Taco Day

Sometimes, the cafeteria at school does themed meals. Every Sunday evening, for instance, is chicken nugget day. I'm not a big fan of chicken nuggets, personally. But every Wednesday at lunch is Taco Day: a plate piled high with brown rice, re-fried beans, lettuce, tomatoes, shredded cheese, spicy ground beef, and salsa, all mixed up into a feast of epic proportions. Taco Day is a good day.
Nothing changes on Taco Day. I am still the same person with the same problems. I am still the same overweight, badly dressed, butch dyke with bad acne that I have always been. The girl I am in love with is still dating one of my male friends, and she is still dying of AIDS. I still wake up at nights screaming and crying from nightmares and flashbacks. I still question in the darkness whether I am attracted to women primarily because I'm a lesbian, or because from the age of three my life has been one episode of sexual abuse and assault by men after another. I still am involved with a ongoing-for-the-past-four-years criminal court case with my ex-fiance and father of my dead daughter. I still have bipolar disorder. I still dissociate to the point of black outs when stressed, over-tired, scared, or excited. I still have to go to my therapist today and explain that Saturday I began cutting again, and Monday evening I overdosed on sleeping pills with the express intent of killing myself. And I still have to admit to her that nothing has changed in the past week or so; that for the past four years I have wanted to die, because I do not wish to live with these memories.
But today is Taco Day. Taco Day is good.
I don't know if this happiness at the thought of tasty tacos will last. I don't know if it will be enough to see me through the day. But for now, it is enough. It's enough to get up and get dressed, to grab a book and head over to the Alliance office while waiting for people to eat with.
If I manage to live past this current suicidal period, I am going to eat tacos more often.