The Elizabeth of now, maidens in towers, gift buddies and more

This is the Elizabeth of now, trapped in the prison tower of time, writing. As a child I was told of how caterpillars were really just butterflies in waiting, told as that they did not matter, not until they entered a chrysalis and emerged a butterfly. I always looked at the caterpillar who looked quite happy climbing plants and eating leaves and wondered if that personality wanted to die? Because once a butterfly you can’t be a caterpillar anymore, that one has to die for the other to live.

In a way, that is the life I live, trapped in the movement of time. I ask Linda over and over, “If I could stabilize here, with this high level of maintenance, would you want me to? Would you want me for 10 years, like this?”
I have between 10 hours of consciousness and memory and 32 hours before I become someone else, my memory gone. I become a hundred variations of my heart, my fears, my confusion. I worry that I have offended people, that I have hurt others, and I find I have. People ask about the scars on my arms and I don’t know where I did get them. That wasn’t me. Every time the clock ticks on. Every time I sleep I do not know if I will wake the same person.
I can spend most of my energy collecting the information to bring me up a semblance of similarity to the person who sat at the desk before me, the me of yesterday, or I can just….be. And in being, I am lost, I am confused, sitting in a desk that is not mine, but one that has things which I like. I know what I have read and a manga can be read in a day. That is important. It goes into the emotions of the me of that day. As that is all I might remember, the warm feeling, the wanting of that feeling again.

While I have suffered, and been abused, anyone knows that they can say anything they want to me and two days later, tick, tock, tick tock, the clock turns and I am the new blank me. I want what I suffer, what I learn, what I stand up for, what I fight for to be mine, not stolen, but it is, along with the joy I have, the feeling of accomplishment, of intimacy. I don’t make memories for myself, I push myself so that those around me make memories, because the me of that day will die soon, and the new me, and the many versions of me later will not remember.

Every day my life fades.

How can a person who is born, lives, yearns, is ill, suffers, strives, endures and dies within two days have dreams? What can be carried? And yet, I do not want to simply live. To spend all my time maintaining the illusion that I am what I was, when I don’t know what that was, except to read my blog and admire, is draining my time and energy. I don’t have time to be me. I don’t have time to dream. And certainly not to live.

I have been ill this week. I have received very, very few emails, so I guess the me of before was a distant and cold person. It makes me sad, when with fever, I have an entire week of emails including junk on a 20 line page. I was told I was very, very sick on Monday, but got worse on Tuesday, Wednesday, going down. I did not have homecare on Wednesday night, or Thursday due to no caregiver being found. I did not eat for a day and a half, or drink for two days. Now that effects things like bowel evacuation. Until you have sat on a toilet for five hours until you have passed out, had to do a manual evacuation to start the process and then after a few hours go back to the same toilet seat, then count yourself lucky. I do. Because I don’t have to do that every day…yet. As even as I do this, I know it will get worse. As my autonomic failure never stopped, the nausea, fever due to weakness, my going into seizures, into shock, turning grey, stopping breathing, and erratic heart.

So I am very weak, but I want to live, to not just pass the time trying to look like the person who used to be here, but to live until the next version of me comes, and I want them to live too. I know that I probably didn’t write back to people because I was sick, and that makes me a poor e-friend. But I am lonely, and the me before me was lonely too; the lonely that makes your skin ache.

I don’t want to be the cold and distant me that people worry about distantly and wait and see if I have survived.

I know that I am burnt out. As the only dream I have now is someone coming up behind me with a handgun and putting it to my head and pulling the trigger. Linda and Cheryl say that pain doesn’t make a person always rational, I guess some of the version’s of me were not rational. I want a new dream.
I wish more people would sent Linda sheets for the book of who they are, because I don’t know a lot of the time when they comment or email. They say they will go away for a week. That means it will be three to four versions of me since I knew them. What dreams do we share then?

So yes, I am a prisoner of time, and when I go to bed tonight, I will write a note to go to take the D.O.D. (dump of the day) so the 40% of all time spent today will not be a waste. And someone will remind me to take pills, eat, to drink, to have oxy, to sleep, to drink, to eat, to have oxy, pills and sleep again. But I want more.

I would like e-friends, and gift swap buddies. Forget that I am dying. I am lonely and in pain. Do you understand this, have shared this at some time? Do you have time to see movies, to go out for dinner with friends, to have lunches, to spend time watching TV? Then you COULD be an e-friend, or a gift swap buddy, you just have to choose to do it. Yes, that is blunt, but what, if I am then I will have LESS people write me? I don’t think that is really possible.

I want to be your email friend. And I want to respond to every email but I am sick a lot. A LOT. And the next me doesn’t know you sent a great email that made me smile three days ago. But I do reply, as I can, to about every third email. And I am generally interesting, or I think I am. I don’t use you as my therapist, or write you every day with how wretched my life is, or how my bowels are. Because that isn’t an e-friend, that’s a diary. It doesn’t look like such a good deal maybe, but then, us maidens stuck in towers don’t always have a lot to offer. Time is my prison, and no one in history has ever broken it.

I would like some gift and letter buddies. I send postcards to people who write me letters, and postcards to them regularly. I would like to send letters but my ability to write with my hand is limited to how much pain I can take, even with postcards. The time is coming where I won’t feel bad because people make fun of my tiny handwriting but because I can’t write at all. But for now, I can write, and for those who send post to me, thank you, and I hope you get the postcards I send back, trying to do it every week. But sometimes I get very ill.

I would really like some gift buddies. It is pretty simple; we exchange gifts (and notes). I have some gift buddies now and I like finding stuff for them and sending it to them. I try to get the rarest things in the world that I think they might like. I used to think that if I liked something then everyone would like it, so I sent about 40 to 50 sets of collectable stationary out, but have only 1 person who uses it regularly to mail me and 3-5 others who have sent one note with it. So, maybe you could tell me what you like or give me a list to your wish list to tell me what you like. I have a wishlist here, and I like alternative Hello Kitty (like her holding a bloody knife, or Ninja Hello Kitty, or Anarchy Hello Kitty!), I like those little fairy figurines, but only the goth ones, like the ones who sit on skulls, they are very cool. Someone sent me a sheet of Ruby Gloom stickers which have a red haired girl sitting saying, “Happiness is a SAD song” and other great lines. I like that, and she has stationary and a dairy (I tried to find more stickers but can’t!). Gift giving doesn’t have to be expensive, as I got a set of Emily Strange stationary today for $1.00 on Amazon. It just takes looking. Often I get things on ebay, like new wooden stamps for the postcards, to keep people amused. With a gift buddy, tell me what you like and I can send or find things for you. One friend I did not know what they like but they said they liked baseball and since then, I wrote it beside their name and I get them and send them rare and obscure baseball stuff which I hopes makes them happy. I just want to make people happy, and to have a friend who ‘gets’ me and I can look forward to the day once a week or once every two weeks I get the post. I like telling people I finally found something for them. I like telling them it is coming. I think about them opening it and if they like it. Sending gifts makes me smile. Getting the right gifts makes me smile.

I like art books, but I like to buy them myself, I like manga because it makes the pain go away for a while and it can be brilliant. For example, if you can, please go buy Animal Academy for yourself and your kids. It is the easiest manga I have read as most of it is told with pictures, and if you like cats, you will LOVE it. It is good for those aged nine reading level or above and is a manga which made me happy and I made Cheryl read it right away and it made her very happy too. The main girl, Neko, is nervous about this new and sort of secretive High School (which looks like Noah’s ark) and is admitted in after meeting and befriending a girl on the train there. Well, it turns out that the academy is for animals who want to prepare to go out in human world. When they lose concentration they tend to pop into a fox with a pile of clothes around them (still talking). Neko means cat in Japanese and her friend and others assume she is just another cat girl. The best part is that the animals actually act like the animals they are, even in human form. At first, everyone comes to Neko’s room…..because it is the only door open. No one else knows how to open a door. So she helps all of them while her cat girl friend is slapping boys going, “Stinky Raccoon!” and then pouting because, “You are only supposed to pay attention to ME!” which is…well, just like a cat! It is charming, recognizable and delightful.

I like Edward Gorey, I like BL, goth things, manga, little fairy figures in corests, cool rubber stamps (like a hearse!) and postcard for the postcard project, and cool stuff from Japan like anime mousepads. I guess I like other things too but that is a start and if you tell me what you like then I can find stuff for it, and we can be gift and mail/post buddies. I want to send out stuff, I love sending gifts and I want people to be happy getting the gifts, and I want to let them know that I like the gifts they send too (I need a better system as if I don’t write down who it is, then the next me goes, “Cool” but doesn’t know who sent it!). And because I am the same in my heart, though I awake, a new person, a person who doesn’t want to die in two days, but does, I have a stack of gifts waiting to trade. Because I am lonely, and I want friends. And I know people can’t give every week but if I can get enough gift buddies then I will have stuff to send out every week and can look forward every week. Can we build a relationship even if I can’t remember how long I know you? I believe so. I feel warm when I see the name on some letters, so I can feel even if I can’t remember. I care about what people say, and I want to help, or make you smile and want to know people that feel the same about me. I want us to be 'we.' And to every person I forgot to say thank you I want to say it now: thank you, every smile is precious to me.

So I live in my tower, and I am alone. I rarely see the sun. And I am sick a lot. But before this me goes, I want to give the other me’s a chance at a better life. I would reply to every comment, to every email but I was, in two days, only awake 13 hours combined and ill those. Email me at mpshiel at hotmail.com, and let me know what you like, what makes you smile and happy and I will try to make that happen, if you want to be a friend, even if you are in a tower or island of your own.