that other people's opinions are stupid - advice I needed to take myself, but it still got to her. She felt isolated at times, lonely in her solitude of a single parent, cancer-ridden household. She wanted so much more than she was able to have, but almost never complained; she accepted her life the way it was because it was the life that she had been given, and because she had her children, whom she loved more than anything else in the world.
15. I remember being half delirious the night of the 12th of February, waiting for a death that wasn't yet to come. I was sleeping on the floor of the living room, and I had no idea what time it was, but I was in the midst of my grief, half begging my stepfather to come and get Mom already, to relieve her of her suffering. I don't know if it was just me being desperate or delirious, but I thought I heard a gentle voice in my head saying, "Soon, little one, just a little bit longer. Wait just a little bit longer."
16. Her childlike nature at the end was painful. Her legs were swollen from disuse, and she could barely stand, let alone take the two steps to the chair next to her hospital bed. Most of her answers were childish yes's and no's, shy and uncertain because she couldn't articulate well. I wished more than anything that I could have simply wrapped her up in a blanket and snuggled next to her, comforted her like she had done so many times for me. But the bed was too small, and Mom was too restless, anxious, agitated. Being too  close to her made her feel claustrophobic, and she'd push me away to breathe. It stung, not because I knew she didn't want me near, but because I missed so much just the feeling of closeness, the touch of her hand in my hair as she gently and tenderly reminded me without words of how much she loved me. That was the thing about us; we didn't always need to talk to understand each other. I knew what she was thinking, and she could always tell what I was thinking.
17. I didn't leave the house for almost two weeks after she came home from the hospital the last time. I was too afraid that something would happen while I was out, or that Mom would wake up and be on her own, with no family members nearby. I didn't want her to be lonely or on her own. I wanted her to feel comforted. Everyone kept telling me that it was okay to go and spend some time on my own, but I couldn't do it, I think for the same reason that I always made sure the last thing I said when I left the house, or went to bed, or hung up the phone was "I love you," just in case something happened. I read a book where someone regretted that the last thing they said was something mean, and I never wanted it to be that way. I  made sure it was said back to me as well; if Mom didn't repeat it, I would say it again until she did. Sometimes she'd make a face at me, but she'd always say it back, no matter what, because she knew it was important to me that we said it frequently and meant it.
18. Mom suffered a lot in life. She got married at 19 to my father and divorced before I was born. For the first twelve years of my life, she struggled as a single mother to raise two radically different children. When I was thirteen, she fell madly, deeply in love with McCormick "Mac" Cummings, got married, and had my little brother Gabriel. Then 9/11 happened, Mac lost his job, and my grandfather - my mom's dad - died. While my older brother and I were away in California visiting our dad, Mac died suddenly. Later, so would my mom's best friend, and Mom would develop cancer that would eventually be terminal. She was forcibly ejected from her teaching job, and spent many years working at a job she hated just to provide for her children. With her background and fluency in Russian and her penchant and love for languages, she could have been a translator for the UN. But  that would have meant sticking my brother and I in daycare all hours of the day, and she was unwilling to sacrifice time she could be spending with her children. Instead, she took on a less appealing job as a cafeteria manager, but that allowed her to be home when we got home from school. Everything she did, she did for her children. She loved us more than anything else in the entire world, and she was never afraid to show it. I am very grateful that I never went through the "rebellious teenager phase," because that would have wasted time. People have always been amazed at my lack of embarrassment when out with my mother. I didn't care if it wasn't "cool" to be seen in public with my mother, that's just who she was. I remember once she got stopped in the store by an acquaintance who exclaimed, "That's your daughter? She's here with you? Man, my daughter thinks it's so uncool to be in public with me." Mom just smiled and said, "Nah, not my daughter, we're cool."
19. One of our long standing traditions in our house was that Mom read aloud to us from the time we were little children all the way until we were adults. Those of you who know us know that one of the biggest series we read was Harry Potter, which came out when I was in elementary school. Mom read the books aloud to us from the first to the last, and when the last came out when I was in high school, I came home at midnight with it and Mom was sitting up in bed going "Let's read, let's read!" all excitedly. We read until 2 in the morning, slept, woke up at 8, and then read all day long. Every summer after that, she would read the entire series aloud to us, a tradition I cherished. Before Mom died, I overheard her say to Gabriel, when she was trying to reassure him, that she would be with him "every line of Harry Potter he read."
20. One of my mother's favorite movies was a movie called Yentl. Starring Barbara Streisand, it was about a Jewish woman back in the old days who was not allowed to study because she was a woman. She cuts her hair, dresses as a man, and goes to school to learn. Eventually she falls in love, and at the end of the movie, when she reveals herself, the man she's in love with tells her that she'll have to be a woman again, and that they'll get married and that's that. But she tells him that she doesn't want that, she wants to study more, and he gets frustrated and asks her, "You already have studied everything, you have me, what more could you want?" and she just looks at him and says simply "More." And that was always the same with Mom.
    
    She had a love of learning that couldn't be rivaled, and in closing, I wanted to read aloud one of her favorite songs from that movie that I think represents her well. It's called "Where is it Written?"

 There's not a morning I begin without
a thousand questions running through my mind

That I don't try to find the reason and the logic 

in the world that God desgned

The reason why a bird was given wings

if not to fly, and praise the sky

with every song it sings

What's right or wrong, where I belong

within the scheme of things

And why have eyes that see and arms that reach

unless you're meant to know there's something more

If not to hunger for the meaning of it all, 

then tell me, what a soul is for?
Why have the wings, unless you're meant to fly?

And tell me please, why have a mind

if not to question "why"

And tell me where, where is it written what it is I'm meant to be

that I can't dare to have the chance to pick the fruit of every tree

or have my share of every sweet imagined possibility.

10 Things I Don't Hate About You

(Except not really hate, more like 10 Things I Didn't Need to Learn About Mandy.)

The last time I wrote a blog post, it was over a year ago, and I've decided to take that up again and see if I can't write a post a week about the various goings on in my life.

So, to kick things off again, this is an open letter of ten facts about the current me to my friends and family and anyone else who stumbled across my humble page and decided to take a glance. This letter is not meant to offend (I know of course as soon as someone says that, they usually say something offensive, but seriously, this isn't the case), but to enlighten those who I talk to on a semi-normal basis about my current life.

Let's start with a list (because anyone who knows me knows how much I love my lists):

1. Asking if I've found a job yet is very frustrating. Yes, I realize that people ask out of a good-natured desire to legitimately learn what is happening in my life, and I appreciate your kindness - but this is a very sensitive topic, because it's now been over two years since I've graduated from five years of college with a Bachelor's degree and I still don't have an actual career and I damn well want one. I would LOVE to be able to sit at a desk in some publishing company and do my thing, to have my own place and my own car with my own dog and cat, but as life would have it, that's apparently not in my cards right now. 
2. Going along with #1 it is not that easy to simply get a job straight out of college, contrary to what everyone tells you. To the friends and family that were fortunate enough to have this opportunity, that is wonderful, and I'm sincerely happy for you - like, for real, I am. However: just because you did it doesn't mean it's that easy for everyone, and it's important to remember that. Like I said, I've been trying for two years, and I think I've sent out hundreds of resumes and cover letters and portfolios by now.
3. The same goes for finding a boyfriend slash husband. Just because I don't have one doesn't mean that there's something wrong with me, even if most of the time I honestly wonder if there is. And just because someone younger than me has a significant other doesn't make me an old maid at 25 years old, even if the world considers otherwise.
4. I suck at communication. I honestly and truly do, it is legitimately one of my biggest and hardest faults to overcome. That being said, just because I don't text or call you in no way lessens my affections or love for you. It just means that I suck at communication, which is not equal to disliking someone, especially with my innate desire to internalize everything. This goes especially to my amazing and very patient former roommates that I miss terribly even with my sucking at texting them.
5. I love very hard and very deeply. It's not that easy to take that away. I am very well known for getting extremely attached to people, to animals, to television shows and movies, to actors and writers and books, to things, to basically everything that I love. Once I love someone or something, it is very, very difficult to stop feeling the way I do about it (Exhibit A: Harry Potter). I think one of my best traits, contrary to my worst trait (i.e. my sucky communication skills, or lack thereof) is that I'm just an extremely loyal person (not to toot my own horn or anything). This also means that I get very emotionally invested in things and oftentimes need a bit of help trying to get myself settled again and/or pulled out of that emotional investment.
6. I'm not a perfect person. I mess up. I make stupid mistakes. I am extremely forgetful, something that is magnified by both my huge influx of stress and my depression. I put my foot in my mouth constantly and say things that I shouldn't. I forget to text back like all the time. I'm insensitive at times. I'm ridiculous. I'm sometimes petty. I lack motivation for pretty much anything, which sucks. I am lazy. I bicker and squabble with my siblings on a daily (sometimes hourly) basis. I have a lot of really amazing, truly wonderful friends, but I am still desperately lonely, probably because I don't actually live near any of those amazing, truly wonderful friends, at least not close enough to just say "hey let's go to the movies in ten minutes." When I was fourteen I shoplifted some cheap (and probably tacky) jewelry from a few stores before I was caught by my mother in what I can only describe as one of the worst moments of my childhood and a disappointment I never want to see again on her face. I tend to internalize things because I don't like pity or people feeling sorry for me, so I keep it all to myself. I can't let things go, even stupid things that don't actually matter, like whether the truck that passed was blue or green. I'm ridiculously and embarrassingly oversensitive. I let silly things bother me when they shouldn't. I have severe depression and anxiety, but I have no health insurance and therefore I have no way of getting medication, which means I have to mediate my own moods and that is extremely difficult. There have been some truly wonderful people who have been extremely patient with me over the course of the past few years, and I am eternally grateful for your support and your kindness and your generosity, as well as your willingness to work with me through this hard time (here's looking at you, Aunt Traci). 
7. Inevitably, someone will always ask how my mother is doing. I don't actually mind this, because I love my mother more than anything, and her health and safety and well-being are my number one priority. As long as you don't try to refer me to the Susan G. Komen foundation (which is a worthless and selfish "charity," and I use that term very lightly), then asking about my mom is usually entirely fine. Besides, I'll usually talk about her all the time anyway, because I am the world's biggest mama's girl and proud of it.
8. I suck at asking for help. Like. Really suck. Chances are, if you offer to help me, I'll shuffle my feet and smile and say no, thank you, because I am just really bad at accepting help. Not because I don't want it, or because I think badly of you, but because I am just incredibly, cripplingly shy and awkward when it comes to asking for help.
9. I always had a dream to be published at a really young age and wow the world. Since that obviously didn't happen, all I want now is to just get published. Since I haven't actually finished my manuscript yet, I just need to get off my butt and get moving on that. But like I said, working myself up to finishing after two years of lazing around is very hard.
10. I really, really miss college. I don't miss the distance or the flying or the exams, but I miss college itself. I have no reason to go back to grad-school. I miss the classes, I miss the people, I miss the roommates, I miss being social - basically I just miss having an actual life.

So, there you go. Ten Things You Really Didn't Need to Know About Mandy, October Edition. Stay tuned for next week's episode, Ten Things You Really Didn't Need to Know About Everything Else (or Something).

Let's Talk About Waitressing

Unless you've actually been a waiter or a waitress, most people actually have little to no idea how the process actually works. And this isn't really a criticism (unless you fall under one of the categories listed below), more like just a general observation of the world and its workings. Just like you can probably imagine what it's like to be the pilot of an airplane, but unless you've actually been the pilot of an airplane, you can't really understand it fully.

I've been a waitress now for almost seven years, not including the very terrible instances of working at McDonald's, Moe's Southwest Grill, and Maggie Moo's Ice Cream. I first was hired as a waitress at the Ruby Tuesday in Potomac Mills Mall right after my high school graduation in 2007, then transferred to the one in Dumfries, where I worked until sometime in 2012. Now I work at Applebee's in Stafford Marketplace which, while not the most glamorous job on the face of the planet, is nevertheless a means of earning money.

Waitresses (and I'm using this term because the term "server" grosses me out a little because while I will bring you food, I do not serve you food because I am not a server and okay I am not going to get into the medieval terminology here because that is totally off topic) are a respectable (key word: respectable) job to have, except I'm relatively sure that most people forget that when they go out to eat.

So, in order to maximize everyone's dining out experience, let's take a look at the process of a shift when one is a waitress (or a waiter) because I feel it is important to note that these are the WRs: the Waitressing Realities.

So here are the basics:

1. When you're scheduled, you have an in time, but not an out time; meaning you might be scheduled to work at 10:30am, but you'll have no idea what time you'll be leaving. This is because they can't guarantee when the business will be slowed down enough for you to leave, which basically means you can't ever make any proper plans ever.
   
2. Each waitress or waiter has an assigned section with a certain amount of tables, and everything is drawn out on a floor plan. This is usually made before the waitresses get to work, but often times is made as soon as the first guest comes in because people forgot or got busy and therefore results in a whole lot of chaos and confusion as everyone bickers and squabbles about who picks up the first table of people who decided to come into a restaurant at 10:45am even though it doesn't actually open until 11:00am. Also, these floor plans are not concrete, because even if you have Section 2, you will pick up tables in Sections 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 113, 2074, and 8942 because the sections are made up and the points don't matter (and people have an annoying habit of a) seating themselves wherever they want; b) switching tables because the first one apparently wasn't good enough; and/or c) asking to sit in a section which will inevitably be the only closed section without a waitress or waiter assigned to it).
   
3. There is, contrary to popular belief, a floor rotation plan - meaning whoever is the first waitress to come in is usually the first to be sat, the second is second to be sat, and so on and so forth. So if there is Bob, Jane, and Stuart, and Bob came in first, Bob would be the first to get a table, Jane would be the second, and Stuart would be the third. But this really doesn't matter anyway because no matter what happens, the rotation will never go in order, and sometimes people wonder if the rotation actually exists or if it's just a mysterious thing that appears every now and then.
   
4. The term "cut" does not refer to a) being fired, or b) your shift actually ending. When one is "cut" it means that you no longer take any tables. You finish up with your current tables, do sidework, roll silverware, clean your section, sacrifice two goats to the Pagan gods, run a mile around the school, offer up your soul to a passing salesman, count to two million and thirty-six, print out your little checkout sheet that has all of your funds on it, get your sidework, silverware, and section all checked out by whoever is closing the shift, turn in any cash needed to the manager, and then finally get to leave approximately three days and two hours after you were actually cut.
   
   In all actuality, when one is "cut," it usually means that you will probably spend the next hour doing everything needed to finish so you can actually go home and eat something other than the Saltines you've been nabbing off the expo line (who even eats those, anyway) and the peppermints from the host stand (hey, they're good and they make your breath minty fresh). And just because you're "cut" does not necessarily mean that you won't get sat with another table on accident.
   
   Also if you expect to be cut first because you were the first person in, you have another think coming because apparently the person that comes in at 12pm clearly has more important things to do than the person that came in at 10:30am and set up the entire beverage station and expo line that the person who came in at 12 inevitably messed up at some point during the shift.
   
5. The "expo line" is the line where the food comes out. This is where the cooks put the dishes when they're finished, and it is up to the expo line worker to double check everything as it comes out to make sure it's right. It's also the line where we add garnishes, silverware, sauces, sides, and where the most mess, bickering, and squabbling happens. Sometimes there is no expo-line worker, so the waitresses or waiters will be the ones to get their own food. However, if there is an expo, be careful of talking to him because the expo is his (or her) space and he (or she) will get entirely pissy and cop an attitude with you if you so much as touch his (or her) expo line, even if you're just dusting off a little corner because the "power" of being an expo has gone to his (or her) head and clearly they can't just talk to you instead of at you.
   
6. Yes we still have to pay for our own food (fifty percent discount, though!).
   

When it comes to the food...

1. Why yes, I am supposed to know exactly what every single little ingredient is in every single dish even though they're listed right in front of you on the menu. And yes, I will lie through my teeth and tell you a dish is good when you ask even if I've never tried it before because there are fifteen thousand things on this menu and there is no possible way to have tried them all in a certain amount of time unless you have a stellar memory and a lot of money (and too much time on your hands).
   
2. Repeat after me:
   
   Waitresses and waiters do not cook the food you eat. 
   Waitresses and waiters do not cook the food you eat.
   Waitresses and waiters do not cook the food you eat.
   This means that when your steak comes out over-cooked or your burger comes out too pink in the middle it is not our fault. We have nothing to do with the fact that the cook screwed up your order, so please do not treat us as though we were the ones who cooked it wrong. If you leave me a crappy tip (or no tip at all) because your steak came out wrong, even though we remade it quickly and apologized profusely, that says more about you than it does about me, and what it says about you is that you are a no class douchebag (pardon my French).
   
3. Mistakes happen.
   
   Mistakes
   
   happen.
   
   This is a novel concept, I know, but 99.9% of the time, when something wrong happens at a table, it is entirely unintentional and without any sort of malice or ill intent towards the occupants of said table. If you asked for blue cheese on your salad, and there was no blue cheese on your salad when you got it, this was not an illicit attempt at undermining the secret masterminds of cheese hoarders everywhere, but, in fact, a momentary lapse in memory - aka sometimes we just forget.
   
   This does not mean we're neglecting your table. This does not mean we hate your table. This does not mean that we're harboring some sort of vengeful fury against your table and want to send them to Hades. It means that we are human beings and we can forget things too.
   
   And yes, how we handle forgetting makes all the difference, but if I've apologized to you and done everything I can to make your experience better, then you should at least give me the benefit of the doubt.
   
4. If you come in on a Friday night at 7pm and expect to get your food quickly, you will be sadly mistaken, just like that guy who thought it would be a good idea to invent autotuning or the guy who named his kid "North" when his last name was "West."
   
5. If you look around a restaurant and it is jam packed, full of people with still more waiting at the door, chances are your food will be slow to come out, so don't make a big deal out of the fact that your salad took five minutes longer to come out than it should have.
   
6. Repeat after me:
   
   If your food came out slow, it is not the waitress or waiter's fault.If your food came out slow, it is not the waitress or waiter's fault.If your food came out slow, it is not the waitress or waiter's fault.
   
   Waitresses and waiters have no control over how fast or how slow the kitchen makes food. Which means that if your food took a long time to come out, it has literally nothing to do with the waitress unless he or she is not paying attention. But nine times out of ten, it's because the kitchen is a) backed up with orders, or b) just being slow. So complaining because your food came out slow does not equal a terrible waitress.

Now that we've got the basics of things, a few random facts about waitressing necessary for your delightful dining experience:

1. Waitresses (at least here in Virginia) do not get paid minimum wage. I get a measley $2.14/hr, which is hardly enough to pay off a can of Pringles, let alone my credit card bill. This also means that what you tip us is what we get paid. If you do not tip or if you leave a crappy tip for no reason other than you're just a slimy git then you are basically robbing us of our paycheck. If I am honestly and truly making an effort, not tipping or tipping badly is just plain rude. If I slack off or am rude (which I can honestly say is never the case), then by all means, tip what you think I deserve (or don't deserve). But if you're basing your tip off of any of the above criteria, then please just remember that as a waitress we have little to no control over a lot of things involving the kitchen, especially the pace of it.
   
2. Complaining to a manager is only effective if you have a legitimate concern. Complaining your food took forever to come out on a Friday night during dinner rush will probably not get you anywhere, plus it makes you look bad, so it's highly recommended not to.
   
3. There is no "set" tip, which means please don't always tip $5 for every single bill, especially if it's over $25. Tip based on what you think your waitress deserves, but just remember that what you're giving her is what they will use for their own living expenses. $5 on a $40 check is pretty darn low, plus it reflects on a waitress's efforts and they will sit and wonder and agonize about what they did wrong or why that person lowballed them for a good portion of the shift.
   
4. Yes I have to wear this uniform. No, it will not stay clean for an entire shift no matter how hard I try to keep from spilling stuff on me.

This is relatively long winded, but seeing as how I've been a waitress for so long, I felt it important to note the above details for anyone who eats out, will eat out in the future, has eaten out in the past, and is even considering eating out ever again. I don't mind my job, but that's what it is - a job - and some people tend to forget that when they're out to eat.

Long story short: please consider all the facts when tipping your waiter or waitress.