Escape

After the perfume summer, I went and got a real job. I worked for a company that sold high-priced research reports. In those pre-Internet, pre-Google days, my job essentially amounted to being a human search engine. I'd conduct searches on LexisNexis for keywords like smoking or diabetes, and copy and paste whatever I found into a Word doc. I was so bored, I thought I would die.

Into that boredom entered yoga. I found a local woman who taught a yoga class in her attic, and she introduced me to her acupuncturist.

He was weird. A young guy, probably in his late twenties or early thirties. He said that "80 percent of my problems were spiritual," that I was "deficient in prayer and meditation," and that I had "toxic emotions." As I lay on the table wearing his needles, I felt waves and waves of anger pouring out of me.

He diagnosed me as having candida, an overgrowth of yeast bacteria caused primarily by my 10-candy-bar-a-day sugarholic habits. He prescribed a very strict diet – no sweets, corn, dairy products or vinegar – as well as about five or six different supplements.

When I came home with the supplements, Conspiracy asked how much they cost, gave me a withering look and scoffed that once again, I had been duped. It was my money. I could spend it however I wanted. I began my new regimen, and in less than four weeks, three things happened:

1. I dropped 15 pounds.
2. I went a whole day without blowing my nose – after a lifetime of chronic so-called sinus allergies. 
3. And last, but not least, I left Conspiracy.

When I told Weird Acupuncturist that I was leaving town, he looked disappointed. "How are we going to get all of that fungus out of your system?" But then he perked up, saying that his work had obviously had an effect or I wouldn't be making such a big change.

He was probably right, but not entirely. The impetus to leave hadn't come solely from new-found, supplement-induced clarity. Dollar, my abusive psychic, had chosen that week to give me one of her life-and-death ultimatums: "If you don't leave New Haven before the New Year begins, you will be trapped here FOREVER."

It was the end of December.

I fretted that I was leaving Conspiracy in the lurch, that he wouldn't be able to make his rent in January without my piece of it.

Dollar scoffed, "He has money." She had always been convinced that he had plenty of money hidden away that I knew nothing about.

I agonized over the decision. I loved Conspiracy. He had been good to me. I didn't want to hurt him.

But forever in New Haven seemed like a long time in hell.

Six days later, I split.

I threw my crap into boxes, charged a plane ticket on my American Express card and moved to South Carolina to live with my mother. And my sister and her new baby. And my octogenarian stepfather. All in a tiny government-subsidized house on the outskirts of Charleston.

No sooner had I arrived than Conspiracy called me on the phone, incensed. He couldn't believe that after two years and all we had meant to each other, this was how I ended it. I had left my room a mess, and he was not going to clean it for me.

I charged another plane ticket back to New Haven, where I cleaned my messy room and endured additional monologues from Conspiracy about his anger and hurt.

I never saw him again, but it wasn't the end of our relationship.

Conspiracy Diaries Part 23 of 25 (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25)
Conspiracy Lessons Learned 1-4 (1 2 3 4)

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