Witness: Volume Ten: The Journals of Meghan McDonnell, #10

By Meghan McDonnell

Do you wonder if anyone gets you? Do you feel alone in your thoughts? Do you ever wonder if someone truly understands?

Meghan McDonnell has your back.
With searing candor, McDonnell distills daily life with uncommon humor and honesty. In brilliant, lyrical prose she brings insight and illumination to family, friendship, romantic entanglements, ambition, love, redemption, and identity to reveal a glimpse of the universal.
Her powerful observations and deeply personal feelings about the human experience, struggles and transcendence included, reveal a courageous woman holding up a light for you in the thick of life as it happens.
Discover your interior self. Surprise yourself by unlocking your life within through yielding to the vulnerability of another voice, one that may sound startling like your own.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Meghan McDonnell
• Release date: May 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386270324

Meghan McDonnell

Meghan McDonnell lives in Walla Walla with her husband and two kitties. When she’s not writing or reading, she spends time outdoors, sits by a fire, solves crossword puzzles, and pretends to garden. She’s been known to listen to a true crime podcast or ten and wants to be a detective. You can learn more about her by reading her books.

Book preview

Witness: The Journals of Meghan McDonnell

Volume Ten

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Meghan McDonnell

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Copyright 2018 Meghan K. McDonnell

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Titles by Meghan McDonnell:

Minor: Volume One

Novice: Volume Two

Limbo: Volume Three

Elsewhere: Volume Four

Faithful: Volume Five

Vespers: Volume Six

Onward: Volume Seven

Sojourn: Volume Eight

Ingress: Volume Nine

Witness: Volume Ten

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Note

All names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty. I have solely recorded my interpretations and opinions of all events. Certain place names have been changed. Aside from minor edits, all else is as I wrote it at the time. If you’re new to the journals, welcome. If you’re a veteran, thank you for coming back for more. You’ll find links to songs, books, films, and more throughout the text, and a playlist at the end.

Contents

July 2005

August 2005

September 2005

October 2005

November 2005

December 2005

January 2006

February 2006

March 2006

April 2006

May 2006

June 2006

Playlist

July 2005

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

The office is an icebox and I have a head cold. It’s perfect outside. The sun can’t get through the thick panes of glass in the windows up here.

I barely slept a wink last night. It was the double espresso I drank in the evening. I tossed and turned all night. Carson and I are meeting for lunch. I’m meeting with Sofie’s friends Grace and Julie tonight to plan her bachelorette party.

I’m reading Alice Hoffman’s The Probable Future. It suits my mood and what I’m going through. Wedding season is around the corner.

I’m trying to reroute negative thinking patterns, a suggestion from a natural health book.

Elizabeth called me last night but made plans to get drinks with friends while we were on the phone. I’m sad about her. I wonder about her priorities.

Cassie called and we talked. I am blessed to have her. I won’t see her until the Ryan Adams show next weekend.

Love, Meghan

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Thursday, July 28, 2005

I got a good horoscope from Rob Brezsny: Emily Dickinson had a boundless imagination and an intense craving for privacy. She wrote nearly 1,800 poems but kept them to herself, stashing most of them in a trunk belonging to her maid. Only seven of them were published while she was alive. Why did she hide the brilliant and prolific outpouring of her soul? No one really knows. Let’s make sure you don’t follow her example, Cancerian. In my astrological opinion, it’s high time for you to begin revealing at least some of the incredible beauty that you conceal from the world. When you look back at this period in your life 40 years from now, maybe you’ll say, ‘That was the turning point, when I stopped being such a closely guarded secret.’ Brezsny wrote that straight to me.

I’ve been walking.

I met Grace and Julie at Tini Bigs to plan Sofie’s bach party on Saturday. They are lovely girls and I had fun. It was a gorgeous afternoon and I decided to walk from lower Queen Anne to the Roanoke, a good three-mile trek. I listened to music, left messages for Claire and Skyler, talked to Mom, and walked until I had blisters.

Work has been painfully slow and cloying. I am obsessive in my thoughts. It can be good when applied appropriately but usually it is not applied and instead ties me in knots.

I can’t stop listening to Rachel’s and Death Cab’s song "A Lack of Color. The lyrics: This is fact not fiction for the first time in years ..." I am in my own world.

I left work early today to meet Sofie and Grace at Sofie’s dress fitting. She looked graceful and lovely. I got misty. I like Grace. She is soft, sweet, and subdued – not at all how I view myself lately. We looked at bridesmaid dresses and she described the one she wore to her sister’s wedding. She got to choose her own and she bought it in Paris. When she said Paris, it sounded like Mars. She followed with I go there a lot. She pops over to France on the regular.

On my walk to the dress shop from work, I realized I may be flooded with intense memories because I have branched out from habits and strayed from Capitol Hill. I’ve been venturing to territories in the city that I haven’t been to since the Lucas era. With the heat, it brings up more memories.

In the bridal shop, as we thumbed through dresses, I wondered if Carson and I should have had a larger, more traditional wedding. I thought of weddings and marriages. News of Lucas’s impending wedding has me thinking.

Reading the Brezsny horoscope made me think of the mental ruts I get into. When Lucas and I were so young, we couldn’t deal with being together or apart. From the start, I sensed I wouldn’t be enough for him, but deeper, I don’t know that he could handle me. The inadequacy and timidity I felt around him, the inability to express or be me came from my depression, but it also came from sensing that I was too much to and for him. My intensity and depressions and love affair with life and the world and words and art and people and humanness may have been too daunting for him. Why does it matter to me now?

I have my life. I have gone years with none but the occasional thought of him. Now I’m trying to make sense of it but to what end? Why was Lucas such a filter for me? Why can I not talk and write about it and move on? Why can’t I sit with Cassidy or Elizabeth and get perspective? Because they will say to me, You are married now. You have a different life. That is the past. Don’t go to those places. It doesn’t do anything. I know this all too well.

I’m trying to uncover and unearth who I am, where I come from, what has shaped me. I am riddled with questions about my depressions. I want to know how they affected the trajectory of my young life. Where am I now? My biggest fortune in life is Carson. And what of our dreams?

I can’t stop listening to Rachel’s "Esperanza." It is too beautiful.

I need to read more things like that horoscope. I need to forge ahead and believe in my purpose. The purpose gets muted and dulled by too many nights out with friends. I want to live deeply and passionately. I have a few people in my life who kill my voice. I have to hold fast and assert myself. I can’t get beaten about the chops by the unfriendly and people unconcerned with enriching themselves and living on a higher plane.

I look at my dreams now and they are the same dreams I had at 18, at 20, at 22. I’m older and more aware of the hand I play in my own fate. I have not wanted to fulfill my visions and artistic hankerings so repletely in years.

Last time I believed somewhere deep in me that I would act and write all my life, I was ensnared in depression and unhealthy behavior and in a relationship that damaged me to the core (with Lucas).

I need to reassurance that I am no longer the shrinking 19-year-old, screaming inside, overfilled with misdirected passion and a sense that I’m at the breaking point.

I feel distant from others. I need Carson to be in this with me. I need him to be my partner in adventures and goals.

Carson has valued me and made me feel worthy. He invites me to be who I am. He has never crushed me.

I need art. I need to go outside. I need to be in touch with the source of life: what is great, powerful, and mysterious. I need to create and go places and hike and believe.

I want to feel less alone but I need time to myself. I need time to put myself on paper and project myself in theatres and into camera lenses. I am at my least self-absorbed while engaged in these.

I stopped by the 5 Point yesterday before meeting Grace and Julie. I saw one of my favorite bartenders there for the first time in years. She had moved to Los Angeles for a couple of years and now she’s back. We talked about getting older and wondering when it all starts, though it began long ago. I talked about weddings, babies, and houses. It makes my head spin.

I’m looking at the big picture. I know it all happens in the moments, the details, the day-to-day. Can’t someone sit with me and say, It is okay. It is okay to feel these things. It is okay to step off the rollercoaster and look at it all: past, present, future? Can’t someone agree with me and say, It is intense. What are we doing? There is meaning but we go through points where all is obscured. We need those times as much as we need the intermittent clarity. It’s okay to question things without questioning yourself for why?

I want to be heard. I want to be understood. I want someone to identify with me. I won’t let go of my perspective. It is unique and it is mine and it is worthy. I am open to suggestion, sometimes to a fault. I listen to others and I believe them, even to the detriment and betrayal of my own knowing. I can’t do that anymore.

There is a very sound woman who listens to me well. Her name is Nina. She is one of my mirrors. She is real. She knows me. She knows my past. She knows my hopes and she is on my side.

I write in here and get riled up and it’s like, Okay, you’ve written. Now go take on the world. I leave the paper and pen and return to aimless thoughts. What would a Dictaphone of the day’s thoughts sound like? All the tapes: the garbage, the good, the ideas, the memories.

I laughed and smiled while I walked downtown earlier. I looked at people while listening to music on my headphones. I pretended that every person I looked at was saying, I just want to be loved. It was hilarious when paired with certain people’s facial expressions. I saw so many people and they collectively said, I just want to be loved. People waiting for the bus, crossing the street, drinking coffee, a doorman greeting tenants. So many people and all kinds. I got immense pleasure from believing they were all collectively thinking, I just want to be loved.

The sentiment faded somewhere near 5th Avenue and Westlake. Memories and realizations came in. I need to write poems again. I want to advance action without so much thought. I don’t want to be plagued by worry and irrationality. I need to get home to my husband.

Love, Meghan

August 2005

Monday, August 1, 2005

I am a leaky faucet. I’m depressed but it’s not a fitting word. I’m crying. I’m feeling. I am confused. I don’t know how long this can continue.

I broke down on Saturday after reading an old journal from May 2000. I called Cassidy and asked if I could see her. We met yesterday at Allegro.

We sat in the sun on the deck. We talked and I read to her and cried. We talked about Lucas and Aidan and our lives. We talked about the past. Cassie said we live lives now that are so different from the ones we talked about and imagined we’d have.

I asked why I am thinking of Lucas. She said because I really loved him and that never goes away. I asked her what it means regarding Carson. That’s when I cried. Cassie replied, Not much. Cass said she knows Carson and I are meant to be together but that doesn’t mean I’m not my own person with my own feelings.

Cassie suggested I call Lucas. I thought I couldn’t possibly. But maybe I will. Would it put this to rest? I told Cass I thought I’d moved on and put Lucas behind me. I don’t think it works that way. We are meant to move on and live our lives but life does not go in one neat, continuous line. That’s what surrounds me: this sense of life and how strange it is. What does it add to and mean? I want to talk to Carson.

I cried last night and he comforted me. I laughed when he read aloud to me from Prescription for Nutritional Healing because after I said, I wait until I am too far gone and into it to realize I need to make changes because I am depressed, and on cue, Carson read, A depressed person will usually not realize how much of a problem it has become until they are at the bottom. Carson helps me. He is compassionate with me.

Cassie and I went shoe shopping for the weddings after coffee. We sat in the sun at Teddy’s and played cards. I ran into Jane from Poor Italian days. This morning, I ran into Emma. These are signs. I don’t know what they signify. But I am swimming through my past, reminiscing, and two people walked directly out of my past and into me today and yesterday.

Emma and I work in the same building and I’d wondered how we hadn’t seen each other yet. I want to get coffee with her, catch up on our current lives, and ask her about the past. I’m allowing myself to marinate in it but I will have to come back to the here and now.

I don’t know why talking to Lucas seems like it would help. I haven’t seen or talked to him since a few days after my wedding.

I could handle feeling this low if I felt there was a flipside to it, a reprieve or creative manifestation. I told Carson that though a darkness casts itself on my thoughts, I am not stupid or delusional. I see things as they are, through my own lenses. Sometimes my thoughts become unhealthy but I know what’s going on.

Carson wonders if it’s a backlash from going off the anti-depressant. I said whatever it is, I have to address it. I need to be around people who support me and make me feel good. Some of our friends don’t fit those criteria.

I have three more hours of work. Let it pass fast. One symptom of depression: time drags.

Love, Meghan

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Tuesday, August 2, 2005

Am I manic and depressed? I feel inspired and then low. I get inspired throughout the day at work and on breaks. I get sad as evening nears.

Carson and I went to his parents’ friends Clint and Roxanne’s for a barbeque last night. Clint’s son Phil is going back to Iraq soon. Phil has three kids and a darling wife and I don’t know how they do it.

I talked to Marlene, a friend of Steve and Annabelle’s from way back. She randomly told me about an old flame of hers. Clint and Roxanne’s guests told lots of stories last night but Marlene specifically talked to me about coincidences. I told her it’s strange that she brought it up because of what I’m going through. I said, It gets stranger and harder to determine what people mean in your life. Sometimes my life feels like a lot of lives strung together.

Marlene said, It gets more mysterious, the older you get.

When we got home, I told Carson I was thinking about calling Lucas. It weirded him out, the way I said it more than what I said. I felt bad. I told Carson I wanted to tell him because it would feel wrong not to. I need to get out of this past cloud.

I talked to Sadie. She’s home from New York and will meet Cassie, Nina, and me at Teddy’s tomorrow.

I’m at B&O Espresso. I called Lucas’s folks’ house. I spoke to his future wife. He wasn’t home so I left my name but no number with her. I don’t know if I’ll talk to him. He’s getting married in a couple of weeks, on the same day as Craig and Sofie. I wish I knew what was happening to me.

Carson and I are going to dinner at Elizabeth’s to see her and Marcus.

I’m listening to "1952 Vincent Black Lightning." We downloaded it last night. Someone used to play it on the juke at the Hitching Post. We listened to it while heading west on 520 the other day and I cried, believing it the saddest song on earth.

I’ve been reading old journals and I can’t figure anything out. All this writing over the years, and I’m still me, struggling with the same things. Why this sudden need to talk to Lucas? It doesn’t make sense. What is my foundation? I am unsteady and depressed. Lucas can’t change that. He never could.

I discovered "Full Moon Over Dallas by Shawn Smith. I dig it. I’m listening to Michael Penn’s Out of My Hands."

My life feels like pages and pages, new music, too much time in my head.

When, if ever, will I overcome the sadness that comes back and sits heavily on me? How far have I come and why does this life feel unfamiliar to me when I most need familiarity and comfort?

I cannot contain all this joy and sorrow. I cannot let it go either. I must brave this time alone until I rise back into the living world. Is this a curse? Isn’t there a comfort in that I come back to these spaces?

I don’t know what to write but I can’t fathom not writing. What do I do with this? It is painful. I cannot sort it out. The sun makes me cry.

How can the sun, that I have seen countless days, bring me memories? How can the smell of cigarettes put me back in time, when I’m around them and their smell all the time? Where is God in this? He pervades it.

I am not in my own skin. I’m confused. Does God want me to feel this deeply? I have moved through sheer pain before. I will again. It’s tough to stand and face this.

I’m intensely interested in other people. I look at them deeply. I observe them. They are each unique, with their own rich wells of experience.

I’m amazed that I went through months and years at different points, feeling like this, with little to no relief. This coldness, this shakiness, this lack of vitality and comfort in the world. Coldness and fear and fragility.

I need to finish the book I’m reading and get home.

Love, Meghan

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Wednesday, August 3, 2005

I’m crying at work. I don’t want to think about my emotional response at upcoming weddings. I love Out of My Hands by Michael Penn.

Is my soul working something out? I want to believe I’m solely depressed. I want to believe I am meant to feel things so I can grow and become a real person. I want to believe I go through this to develop fodder for creation.

I have nothing to do at work. I am listless. Even when I have work to do, it feels unimportant.

The sun makes the day beautiful and it’s early so there is a mist in the distance up by the higher stories of the buildings.

I wish I could go camping and hiking.

I need to get back in the saddle and find work that satisfies me. I’m lost, but in a real sense. I’m not so much floundering as seeking. I feel the downward tug but know I will come back up again as the cycle starts anew.

Love, Meghan

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Thursday, August 4, 2005

I talked to Stephanie. We were at a loss for words. She and Hudson are getting married on Saturday. She’s nervous but said it’s a nice change from stress.

I talked to Joanie at work today about the weddings and Lucas. Joanie is moving to Oregon in the fall. I will miss her.

Sadie met Carson, Cass, and me at Teddy’s yesterday. The sun beat on us for hours.

Cassidy brought up Lucas and it made me nervous, questioning tact, since Carson was there. But she brought it up to indicate that it’s not a dark, dirty secret. Cass thinks I should get a hold of him.

While at Teddy’s, I began to think Lucas was not strong enough to be with me. That’s the wrong way to put it. He’s a good person. He has depth and integrity. We live differently.

I am outspoken and fiercely loyal. I explore the deeps. My rawness drew him to me and led him away. It was too close to the heart for him.

I think about the questionable people Lucas surrounded himself with. I remember moments of doubting Sadie and Skyler in college, too, not knowing if I could trust them farther than I could throw them. This is terrible to write but tinged with truth.

Sadie told me I remind her of Jackie O. I’m flattered. Kirsten from Bellingham told me that, too. Sadie told me I’m graceful. I thanked her because, as I said last night, I have female friends from Carson’s circle who remind me on a regular that they see me as graceful as a knock-kneed colt.

I found a new monologue from A Day in the Death of Joe Egg.

Last night at Teddy’s, Cassie looked at me and said, How you doing, honey? I almost lost it. I knew she wanted to know. I’m surprised I didn’t burst into tears.

For the first time in my life, I understand why people distance themselves from pain and choose not to look at things that make them weepy or vulnerable. I’ve done that and still do it in ways.

One must get through. I don’t want to walk through life blind and afraid to be open.

In The Probable Future, Alice Hoffman writes a character, an old doctor. He breaks down regularly, unashamed to cry in public. Why bother hiding it, he figures. An older woman dies and when I read the ending, it was a mysterious, beautiful abyss that I gazed into and that gazed into me. Wondrous.

I sit in awe of what I don’t understand, but I love and need this lack of understanding.

Cassie sent me a beautiful card. She wrote, You are too good for us. She believes about me what I believe about myself. I can never be too good for the angel Cassidy.

I’m overflowing with love and life and I don’t know where to put it. But I don’t know where to hide, either.

I want to connect with people at the wedding this weekend. I want to put my thoughts and energy into Stephanie and Hudson. Their wedding represents so much to me.

I know Carson is a gift. He’s my partner and encourages me on my quest. He holds my hand.

Love, Meghan

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Tuesday, August 9, 2005

8 p.m. Coffee. I hope it doesn’t keep me up all night. I’ve wanted to write but I am wiped out. My body is uncomfortable and I have been sleepy and cranky. One wedding down, one to go.

After I last wrote, we went to Clever Dunne’s with Sean, Missy, Marie, and Scott. I left early to pack for the weekend.

Marie picked me up early on Friday and we drove to meet Stephanie, her mom, her sister Stacie, and our friend Olivia for manicures and pedicures. We ran errands. When we got to the Wyeths’, I expected Hudson’s mom Sandy and her friends to be bustling about. But no. Sandy and her friend Carol were laying in the pool, sipping vodka tonics. We asked if we could help and when Sandy and her friends insisted it was taken care of, Marie and I joined in the relaxation. We had a lovely afternoon. Carson and Scott arrived and drove