Pepper's hand



I had been back from Brazil for two weeks, and was spending most of that time staring at my reflection in the mirror, crying hysterically while repeating my new mantra “what have you done to yourself you stupid dumb bitch?” The tears, snot and spit all mixed together and slid down my chin, oftentimes not being caught by my arm or toilet paper before reaching my shirt. At times I tried soothing myself by sitting on the futon couch underneath the Ficus Tree in the living room that I had sublet to a friend for the year I was supposed to be in Brazil. But that never worked as I found myself riveted back to my spot balanced between the toilet and the sink to gaze at my reflection.
When I wasn’t crying and slobbering in my special place, I went around visiting my friends to tell them about my new condition. There were all sorts of reactions:
Miri insisted that she take a bite of my sandwich, even though we had ordered roughly the same thing. I sat on the deck in Jennifer’s back yard while she looked at me with tears brimming in her eyes and promised me that we were not going to cry and that nothing would change. Eileen created my life’s itinerary, while walking towards Mars café on the day I told her. To this day I can attest, I followed her plan to a tee.
All I really wanted at that time, in those first few weeks was to hear someone say, “So am I Lynn.” But no one ever did. There were so many moments of disclosure, but none of them took me away from not having to look at myself in the mirror with a self-hatred that I had never expected to feel.
On one particularly bad day, I decided to reach out.
I picked up the phone and called one of the most generic sounding service organizations I could find. When the guy on the other side said hello, I started sobbing hysterically. After giving him my name through gulps for air and hiccups, he said, “Lynn, we don’t provide support services here. We are a legal aid/back to work organization. Maybe you should try calling SF general. They will be able to help you better than us. I’m so sorry.” Gasping for air through my sobbing I said, “I understand.”



30 seconds after hanging up, the phone started ringing-it was the guy, whose name I later discovered was Kevin, calling me back. “Why don’t you come in to the orientation tomorrow? It is not exactly what you are looking for, but someone here might be able to help you.”
I stopped my sobbing and said yes and reassured him that I had been crying this way for weeks and would not do anything rash, before making an appearance.



When I got to the organization at about 1:10, I found myself staring back into the faces of 30, mostly white, men sitting around a large rectangular table in a slightly larger rectangular conference room. At first glance, there were no seats. The man who was standing in front of a dry erase board in the process of explaining all of the different computer classes the agency offered, stopped, smiled and said “Lynn, right?” I smiled back and said, “Hi, sorry I’m late.”
I noticed that a woman with mousey brown hair and a fair complexion was waving at me and pointing to the vacant seat next to her. I was so happy to see a woman sitting in the sea of men, I rushed over to where she was sitting. It was only after I sat down that I realized that this beautiful woman at my side had an Adam's apple and a five o clock shadow. Pepper was my first girlfriend who held my hand on that sunny San Francisco day during my first crisis intervention. She was the first to turn to me and say, “So am I Lynn, you are not alone.”

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