Postponed.

The trial has been postponed. To when? I don't know. I am not happy. I wanted to get this damn thing over with and get on with my life.

My trust has been destroyed. I'll believe the trial is happening when I damn well see it, and not a minute beforehand.

These days are surreal now. They go so slow. They go so fast.

Friends are my lifeline. Some go to such great lengths to show their support. It means so much to me. Expressions of sympathy bring me to tears. I relive the event, again and again and they listen.

There are certain people who are caught in the mire with me. It is their presence that I crave the most, their opinions that I value the most. We are a small circle of friends, brought together by unspeakable tragedy.

I've been waiting, wondering what this final week before the trial would be like. I'm falling apart, but not quite in the way I expected.

My stomach hurts.

I'm sedated.

My feet are in constant motion, which interests me in a detached sort of way. In the past, whenever I've had surgery, or had a baby, or endured some very painful event, my feet start to fidget. I'll be laying in a hospital bed, and I notice it: I've been moving my feet, moving, moving, moving...constant motion without even realizing it. Whenever it happens, I know I'm in trouble, the pain is out of control.

That's how I'm beginning to feel. My pain is getting out of control. But this time there are no narcotics for me. No morphine, no demerol, no temporary oblivion.

It's more than the fear, the fear of testifying. This pain is in reliving the murder; the murder of one friend and the annihilation of another. The pain of realizing that so many lives are in shreds. The pain is all around me, soaking into me. The pain is consuming me and radiating through me.

Worst of all, I have come to a new realization. This trial is not the end. This trial is only the beginning.

I catch myself thinking, in the corner of my mind, that I should really take that medication that makes me happy. It's a reflex, like the vague thought of ibuprofen when you have a headache. As soon as I register the thought, however, I realize: I don't have a happy pill. Damn.

Guns

So yesterday I worked. Work is good. I love my job.

My job as a nurse consists of something called "medical surveillance." Basically, we monitor the health of government employees who are exposed to occupational hazards and certify that people are "fit for duty." Occupational hazards might include exposure to meth labs, firearms, hazardous waste, explosion scenes, etc. Mostly we deal with federal law enforcement personnel.

Yesterday morning I did a physical exam for an ATF agent. Unlike most ATF agents, this guy was very unassuming, without the customary machismo of his colleagues. However, like most of his colleagues, he came to his physical armed with a handgun and ammo clip. I made a comment about his weapons as he took them off so I could weigh him. He launched into an "amusing" little story for me and it went like this: Back when he was working in Illinois, he investigated this "nut-job" white supremacist guy. This nut made an appointment with a plastic surgeon. His appointment was at the end of the day so he could meet with the doctor alone in consultation. During the consultation he pulled out a shotgun and murdered this plastic surgeon in cold blood, because the surgeon had been doing nose-jobs and giving Jews "fake Aryan beauty."

Then he proceeds to tell me how that murder stood out because of the randomness of it. How most murders are committed among family members, or over drugs.

So for the next couple of hours, I'm working with this agent, alone in the room with him and his Glock. And I look at the gun, from time to time, and I think about the destructive power of it. About how this guy could kill me, end my life, if he so chose. I'm not afraid. I know he won't hurt me. It's just this thing, this gun. This gun is such a strange thing. An object that people have invented and manufactured to cause death. Quick. They are so quick. There is no time to reconsider, once the trigger is pulled.

At the end of his physical, we're chatting a bit as I prepare an injection for him. I'm sitting there, tap-tap-tapping the syringe to remove the air bubbles, and we talk about crime and about criminals. And I tell him that I am such a bleeding heart, I can't believe that anyone is born bad. I always try to look beyond the action, however heinous, and see the underlying cause, because I believe that people are good. People are inherently good, unless and until something happens to take the goodness away. He says, "Some people are just evil. I've seen it. I used to be like you; it took about two minutes as a cop before I realized that some people are just evil." And the way he said it...I was almost convinced.

PTSD

So my friend Michelle...she thinks I should seek counseling. She mentions "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder." Hmmmmm. Shit. She's probably right.

But...

I don't really want to see a counselor. I don't want to spend the money, (of course it's not covered, and of course, it's expensive.) I don't want to dig in my wounds, bloody myself up again.

But...

It's probably bad that I'm really starting to need alcohol every day. Granted, only at dinner time, and then it's usually just a couple of beers. But I crave that physical sensation of feeling the weight lifted, if only for an hour or two.

I keep thinking that someday this will not occupy my mind 24/7.

How can I not hate somebody who has hurt me this badly? Where is the anger? I can't find it. Everybody else hates him. But I can't. Not now. Maybe not ever. I know too much to hate him. It's easier when you don't know, then you can believe whatever you want. You can hate with impunity. You can create and imagine all kinds of horrible things. You can see the worst. The lines are clean and simple, black and white. There is no gray area of compassion for the human being that existed before the crime.

I am hurt. Michelle's right. I am so badly damaged. I've been blown to pieces, too.

Irritable. I am so damn irritable today.

It's interesting how psychological pain has physical manifestations. I feel a distinct pain/pressure at the very tippy-top of my head. It feels like my brain is pressing up against the top of my skull. Like there's not quite enough room in there.

Then there's the weight, the pressure on my chest, right over my sternum.

And finally, the invisible slog that surrounds me and makes every move just a little difficult. It feels like I might just as well lay in bed, because then I don't have to fight it.

Pain relief comes in the form of carb ingestion, alcohol consumption, and distraction. Carbs are going down the hatch all day long, but the alcohol I manage to save for "happy hour" (what an appropriate name!) Which leaves distraction: if only I have the energy to pursue it.

Well, there you go. I'm feeling sorry for myself again. Isn't that great?

A better day

Oh, a much better day today! Thank goodness. I worked and the distraction was so welcome.

There's a nurse in my office. A nurse practitioner, to be exact. But that's irrelevant. This nurse and I were discussing the trial today, because... what else is there? Anyway, she makes the remark, "it would have been better if he had died."

And I think to myself, "maybe."

She continues, "it would have been better if he died, and then the kids would still have a mother. As it is, their mother is dead and their dad is gone away."

And I think to myself, "that's true." But... But that isn't the way it turned out, is it? So I said: "Nothing can bring her back now. The value of his life now is in the fact that he can seek forgiveness. And maybe, if he's really lucky, he can receive it. And the fact of his living makes it possible for those many, many people he has hurt to have the chance to confront, to question, to choose whether or not to forgive."

That's why I kept him on the phone that night, that night when he told me he had to die. I knew it was over for him, I knew this thing he did could never be fixed. But something in my heart told me that he needed to live, that we who have been damaged, we also needed him to live.

There are those that would like to see him die. Probably many people would like that. I'm sorry for that. Really, though, isn't that the easy way out for him? Seems like it to me.

Even I am sick of myself. I am sick of my endless rumination, my belly-button gazing, soul-searching, guilt-ridden self. I am sick and tired of regret. I am sick of being sick and tired of myself.

"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" is starting to sound like a damn good idea. Or a lobotomy. Or my daily dose of xanax and beer. But it's a little early for that.

I am poisoning myself and I can't stop.

I can't let it go.

Relief and Sadness

My deposition was mercifully brief. Compared to my other deposition, in which I was a defendant in a civil case, it was remarkably easy.

Still, it was so incredibly sad to relive the murder and the events leading up to it. I was allowed to read my police statement for the first time, and there were some things I had forgotten. It's amazing that I could forget anything, considering the amount of time I spend thinking about it. So after my initial relief that the depo was over, I was just sad; again.

As I read my police statement, the feeling of complete helplessness came flooding back to me. What do you do when you know that tragedy is imminent, but you can't stop it? It was such a strange thing, at the time, to know completely and absolutely that something terrible was going to happen; never dreaming what it would turn out to be. I have never had that feeling before, and I hope I never will again. To anticipate tragedy and to know that my actions would be analyzed and critiqued, if only by myself, was a strange and awful thing. I had the choice: to turn away, or to throw myself in front of the runaway train in a futile effort to stop it. I chose the train. Was it really a choice? No. To say that it was implies that I'm some kind of hero, or a martyr...which is not the truth. In fact, it bothers me when people say that. I allowed myself to be sucked into the vortex of somebody else's mental illness, and this is the fallout. Plain and simple.

I thought I would not go to the trial, now I'm not sure. I have so many questions.

The Beginning of the End, II

On Tuesday I received the call. The office of the prosecutor called to schedule my deposition. For months now, I've been waiting for this call. A call, or a knock at the door to deliver a subpoena. Can you imagine? Every time the doorbell rang, each time I saw a stranger walk down the street, I thought it might be the subpoena. Every time the mail came, I wondered, "is it here?" A phone call wasn't really what I expected, though it did cross my mind sometimes. In any case, the summons finally came via phone and to my surprise, I feel relieved.

I am so relieved that the endless waiting is over.

I feel relieved that the trial is going to proceed. I was beginning to fear that it would be delayed again.

It's so hard to live with relentless dread. A dark cloud hanging over me, constantly on my mind. And now, at last, I believe it might come to an end. I need this to end.

So my deposition is scheduled for today. Only 48 hours from time I received the phone call, a blessing. Only 48 hours to fret and worry. And my dear doctor refilled my xanax. I am well-supplied, but I hope I won't need to use it. Maybe just one today, to take the edge off. I took two yesterday and it put me to sleep, so just one today, that's my limit.

Today I will relive the crime. I will relive the despair and the anguish of the events leading up to the crime, the shock, and the aftermath. I am just another victim. One of many.

At last. The beginning of the end.