Common Misconceptions

She sat on the other side of the table and I felt superior,
feeling so much smarter than she at her age as
I made a mental list in my head in order of importance,
checking them off.
Things that were non-negotiable,
things that no matter what I just wouldn't tolerate.

And I watched - listened too -
as he talked to her and shook my head.
Shook my head because I wished she knew that
he didn't really matter at all.
That what she really needed to do was to
take charge of her destiny,
and forget all about the little boy man who
threw fast balls at the heads of defenseless children,
taunting them to retaliate.

He's in Peter Pan world I would tell her.
Not ready to grow up.
And you deserve more than a man who treats you like dirt,
but calls you when there's no one else around,
and says come on over but I really don't want you here.

Men create women like her...
Women like me.

They tease us with false promises,
dangling precious pearls of hope,
pretending the one thing we want is just within our reach.
And we think we can make ourselves better.
We can win the prize if we just try harder,
if we change ourselves,
our expectations,
if we surrender our pride.

And after she left, he continued to complain.
I listened with one hand over my mouth not
wanting to create a stir
as he went through a littany of woe is me
and it's so hard to get rid of her.
And had I not been trying to be polite,
I might have clued him in.

Perhaps I might have said that
this is the cost of toying with a woman's heart.
The cost of manipulating her affections.
That it is his own actions which
have born the fruit of creating the woman who
sat silently by his side today.

She is not at fault.
Not for feeling the way she does.
Or for believing in his multitude of lies.
She is not at fault for wearing her heart out on her sleeve,
or holding it in her hands,
sitting at a table amongst a group of strangers thinking
pretty thoughts that being
there will make a difference.
(We both know that it won't.)

She is not at fault for the wanting of more
and the earning of less.
Nor should she look to him to validate her worth.

He is an empty pocketful of change,
and he could never afford such jewels.

The Trouble With Being Ill

Lucky me. I've a three day weekend and here I am just a hacking and coughing away with a vicious early summer cold. It's just not right. And believe me when I tell you, I know exactly who I should blame. Two people in fact. The very two who sounded much like I do now except much worse and who despite being afflicted with the bubonic plague kept coming into the office, day after day, for the sole purpose of passing their contagion around. I mean really, why use a sick day when you're actually sick?

So here I sit, mug of hot chocolate to the right of me and an open door to the basement to the left of me. And I think that perhaps I should be doing more than I am, like finishing the laundry I took downstairs yesterday, or cleaning up the dishes I left behind last night in favor of sleep. And while decisions will have to be made, at the moment I've decided upon not making them. Not a single one. I'm sick after all and as far as I'm concerned that is a good enough excuse to last me until early afternoon if not later.

In My Dreams

I woke up this morning with leftovers of a strange dream still lingering on the fringes of my mind and I thought to myself, "It's funny sometimes, the things you think in your sleep. The bits and pieces you're left to wake up with. Sort of like a puzzle where you have to figure them out, and put them together to make a coherent statement. The things that don't make sense, and the things that do and how in dreams they always manage to combine themselves all into one continuous story."

For months I haven't been remembering my dreams. I'm not sure I've even been having any. But this past week, it's as if someone has turned my dream faucet back on, and every morning I wake up with new technicolor images in my head, foggy images, and memories of conversations I've had but have never had. It's like they've been gone so long they're trying now to make up for lost time. So many of them crammed inside my head, bursting at the seams to get their story out, or educate me with their images. And I'm convinced that my dreams are manifestations of my internal dialogue at work. Things I need to approach head on, deal with, or keep holding out for hope for. It's all there when I close my eyes, like a sigh of relief of finally being able to say all the things that need to be said.

Happy Mother's Day...

I may be a bit prejudiced in my thinking, but as far as I'm concerned, I've got the best Mom in the entire world.

I guess I just must have been born lucky...

Sliding Into Home

My daughter is going to play ball for the minors... And even though I'll be fresh out of whatever it is you're supposed to snack on at a softball game, I'll be up in the stands just a hooting and a hollering away, and if necessary heckling the other team and the ref all at once. There are refs in softball, right?

Tonight is KC's very first game for the little league I signed her up for way back at the tail end of March. And even though they've never even had one single stinking practice and can't possibly even know the names of all the members on their team, I'm sure this game is going to be top notch. Especially since the coach has such faith that practice does not make perfect and that somehow a group of ten year old girls will pull forth their psychic connections and automatically know that Jill Jones is on first, and Jane Doe is playing centerfield instead of being forced to scream, "Hey! Girl on second! Catch this!"

Yes, you heard it hear folks. The smell of sarcasm rising up high early in the morning. As far as coaches go, KC's coach is less than impressive with a questionable commitment level to the game in serious question. In fact, the general buzz of all the other parents would lead me to believe that Sir Coach is going to have his ears set aflame tonight if he doesn't get things a bit more pulled together before this season is out. I mean really... We all shelled out fifty dollars per kid to have them play softball, I believe we all need to see some bang for our bucks!

Batter up y'all.

Salt In Open Wounds

My heart bleeds and breaks and makes wishes for things it cannot have. My anger is my sorrow, my sorrow, my pain. I don’t know how to disconnect one feeling from the other. I am a river that rages lost and out of control, hoping always to return to you.

I wish I could paint you a picture to make you understand, or make sense of these things myself. The way the pain can overtake me as suddenly as a violent summer storm, living here with you, but not with you, scared of the loneliness that refuses to leave my side, scared of my own future now so uncertain.

How can you live with someone you love and know that they don’t feel the same? How can you live with someone who breaks your heart every time he picks up the phone and you know it’s not you he’s talking to? How can anyone even begin to imagine that kind of pain unless they themselves have felt it?

I thought that I could put this all behind me, moving on from here without really moving on from here. Opening myself to what I thought could be new options, new dreams to make come true. But at the end of the day, my need to displace the emptiness I feel inside is as tenuous as the connections I pretend to make. And nothing and no one can stop my tears once they begin to fall. Not even you…

And I know that it would be best to listen to those that have counseled me, my family and my friends. And I feel bad for what I’ve put them through. Days and nights when they have listened patiently when I could barely speak between my tears or keened my sorrow loudly like a lost child in the woods. They have seen me at my worst; a pitiful broken thing as helpless to make a decision as a newborn lamb and they have implored me to change.

But still I wait. Wondering if someday soon you might remember who I am, and the reasons why you chose to find me when I was lost to you. You came back to me of your own accord, opening doors I thought I’d shut. You made me a believer in fate and perhaps it was foolish of me to think that we should be destined to be together when truth seems to be saying that we are destined to be apart.

The way you love leaves me little doubt that somewhere in your heart there is a space for me. Some corner I’ve already claimed. But even I can see that you’re nowhere near ready to allow anyone any closer than where you want them to be. Love is a dangerous weapon. Give your heart away, and there is a strong possibility that you will never get it back. And despite what we think, we cannot live without our hearts.

And so I’m taking mine back and asking you to understand that my pride, my passion, and self-preservation has made this the only move that I can make. I cannot love you and allow myself to fall apart. I cannot love you and surrender my pride. I will not love you and ignore my passion. And I will not put my entire life on hold hoping and waiting for you to figure out that your next move should be with me, beside me... Together.

Eventually I will leave, and be not like the wife of Lot, who in her need to look back on all she left behind, was left to stand a pillar of salt.