To: yikes!izzy
Date: Sunday, February 26—5:39 PM
Subject: appendages
Dear Isabel,
I’m going to pretend you’re still there, just on the other side of Puget Sound, in your bedroom surrounded by art-covered walls, looking at the computer screen and thinking of me. I’ll pretend that your world is now big enough to include me, that there is room for a story besides your own, that you are no longer empty and needing to suck in everything around you. I’m trying to remember the last time you asked me anything about my life, even a simple, How are you? It’s been a long time since I’ve been anything more than an appendage or a mirror. I’m starting to understand why. My mom has been telling me a lot about bipolar disorder, which is what she thinks you probably have. So I understand that certain things are symptoms and that you have no control over them, and I’m okay with that, and I don’t blame you. But it feels weird for things to have gotten so one-sided, like there’s this huge tilt in one direction, but now the heavy thing weighing everything down is gone and all of a sudden the balance is off and everything’s bouncing around not knowing where to go. And I guess I got kind of comfortable with the focus being on you, and now that you’re gone I don’t know where to focus, and I feel like a huge part of me is missing. According to my mom, this is codependent behavior. I guess I got comfortable living in your shadow because it seemed like the only way to stay close to you.
Shrinks have an obsession with naming things. Bipolar, codependent, depressed, alcoholic, whatever. To her credit, Mom kept emphasizing that she can’t diagnose you without meeting you, and I guess I’m kind of guilty for pushing her into giving me an explanation. So don’t blame her for labeling you and putting you in a box, because I know that’s what you’re doing. I admit I kind of tricked her into it. All she cares about, all any of us care about, is that you come home safe and get help. It doesn’t matter what anyone calls you as long as you find a way to start feeling healthy again. So please don’t obsess about some stupid, arbitrary name some doctor gave to a few symptoms you seem to have. Okay, Isabel? Don’t freak out on me.
Love,
Connor