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From Hot to Cold and Everything in Between

On Friday, February 15, Al and I went for a workout. It went really well and we had a good conversation in the process. On the way back to my building, I asked Al if he would be coming to my Sunday night gathering. He said he could probably be there. He then went on to say that he had a date on Sunday at 4 p.m. and that if things went well he might bring her. I felt horrible, of course, didn’t respond, and left it at that. I thanked him for his help with my workout and we parted company.

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I had my Sunday night gathering that night and Al didn’t show up. Of course I felt very frustrated and disappointed. Feeling the way I do about him, I get excited at the very thought of him, never mind the possibility of having him at these get-togethers. So I felt really deflated and upset when he didn’t show up.

On Monday, I felt more and more upset as the day went on, particularly because Al didn’t call or e-mail me to apologize for not coming on Sunday. I finally decided to call him at his office and ask him about it. He said he had told me on Friday that he might not be there “if my date went well. And it went very well.” I don’t know if you can imagine how I felt. First of all, what he said he told me wasn’t exactly what he told me but I guess that’s what you call “selective memory”or something like that, so I felt upset about that. Secondly, but more importantly, I felt like a thousand knives were piercing my heart and shattering it into a million pieces. My emotions took hold of me and I started crying right there on the phone, albeit very quietly. I couldn’t stand the thought of him on a date with someone other than me. I am definitely not proud of that but it couldn’t be helped. Of course that made it hard to talk but I ended up telling him how I feel about him without saying those three little words. He made a comment about why I might feel that way and he answered it himself with humour in his voice as he said, “Well, I am a charming guy.” I laughed, even through my tears, which just emphasized to me why I feel the way I do about him.

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After talking for a few minutes Al said he didn’t want to talk about it any further on the phone and we agreed to meet at my place on the Friday of that week, since I don’t work on Fridays. So I thought about what I would say and how I would say it.

On Thursday of that week we had a staff meeting and pot luck lunch. After lunch, Al came to me and said he’d like to talk to me right then and there instead of waiting till the next day. I knew that wasn’t a good sign. I didn’t understand why he wanted to talk about what I thought of as a personal issue at the office. We went to the small meeting room at the front of the office. It provided some privacy but the meeting room is all windows so anyone could look in. I didn’t like that at all, especially because I was so upset.

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He started off by saying he’d given it a lot of thought and decided he didn’t want to meet in my apartment. He didn’t explain why, but I figured it was because he didn’t want anything to seem too personal now that he knew how I felt. So it seemed to be the beginning of the fall-out that I was afraid would happen if I told him how I felt.

The conversation was very difficult for me because I was so emotional. And Al spoke in a tone that sounded angry, which I didn’t like. It also seemed to be a complete turn-around from the cute comment he made a few days before about his being a charming guy. He said something about liking his job and not wanting to lose it and, although I can’t remember the exact context, he mentioned something about thinking that the professional and personal sides of our relationship were becoming blurred in my mind and he said “I can’t have that.” He said that a couple of times and I wasn’t really sure what that was all about but I was too upset to say much.

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I know I’m very good at separating personal and professional roles so I know that’s not an issue. When I called him on that Monday and asked where he was the night before, I was addressing the personal Al, not the professional one. After all, it’s the personal Al that I like at my Sunday get-togethers and that’s the one that was missing. But, as I mentioned, I was too upset to say much about anything.

The conversation went on for a bit and then, when he wanted to wrap it up, he said something like, “Are we good?” What could I say? I felt like nothing would ever be good again but during the conversation he said he didn’t want to lose our friendship and I said I didn’t either. So, in order to maintain the friendship, I knew I had to put on a brave face and pretend that all was okay, or at least reasonably so.

During our conversation I asked Al if this meant we couldn’t do fitness together anymore. He said he was stilling willing to do it but it would depend on how I felt about it. I said I still wanted to do it so we agreed to meet on Saturday morning at 11 a.m. as previously arranged.

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I guess when you get right down to it, I was really looking forward to our workout so I was in a good mood on Saturday. Jay was supposed to work out with us too but he had said that if Al went out the night before and had too much to drink, he’d probably cancel or move the workout time to 1:00 instead of 11:00. So I was waiting to hear about what was what on Saturday morning and I wanted to ask Jay about borrowing his bungee cords. (No, I was not planning to go bungee jumping! Al wraps the cords around my feet to keep them in place when I’m working on the machines that work the legs.) But when I called Jay at 10:30, he didn’t answer his phone. I called him back just before 11:00 and there was still no answer so I had no idea whether the workout was cancelled, changed, or what.

Then Al called me to say that Jay had cancelled out. I asked if we could still go and he said that “to be perfectly honest, I feel a bit uncomfortable.” But we talked for a few minutes and I asked him what he meant by being afraid to lose his job, etc. He explained that he has to be very careful that none of his words or actions, when dealing with staff or consumers, are misinterpreted because, if they are, someone could accuse him of being inappropriate or something like that. As much as I understood what he was saying, I still didn’t understand how that applied to my falling apart on the phone and starting to cry. I couldn’t help wondering if he was worried that I might say or do something to make him lose his job, but I didn’t ask him. Maybe at some point I will though. But when I asked him if we could still work out that day, he asked me how I felt about it and I said I was okay with it. So he said okay. So we went for a workout and our conversation throughout the workout went really well and even included some laughter. So it was as if that horrible conversation on Thursday never took place. Since I didn’t have Jay’s bungee cords, I couldn’t workout on the bike or on the other machine for the legs, so I had to stick to weights and the machine that works the arms. Al had thought I had my own bungee cords because the last time I worked out with him, I had borrowed Jay’s and he thought they were mine.

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Another thing that came up during our conversation on that Thursday was that it bothers me when people say they’re going to come on Sunday night and then don’t come and don’t call to let me know. Of course I was referring to him specifically because his presence means more to me than the presence of the others. But I didn’t say that. His response was that he could not come every week, which I knew, but that if he planned to come, he would call me from now on at about 6:30 on Sunday. So that part of the conversation left me feeling deflated. It means I can’t look forward to his coming because he probably won’t come very often. And I can’t say anything about his not being there because if I do it will make him uncomfortable which, in turn, will make me uncomfortable.

So this stuff, along with everything else I’ve been going through over the past year or more, left me feeling like there’s nothing in life to get excited about and nothing to look forward to. Everything seems blah and I don’t know what to do to change that.

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Al has said before that, in terms of working out on weekends, he can only do alternate weekends when he doesn’t have his son. He worked out with me the Saturday before last so I knew he wouldn’t be around last weekend. So I e-mailed him during the week last week to ask if we could do a workout on Friday. I enjoy working on the bike and the other machine that works the legs but, as I’m sure you know, I enjoy it most of all because Al’s there. And last week it seemed that fitness would be the only excuse/reason I would ever have to see and talk to Al. I thought everything else would be very matter-of-fact and professional and, although Al and I both said we didn’t want to lose the friendship, I felt as if I’d lost my best friend. I could only hope that in time I’d be able to handle the whole situation better.

Unfortunately, I asked Jay last Thursday night if I could borrow his bungee cords for my workout on Friday and once he knew I’d be working out, he thought he might come too. I didn’t want him to but of course I couldn’t say anything. I was afraid I might lose the only opportunity I’d have to talk to Al alone. And I figured that even if Jay didn’t come, the weatherman was forecasting more snow for Friday so it might be too miserable to go out, even though it’s just two buildings over. “Murphy” really loves me!!! For the past 8 or so months, the excitement of seeing and talking to Al was the only positive thing I was clinging to but now I felt like I was just existing and going through the motions...not really living.

I guess “Murphy” was on holidays on Friday though because when it was time for my workout, the weather wasn’t too bad yet and Jay didn’t come. So I had Al all to myself. But I was very painfully aware that Al didn’t offer me his knee for support this time when I was getting on the machine that doesn’t have anything around it to hold on to. Instead, Al held on to a board that he put sideways so I could hold onto that. I just felt like there was a big wall between us and I didn’t know how to break it down.

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One of the attendants mentioned last week that a few of us should get together for a “pity party” to drown our sorrows or something like that. I thought that sounded so great but people have said those off-handed comments to me before without ever following through and then I end up disappointed and hurt, so I didn’t really expect anything this time. But I thought it would be really nice to take the attendant-consumer relationship to the friendship level. So when I saw Debbie over the weekend I asked her about it. She said that we could discuss it when she and Petula came up to do my cleaning on Sunday. But when they did, I forgot to ask about it. That night I saw Petula and mentioned it to her and she just said that Debbie had mentioned it to her but no date was suggested. So we still don’t have a plan for that.

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Sometimes I’d just give anything to be a “normal” person without all these stupid labels attached to me (consumer, customer, patient, client, etc.). Sometimes I feel as if no one will ever know who I really am because they make assumptions about me based on my being in a power wheelchair, and can’t see beyond that to the person I am underneath. I just feel much too able to have myself boxed into one of those labels. I just feel like they don’t apply to me at all. Al is the supervisor of the attendants and, according to what he said during our meeting, as such he can’t get too friendly with consumers. But as far as I’m concerned, he and I are equal in many ways. Yet he’ll never see me as an equal because of my disability and the fact that I need attendant services.

One thing he mentioned on the phone before I fell apart that day was that what he envisioned for our get-togethers/outings was that he would get them started and that he would eventually remove himself from them. I told him that if he had presented the idea to me that way from the beginning, I might not have joined the group. I told him I’ve never liked the notion of people with disabilities getting together as a group simply because they all have disabilities. That’s just not good enough. In my mind, the fact that Al was part of the group made it seem more like a bunch of people getting together as equals. I thought the purpose of these get-togethers was for Al to get to know us as individuals and for us to get to know him as an individual. So I was really disappointed about that as well.

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My older sister called me last Sunday and, after telling her that I am very depressed and cry practically every day, she said she was concerned. Then she proceeded to tell me that she is going to Florida with her family for Easter, which means she won’t be in the Falls when I’m there for Easter. She said she’s also going to Aruba at the beginning of May. That made me all the more depressed because I am very frustrated with the fact that other people can go away whenever they please and arrangements aren’t that difficult to make. For me, it takes a lot of planning. Aside from that, though, I was disappointed that my sister’s concern for me did not lead to her suggesting that she come and visit me. She and my younger sister were here the week after my birthday last year, which would have been the first week of July. Since then, no family members have come to visit. Except for my sisters, and my mother who came with my younger sister early last year, no one has been here since I graduated from the Teacher/Trainer of Adults Certificate program almost two years ago. I only live about a two-hour drive from everyone except my brother who lives in Texas!!! Yet they can’t be bothered to come and visit me. I have a really hard time with that, especially since I don’t have a family of my own and often feel alone and lonely.

That night I had another get-together but, of course, Al didn’t come. And somehow we ended up having a bitch session about the attendants (who, of course, don’t always do things the way we’d like them done or the way we would do them ourselves if we could), etc., which only served to emphasize how trapped I sometimes feel because of my disability.

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I think I have mentioned before that my VCR died a while ago. Steve, one of the guys from our Sunday night get-togethers, told me recently that he has a friend who has several VCRs lying around that he doesn’t need so he was going to ask if I could have one. His friend said yes and dropped it off to Steve who then dropped it off to me last weekend. I got one of the attendants to hook it up for me and the first thing I did after that was pop in my tape of the Osmonds on Oprah from a few months back. It was great to see it again and I’m thrilled to have a VCR again!.

On Wednesday, I watched and tried taping the Osmonds’ 50th Anniversary special on PBS, thanks to Steve and my “new” VCR! I have always loved the Osmonds as a family and Marie in particular. I would love to see Donny & Marie perform in Vegas in July but that’s not likely to happen if I don’t have anyone to go with.

When the show was over, I checked my tape but, as I suspected, the show didn’t tape. I had a feeling it wouldn’t because when I set up the VCR for channel 61, there was nothing there but a blue screen. So, sure enough, I taped two hours worth of blue screen. Fortunately, I figured things out the other day and was able to watch the Osmonds' 50th anniversary special again yesterday and attempted to tape it again. I haven't checked my tape but I'm sure it worked this time...I hope!

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I mentioned to Susan this week that I couldn’t help noticing that lately Al hasn’t sent me virtual drinks on Facebook like he always has in the past. On my main page, it will tell me that he has sent a "round of drinks to his/her friends" and I always used to be included until recently. I wondered if that was another sign of his pulling back and making things more distant between us. But the other day I did get a virtual drink from him when he sent a "round of drinks" to his friends so that made me feel better.

Just after midnight on Friday morning, I sent Al a message on Facebook to wish him a happy birthday. I wrote that I wanted to be one of the first to say happy birthday and that I hoped he would have a good day. He wrote back saying something like "Good day??? I don’t know about that. My walker broke down this morning. I took way too much prune juice with my breakfast and I know I’m gonna pay for that. Glad I’m wearing Attends. LOL" I cracked up!!! I just got such an amazing visual with all that!!! lol And I felt great that the good vibes between us seemed to be back.

On Friday I went to Fairview Mall to get my hair cut. My hairdresser lost her mother to pancreatic cancer a year or two ago so we talked a bit about the grief process, etc. It was actually really helpful. I was feeling really low and lost this week but felt better yesterday after my "session" with my hairdresser. lol It just goes to show that sometimes help can come from the most unlikely places.

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I got a phone call yesterday morning and figured it was either Al or Jay calling to say that our workout was cancelled because of the weather. We got tons of snow from Friday night to Saturday morning so I figured fitness was out. I picked up the phone and heard a familiar tune..."It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas." Of course it was Al and, of course, I laughed. Yes, he was calling to cancel fitness but he asked if I’d be "kickin’ around" today. When I said yes (not that I could "kick" if I tried!), he said maybe he’d come today if the weather improved. He said it would probably be 12 or 1 p.m. but that he would call. I usually get my cleaning done at 12 on alternate Sundays but what do you think I’d rather do...watch an attendant clean my apartment or work out with Al??? lol

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a call from Al at all today. Jay called to say he isn’t coming tonight because he still has a bad cold, but he didn’t mention anything about Al. I thought maybe Al had called him and asked him to pass on a message to me. As far as I know, the weather is much better. It’s not snowing anymore, although the snow is blowing around in the strong gusts of wind that we’re getting now and then. But the sun is shining and I’m sure that we could have gone to fitness. I just wish Al would have called either way. I took a shower this morning but didn’t get dressed because I was waiting to hear from Al. I didn’t want to wear the same thing to fitness that I wear around the apartment when I’m not going to be seen by anybody. But after I had my cleaning done at 12 and still hadn’t heard from Al, I figured it was time to get on with my day. I just don’t understand why Al didn’t call to let me know what was what. I hate being left in the lurch and I hate it when someone says they’re going to call me and then they don’t. And since fitness is the one thing I look forward to these days, it’s really hard to deal with the disappointment of not going.

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Has anyone been watching American Idol??? If so, did you see David Archuleta’s performance last week??? It was soooooooooo beautiful!!! I don’t think he can top that!!! His song this week still showed off his beautiful voice in parts but the song itself was never a favourite of mine and I don’t think it did him justice. If you haven’t seen his rendition of John Lennon’s “Imagine” from last week, check it out on Youtube!

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for reading and thanks for letting me vent.