Page 30 of Flying

“Sweetheart, I need you to tell me what is going on because the anxiety around you is palpable. I kept hoping you’d tell me during dinner, but I realize now it’s something you don’t want Dad to know.”

I swat her hand off my hair. “Enough, enough.” Sighing, I say, “Dad wearing his noise canceling headphones again?”

“Your dad is listening to his book with those DJ-sized headphones you got him on. Now, please, tell me what is going on. Otherwise, I will just call you hourly until I break you. Don’t think I won’t, you can ask Leaf.”

“Robert,” I interject, sarcasm thickly lacing the name.

Laughing while lightly tapping my arm, she says, “I grew you three, I call you what I want. Stop deflecting. Out with it, George River Hendrix.”

The deep exhale comes out in a puff of white given the chill in the air, and I gesture towards the two wicker chairs on the porch. Sitting, I turn to her and tumble through the long story.

“I assume you realized Lily was my first crush. And. Well, I still had a thing for her when I was the best man at her wedding?”

Laughing gently, Mama says, “Oh honey, I had a feeling.”

I nod. “So, at the bachelor party, Grant admitted he still had feelings for Landan when he was drunk. I should have stopped the wedding. I didn’t. I’ve hated myself for it for so long, but I know it isn’t like I cheated on her.” I emphasize the word I, because I do know I didn’t do it. I just didn’t stop it. She nods and I continue.

“Seeing her here reignited how close our friendship once was, andyou know I went to visit her and missed that dinner a few weeks ago. I guess, I guess thinking about how she’ll be alone for the holidays was bothering me. Are you…” I hesitate.

Peering at my mom’s gentle face, now deeply lined with age and yet still seeming bright and youthful, her maroon glasses and short gray bob with matching maroon stripes peeking through from the bottom, she’s chic and relaxed.

“Mama, are you aware that Belinda doesn’t talk to her? Not at all? She ignored her during the party and Lily spent the night crying in my apartment.”

She clicks her tongue and shakes her head. “Damn shame, I always wanted a daughter like her. She was a smart, hardworking young woman. She had to be strong, too, she helped you keep getting B’s all those years.” Blowing out a breath of her own she sighs. “I’m really sorry to hear that.”

“That’s sort of it really, just feel bad for her that she will have to keep confronting this over and over because she won’t let it stop her from being there for Stef.”

There’s so much more I’m leaving out but it’s enough to placate her for the moment. With a pointed finger she informs me, “This isn’t over, but I will accept that for tonight. This week when those men from Woodbury come in to antagonize Jim, you take care to listen. Latest gossip out of Curl Up & Dye is that it’s about which town will get the county craft fair this spring. So if you hear more, you will…” she stares at me.

I deadpan repeat the message I have heard since my first shift serving food, “Take copious notes and tell my mother immediately after my shift.”

“That’s right, my bestest boy. Go home, get warm.” She rises and heads in.

winter

twenty-two

Lily

December

“[T]he way thesymptoms are expressed in their behaviors can appear different from their expression in men and boys. This difference in expression has historically been one of the reasons girls and women are underdiagnosed.?1” I continue to scroll through their resources from places like the CDC, Department of Health and Human Services, and other articles. I can’t stop digging into the information, so much so that I keep forgetting to eat or drink water. I’m struck by one statement more so than the others, hyperactivity is not only restricted to little boys bouncing off the walls. It is possible to have a hyperactive mind. Between that and ‘easily makes friends, has difficulty sustaining friendship’ and the explanations of rejection sensitivity dysphoria I’m hearing so many clicks you’d think a clock was ticking.

It’s time for my weekly call with Dorothea so I open the video chat and we begin with my week prior. Skipping over what ishappening in my complex brain, I jump right into what I may label my mind as and bring up “RSD” as I see it abbreviated to.

“Can we discuss RSD? Um, I mean Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria?”

“We can discuss anything you’d like, you know that,” she hedges and I feel like I made a mistake.

“You don’t seem like you want me to?”

“No, it just is interesting that you skipped right to this specific topic instead of the many layers we discussed. I’m guessing it hit home for you, I’m happy to hear what you think,” Dorothea encourages me.

“Well, it’s connected right?” I ask as she nods, so I continue, “Basically, the act of being rejected or failing is physically painful. Pain is unpleasant so I try to escape it by getting as far away as possible…” I trail off.

The view behind me has changed. Again. I left Vermont and headed to a few places. My cancellation-guaranteed clients did, in fact, cancel. The pay day from that has kept me afloat during this really challenging time. I’m on my third resort job in a single season, which is something I haven’t done in almost five years.

I just needed to keep moving, force myself into some socialization, and be somewhere completely new and a completely different person. Except, the last few months my moment of being celebrity-adjacent waned.

---