Author’s Note: The following contains some references to drugs and rehab, mental health issues, sometimes even guardianship abuse. Reader discretion is advised. Also, this is a sort of tributary note to Raymond Khan, a young man I knew from way back in 2006, both of us were jailed, sort of, in rehab. LaAmistad should be ashamed of itself for its ableist and controlling approach to rehabilitating substance and non substance use peoples with mental illness. You put up a big fight with me about relationships, and I need to be able to forge connections, not forget them. I want to say a few words I should’ve said to Ray, and I want him to know that things are going good, but without further adieu, here it is.
Dear Ray,
Things have been crazy since you last saw me. I think about you sometimes, although the times I thought of you were very hard ones. When I thought of how you almost lost yourself to crystal meth, how you almost killed yourself a few times, maybe more, my heart went and stopped in the middle of everything. Ray, you really are someone I cared about in 2006, and yet a piece of you stays with me every day. I have at least a few things on my mind I wanted to straighten up with you.
First, I should have never been forced to end relationships and not forge a connection with you. I loved you, and what any nurse or doctor should know is that forging connections helps and stabilizes an individual’s treatment by a long shot. Undoing all the person’s health and well being by disconnecting them from everybody in the world doesn’t help. Ray, I loved you dearly, but I tell you, I have a partner and a good life ahead of me. The guardianship’s been discharged, and you can tell everybody that you and I could have been freed from this had Florida not fucked up and gotten me in trouble at seventeen, and nobody believed that my mother was capable of slapping me in the face. I would love to charge my mom with assault if she ever pulls shit like this again, but no, I won’t. Why? Because there’s. more stuff she did that I could tell you and you wouldn’t believe me anyway.
The guardianship was abusive, I had to stay in loveless or unromantic relationships because of the possibility of being abused at home. Orien, a young man I knew in high school and who’s grown now, will not have anything to do with me. Trust me, not that way. We’re friends again on FB, but trust me on this, my parents deserve a lawsuit and jailtime for committing probate fraud. I didn’t even know what the fuck probate was, and trust me, you would think I was nuts if I told you. Guardianship is evil, it destroys families, it tears apart lives. It did so to me, and did you hear about Britney Spears? She’s out of Conservatorship.
Ray, I hope you are there somewhere in the ashes of my existence, dancing on a cloud, or perhaps you’re alive on Earth somewhere far beyond. Canada? Maybe. But have you watched what’s going on in America lately? Please tell me you’re not cooped up in some prison cell lamenting on drugs, being on drugs, etc. I wanted you to be strong and try and be someone that you can be, the best version of yourself. I cried today thinking of the stuff I should have said to you, but it got worse. When we were in the so called catapult ceremony, the one where we pass the coin and say our goodbyes to the people leaving the treatment center, I was a wreck. You remember right? I told you I’d be the lead actress in your movies, whatever they were to be. Ray, I tell you, I felt the whole time that I was not the lead actress in my own story, not until recently. Ray, if I could only tell you that Clayton Jacobs, the man I call my boyfriend, is the best supporting actor in my story. HE gets the Oscar nod and perhaps he wins Best Supporting Actor in. my personal story. Why? Because Clayton heard your name and your story from my lips, and he understands greatly. Clayton has held me while I cried, kissed me when I was sad or happy, and has made love to me through all kinds of stuff. We’d always had each other’s backs, even through some rough stuff we both had to deal with. Ray, we’re coming up on some currents in our lives, Clayton and myself, and trust me, I am always the lead actress in my personal story now. I changed my bank account, I changed my direct deposit amounts and info on it, and my dad will soon have to close the account. I’m not going to have him sit there and say he can have his name on my account, which he will no longer do. My mother and dad think they can tell me who to be with, but because the guardianship was abusive, I had it discharged. My parents woke up only halfway. They won’t define the guardianship as abusive, wrong, and fraudulent. Probate fraud should and will always be one day against the law, but I want guardianship to be a federal goddamn crime. Why? Because it tears apart families, rips people’s lives to shreds, and for disabled women, sometimes we have to sterilize because in the minds of the government, we are less than, inferior. Ray, I’m sorry to say you weren’t the love of my life, and I didn’t exactly get the chance to give you the flower of my virginity. I don’t care. What virginity?
It started with a Dallas, Texas convention I was coerced into attending by the center in Littleton, Colorado Center for the Blind, and they required everybody to fly to Texas for this stupid conference while you had National Federation of the Blind (NFB) people sitting there praising the god of their own, Kenneth Jernigan. It was a motley crew of idolatry, sexual misconduct, and more. I lost my virginity to Deq Ahmed and Mosamil Yahya or someone like that, but we’ve had to mull over such things. Clayton would never have cared, at least, that I had to break it off with Deq Ahmed because his clan and family didn’t approve of him marrying a blind American woman. I would have argued that the clan had no right to Deq because of blindness and because such honor is antique. No, the word here is antiquated. I would suggest at a clan meeting that we move forward and modernize and recognize the right to choose one’s own mate. Period, point blank, end of story!
Ray, when I was with a man named Jason, the whole time things just didn’t work. Jason was abusive, and he was pro on the case of my guardianship, he wanted to say I needed it. What a very inglorious bastard. He liked the reactions of folks when he said, “You’ve signed your death warrant for being friends with Beth Taurasi.” I call bullshit. Death warrants are for murderers, Aileen Wuornos included, or perhaps Ted Bundy. But not me, I didn’t kill anyone, I didn’t do it, and if I did, it was an accident. I have no capacity to see where I’m aiming that stupid gun, and where I’m going to aim it is anyone’s guess. Jason had almost killed my friend Trenton’s current girlfriend, and furthermore, Jason wishes all his exes dead. Oh wait, Jennifer died. I can’t believe she did, and that bastard wants me to forgive him? I can’t forgive myself for even loving the guy. But thinking back, Jason was a big turning point into why I hate almost 80% of guys, not all guys, but I kinda don’t like a lot of them. IF a guy suggests that a woman’s place is beneath him, where she submits, etc, he isn’t for me.
When I dated Blake, things got hairy. His mom said I was “psycho” and should not date Blake. Blake lost his brother to gun violence, of course, but I’m not a fan of the woman who did it, although in some ways gun control might have stopped the murderer from ending the brother’s life, and the mother blames me? She didn’t have to blame me, she didn’t have to justify Clara Deitz dating Blake for the short time she did, and the impression was fake. All of it, fake. Clara should not have broken Blake’s heart in front of the world, and she did. Blake I wish as punishment should “take a wife of whoredom” as in the Bible, Gomer was a whore who went with Hosea, her husband, even when she was being bargained for and such. Hosea brought her back, but they had two kids together, I forget the names. But if Blake wants to try and mess my life up he can’t. Our friendship is rocky because of his mother’s prejudice against psychological diagnostics, and she doesn’t realize I have PTSD. Not quite as bad as a guy Blake knows, but not as bad as my cousin, Robert Zemcik, a veteran in the army who’s survived many many occasions I can’t go into. Zemcik’s experiences in the army should not be forgotten, and neither should those of other vets, Afghanistan and Iraq war vets included. I donated money to the wounded Warrior Project years after Blake’s breakup, but alas, I don’t know where it all went.
Trenton is my current latest ex, after Joey who was a bad boy. Joey tried to mess with me, tried to egg me on, and a troll tried to fuck with me while I was just getting started with Trenton. I was frequently accused of whoring around, told to get a proper marriage, all that. But now, Clayton is probably the only man I could say is doing it right. I can’t believe he would know me for five years, would let me into his life, would hold me the way he did, and would make love to me the way he did. Ray, if you only saw my face when I found Clay at the airport, I was overjoyed. He was sitting there waiting for me, and I ran forward to give him a big giant hug. I wanted to love him right there. We got back to his place, and lo and behold, his hips got close to mine, and his face. Oh, his beautiful face. Ray, Clayton can’t see as I don’t, but trust me on this, he is a good man. Clayton treats me like a beautiful queen, honors me the way men should honor the women in their lives, and in turn, I want to do nothing more than honor him. Like in Gladiator, I will honor Clayton, and because he’s honored me, I will do what is right. I’m behind him 100% of the time, and trust me, he is for me as well. Ray, if you only knew.
IF you only knew the way things were back in the day. I still can’t get a job, can’t do things without verification, oh so they wanna believe I’m not who I say I am? Bullshit. I am Beth, the girl you once knew, and I hope you will always remember me. I hope you will remember me, and it is because I remember you that I can’t forget. I can’t forget the time we were walking around, and we kissed somewhere outside of staff eyes. All this and other bullshit, I just wanted to kiss you again. YOu really do have a lot to offer someone, and I hope you found a beautiful pair of lips to kiss, arms that will hold you, and a pair of eyes to stare into. My eyes, god forsake me, are blind. You never understood. You never wanted these eyes. These eyes cried for you, and my heart beats every day regretfully for all the times you had to stay ten feet away. I’m done, I’m done trying to cry over this spilled milk. I love you dearly. I don’t know what to say. But Clayton is my true love, not you, because you don’t seem to get it. Ray, my pain is great, but my heart soldiered on for years knowing you were out there somewhere.
Ray, if there’s one thing I should have said to you, it was this. Clayton is the right man for this undertaking of loving me because he’s blind, has the same eye condition, and we’re on the run with all the love we have in our hearts. We love one another with such passion it isn’t funny. Ray, contact me if you dare. If you read this, you will be rewarded for your trouble. The water of time may stand between us, but for Clayton, he has ferried himself over the waters of space to me, and has offered me his heart. Ray, this truly isn’t goodbye, not forever. It is a new beginning. Perhaps you will understand if you see this blog and understand what kind of person I am.
Sincerely,
Beth Taurasi