House & Soul

I walk around my house at night comfortable with the darkness, knowing it's path so well I have no need to turn on any lights. I know each room like a still picture inside my head, know precisely where everything is in every room from the desk pressed against the wall here, a lamp on a table there, to the cats curled up asleep on the chair they wouldn't dare to be caught on during the daylight hours. This is the comfort of home. This knowing of a space that over time becomes an extension of yourself, as much a part of you as your heart and your hands. This is the thought I've been grappling with, trying to find the right words to explain this feeling I've had over being part of and witnessing the separation of house and soul.

I wonder on that last night my Grandmother spent sleeping in my Uncle's old room in her tiny little house tucked back safely from the road, if she really understood that it was to be her last night sleeping there. I wonder if she (like me) would have stayed awake just to listen once more to all those familiar sounds, those nighttime sounds she's heard for well over the past 30 something years like her own personal lullaby... I think she knew but didn't want to know, probably crying herself to sleep in the darkness that night preparing herself for the morning ahead when she would wake and attempt to not show fear.

I admire her courage to let it go. To trust in her grown children to have her best interest at heart. To walk out that morning for the last time and face the day with strength and pride when what I'm sure she really wanted to do was stage a protest, sit in her favorite rocker and never leave. She may have even handled it far better than my Mother or myself who could barely contain our tears and even our tempers when the strain of everything began to be too much. She only cried once that I'm aware of as I was driving her to her new home at the assisted living community, my Uncle and my Mother following in a separate car. She took my hand and held it tight, looking at me with tears in her eyes as if she was a lost child and I was her only connection to the world. "I'll go," she said. "Because it's what they want me to do." And then she made me promise not to tell anyone that she'd been crying. A promise I only agreed to once she promised not to tell anyone that I had too.

I don't expect my Grams will stop missing her home anytime soon. I don't expect that her new "home" will ever quite compare. But what I hope is that she will come to like it enough that all her memories of home will bring comfort and joy.

Reading & Realization

"She's just a normal girl," she says.
"What does normal mean?"
Sonia shrugs. "You know. She's not that quirky. She likes mainstream movies. Romance. Action-adventure. She's not into inner turmoil. She's one of the most practical people I've ever met. It's like, life is a job. She's a realist."
For some reason I feel slightly affronted. I say, "I'm a realist."
Sonia laughs. "You're not a realist," she says. "You're a dreamer who doesn't believe in the dream."

- the Myth of You & Me
a novel by Leah Stewart

I used to think I was a realist. Now I know I'm like the character in this book, I'm the dreamer who stopped believing in the dream. Perhaps it's time to remember how to begin again...

Flight Risk

These past few months have gone past like a blur. Highs and lows. Lows and highs. Trying to find some semblance of a middle ground between two worlds trying to co-exist at the same time. I just keep getting this feeling that where I am right now is merely a holding point - a juxtaposition of sorts - pointing out the obvious of where I do and don't belong. Wondering as I am prone to do what the difference is between running away and running to and whether it really matters much at all if the end result produces what I really need, someplace new to begin.

The last time I felt this way - this restless urge to leave without looking behind - KC was four months old and I was reeling from the responsibility of it all, and the reality of having to do it all on my own. The truth was that what I wanted most at that time was to run South as fast as my feet could carry me to the comfort and the relative safety of my Mother. Because it seems that no matter how old I get, being around my Mom is like a respite for the weary and I am quick to shrug the grown up from my shoulders and give my inner child a few spare moments on the outside.

But somehow this time something feels different. Perhaps this time, it's not so much a reaction to negative forces around me but more so an honest reaction from my heart that feels more at home someplace else than I've ever truly felt here. Or maybe it's because I've spent so much time there these past few months, almost every other weekend for the last two, that I've created this home away from home. But I know - with a certainty that I've never had before that this feeling is as real as real can get.

But a grown woman has anchors. A child that doesn't want to move. A job that wouldn't relocate. A best friend who would be too far away for comfort. And the fear of turning my world upside down when I've only just settled into it after an exhausting year of domestic torture I only barely made it through. And yet... I can't rid myself of the familiarity of a different set of streets, the view of mountains rising tall against a summer sky, the smell of pine that lingers like molasses on the air, and the feeling each and every time I go back that what I've really done is come back home.

A Welcome Change of Pace

Good things...

KC and I went for a walk last night along one of the trails of our local park and despite a minimal amount of whining (on her part, not mine) we had ourselves a bonafide Mommy and daughter bonding moment.

The sun is SHINING! And it's WARM!

I painted my entire house - from top to bottom - in two weeks time and FINALLY it feels like HOME!

My new chair for my reading room was delivered Wednesday and it is SO COMFY!

I went on a camp retreat with my church last weekend and despite the manual labor part had fun...

Guitars and campfires go awful nice together...

I found a roll of film, had it developed and got some great shots despite the roll being over two years old.

I have great friends!

My new washer/dryer are finally getting hooked up! No more laundromat!

Tori released a new CD... I've already listened to it more times than I can count.

I feel like SMILING!

I'm laughing more and being miserable less! (Always a good thing!)

I love my Mom! (Statistics show she loves me back!)

My daughter thinks I'm a dork and occassionaly (okay, more often than not) I am!

Love is nothing to regret even if you don't end up together in the end.

I'm getting over my fear of walking down the street.

I have a backbone!

Puppies are cute... Cats are cuter!

My daughter is growing up and she's beautiful.

I have a new found respect for antiques.

My youngest sister is graduating from college.

Life without internet service available (24/7) is not so bad at all.

I work with idiots! And there are days I feel like I'm a cast member of some sitcom.

I never feel like Newman. Norm, maybe...

Blueberry coffee always perks me up.

Sometimes you need to slow down and realize you have everything you really need.

Do something nice today. Maybe you'll brighten the day of someone who could really use a double dose of happiness.

Be kind! Considerate! At peace! In love! Humorous! Helpful! Hopeful!

And if you can't do anything else... Just smile. I know I am...

Poetic License

The Embrace

She taught him the gods. Was it teaching? He went on

hating them, but in the long evenings of obsessive talk,

as he listened, they became real. Not that they changed.

They never came to seem innately human.

In the firelight, he watched her face.

But she would not be touched; she had rejected

the original need. Then in the darkness he would lead her

back –

above the trees, the city rose in a kind of splendor

as all that is wild comes to the surface.

Louise Gluck

The Triumph Of Achilles (1985)

Perhaps this is a sort of cheating; to read one poem for the thought and then transfer it over into your own words and interpretation. But isn't that what creativity is all about? Taking an idea and making it your own? Either way it was a good exercise to get some writing done when I haven't been doing very much of it at all…

Disconnect

She knows her limits;

sees them clearly.

Understands immediately

the things she can and cannot have.

She who can touch and reach

and see beyond the concrete wall to what exists;

to what is real.

She remembers looking into his eyes –

blue ice fringed with lashes like shutters,

an effort to keep his heart disconnected from his mind.

Allowing him to

- touch -

without being touched,

leaving only her to burn with the emptiness of his goodbye.

She knows her limits;

sees them more clearly now.

Understands how to separate herself from herself,

to act on instinct alone.

Pulling herself apart at will,

disconnecting emotions from needs to satisfy the wants of her hunger.

Creating her own distance like she keeps her own

counsel...

She knows him unlike anyone else who has known him,

knows him from the inside out.

Things he wouldn't normally say,

thoughts he wouldn't dream to speak.

He has told her these things, perhaps she thinks for absolution.

To resolve some regret he believes she can wipe clean from his soul,

using her up like a one time confession,

dirtying her with the stains of his sins until he needs her no more...

She who would have once believed that he was someone worth saving

believes only in his power to break her.

To be one more name -

on a long list of names - of those who have made promises they could not keep…

She leaves before he knows she's gone.

In a note that says no more that what she needs to say…

No response required,

Burning him this time with the simple etching of her name.

(Happier things from here on out... I promise. We could all use some good thoughts...)

One of the Good Ones

Now you and I both know that I don't normally post things that have been forwarded to death via email but I'm going to do it despite myself because it does sort of/kind of make a lot of good sense. And dang it all, I'm a good apple!

Women

are like apples on

trees. The best ones

are at the top of the tree.

Most men don't want to reach

for the good ones because they are

afraid of falling and getting hurt. Instead,

they sometimes take the apples from the

ground that aren't as good, but easy. The

apples at the top think something is wrong

with them, when in reality, they're amazing

They just have to wait for the right man

to come along, the one who is brave

enough to climb all the way

to the

top

of the

tree.

And stay there.

Okay, so I added the stay there part. Because love 'em and leave 'em men are far more disappointing than men who never reached at all… And because this is my damn blog and I can do whatever I want to. And because I said so, and we all know how that works.

Back Pocket Logic

How do you avoid the unavoidable?

Sooner or later it happens to the best of us. We come across a person or a group of people who for one reason or another instill in us a grand desire to get as far and as fast away from them as possible. Most of the time we luck out, coming in just low enough under the radar that we're virtually spotless and untraceable. But there are times when you can't avoid being spotted, like a deer standing alone in a barren field of winter unable to find a tree to hide behind; times when you can't help but be out in the open when like that deer, you and your fawn are just trying to live your lives...

My solution – or rather my so-called plan of action is to be extreme. To do not what is expected of me but to do the least likely thing someone would think I'd do. And while I'm not saying I'd start screaming fire in the middle of a crowded room, I wouldn't be at all averse to causing one hell of a scene if I felt it were in my best interest to do so.

Considering how much thought I've put into thinking about how I'd handle a sticky situation should be more than enough to prove my point that not even public humiliation – for both myself and someone else – would be the least bit of a deterrent should I deem it necessary to do whatever it takes to be left alone. After all a woman who knows where the obvious chinks in her armor lie, also knows best how to notch her bow with assets she has readily on hand.

So the question remains… How do you avoid the unavoidable?

You don't...

Captured Rainbows

Ambitious is just another word for stupidity in my book. Stupidity being defined as getting this sudden urge to paint my dining room early yesterday afternoon only to find myself running back to the paint store a few hours later to buy yet another gallon of paint in order to tackle the kitchen walls as well. And sore is how I feel this morning from my shoulders all the way down to my paint speckled toes while my ass is seriously contemplating lodging a formal complaint against God knows who, convinced that it should be much smaller than it currently is due to yesterday's unplanned buns of steel workout. However my right shoulder probably has first dibs on the lawsuit due to the dislocation – or at least believing it's been dislocated. And as far as I'm concerned that's more than enough to run with, or at present time stumble along with as I whine.

On the positive end of the spectrum, my kitchen/dining room is looking absolutely fantabulous and when I get home, I'm going to pull up a chair and simply stare at the wall for a good six hours to admire my handiwork. It's that damn pretty and it matches my pottery to boot which makes it that much better than any other paint I could have splashed upon my walls. But my painting days are far from over. Tonight will see me once more with paint brush in hand right along with roll after roll of blue painters tape as I work on the finishing details in KC's room which was also painted this weekend. Because I can, and because I feel like upping the notch on the difficulty level, I will be adding vertical stripes to the knee wall on one side of her room to finish off the "I watch way too much HGTV look" that I've going for. Perhaps I just have way too much time on my hands…

In other news, my Mom will be in town this weekend which is always a good thing as I am a Mama's girl at heart and don't get to spend nearly enough time with her considering she lives in North Carolina. Added bonus to this visit is she will be arriving bearing gifts, one of which will include an antique writing desk for my fireplace/reading/writing room that I've been slowly making over since January. Who knows, maybe the next great American novel will be written on that very desk… Doubtful. But possible…

Silly Goose

The oddest thoughts always occur to me when driving. Like this morning for instance, I was listening to classical music – because sometimes it's absolutely necessary to have a hip hop free ride to work – when I noticed flock after flock of Canadian geese on their return trip home. And I was staring at the sky while driving – which proves my theory that I suffer from attention deficit disorder only when to do so might prove hazardous to my health – when I began to wonder about the lead goose in the V-formation. Questions like what does one have to do to become the lead goose? How does one keep lead goose status? Can one ever retire from being the lead goose? And how much stress must it be for the lead goose to be responsible for keeping everyone in line and on the right course? And if a lead goose is to us as a pilot would be, does that mean that other geese farther down the line act like flight attendants seeing to the needs of others during this whole business of migration?

If there are any experts in the Canadian goose field, I welcome your comments. Or any comment for that matter.

Where did you all go?

Regurgitation

I am surrounded by the things I cannot see, vulnerable to these things I do not know, shamed by this new position of weakness; a supplicant at your feet ready to do your bidding should you call and deem me worthy of response.

And I wait.

Wait until I grow weary from the waiting, wait until I feel the knife cutting softly at my throat, this slow death you have subjected me to. You have done me no kindness letting your ghost linger with me this long just to tease me with what I cannot have…

I never imagined you to be so cruel, so without a heart that you would continue to hold mine hostage. A girl like me should be able to go on without a heart, should be able to live with intangible things; should not waste her time to think, to speak, to write out the ridiculous and leave it here, a backwards message forwarding itself through time.

Do you not hear me asking something from you? Do you not know these questions, this anger, these tears; my frustration is all directed pointedly at you? Did you believe these words to be random, these sentences just vertical lines on a page? Did you fail to recognize how carefully they have all been chosen?

They are here at my whim, but they appeal to your mercy that your silence so far has not sufficed, you who speak to me in riddles and expect me to fully understand your rhymes. You who speak to me in silence, in conversations that play themselves like a record repeating itself note for note, that do not match the man you have decided to become. That man isn't worthy of my regard or my regret though I miss the man who I regret I've lost.

I have gone on too long about this. I had thought myself finished on this subject; on things I couldn't change. But I find it hard to put this down, to walk away and leave all of this as unfinished as it is. You have changed me from woman to beggar with palms held up open in the air. You have taken the key to my defense and left me unlocked, susceptible to any random passerby and I cannot manage the gate to get it shut.

How can I excuse myself for needing to know these things from you, for being so needy that I cannot live without these answers so long as there is a chance that I might know? How can I excuse myself to not need anything more from you that you have already proven you are unwilling and unable to give?

How is it that I can ask?

How is it that you are able to ignore?

Because I Can

I'm at the library this morning and as early as it is, I've already gotten so much done, I feel as if I should just go home, throw myself down on the couch and spend the rest of the day watching movies relaxing...

The guy sitting next to me, or rather one chair down from me, smells like a walking ash tray. It's hard to breathe - not only because I'm still hanging on tight to this cold I've had for the past two weeks - but I swear he's managed to clog up my lungs a little bit more just by being there. And yes, I realize it's rude but seriously, maybe it's time to cut down on a few dozen packs a day...

Anyhoo I really don't have much to say this morning. I've decided - well, with a little common sense talk from both Bren and my Mom - that's it's time to unplug from the whole GB situation. Simply put, if it's not right now, it's never going to be. And as both were quick to point out, I need to remember how the situation played out with SB when honestly, I should have left well enough alone the first time I knew he wasn't the one for me. Needless to say, I don't always learn my lessons the first or even the third go round. But I'm trying...

So this is me saying okay. Let's see what's around the corner. Because good things come to those who wait, and maybe I've just got to wait a little bit longer.

When Is Enough, Enough?

There are some things you need to figure out for yourself. Like how you feel about someone, or how you feel you're treating them and whether or not fairness even comes into play. But you and I both know that not everyone does that. Not everyone takes responsibility for themselves and their actions because they simply don't care or don't know what to do with that information when they have it. And so they become immobile; unable to do anything.

If I were made of much stronger stuff than which I am, I'd be able to tell him not to call me anymore, I'd cut off this last line of connection that we have. I'd be able to tell him plain and straight that it hurts too much to simply have these two minutes conversations that have nothing to do with us other than where we work. He could ask for someone else but he doesn't. And in truth, I don't want him to when the crumbs of these conversations fill my heart just as fast as they break it.

But I'm tired of trying to figure out what it is he's thinking or what kind of man he is. Because the way I see it, he's either the kind who sets out to get what he wants just to get it to leave it behind, or he's – for lack of any word that might be a better fit – scared of what he feels. That is, if he feels anything for me at all.

And I wish I could say that he did feel something. He said to me once that I had a little piece of his heart – I had it! - and that eventually I might have it all. That's not verbatim to what he said, but it's close and I remember most – if not all - of our conversations this way. Little snippets…

"Are you going to talk me to sleep again? If so how about some cookies and warm milk? That's not too much to ask for is it? See, I'm keeping my wishes reasonable as asked.(for now)"

"I'm not the scared little bitch you think I am but I am scared. But I'm not what you think I am right now."

Him: "Is this how you thought this conversation was going to end?"

Me: "No… I thought I was going to have to say good-bye."

"You hate me… Understood. You said we could still talk. Give me a call sometime."

"You don't like me anymore do you?"

And I have answers even when I don't answer him. His last question – just a few hours ago – "You don't like me anymore do you?" I evaded an actual answer. I didn't say no, I didn't say yes… It was just one big pause before I said I didn't have an opinion. But you know me well enough to know that I always have an opinion, I was born with opinions… I should have just told the truth. Like doesn't even cover how I feel. Love on the other hand, that just might be skimming the surface. And now, I'm back to wanting to cry, for missing him so much than now even my dreams betray me in my sleep…

But I'm stubborn. Stubborn enough to believe that it's not my job to chase him. It's not my responsibility to make him own up to what he feels. It's not my job to ask him why or why not or ask him to consider the possibilities. I've written that letter. I've had conversations with him after that letter. He can't doubt my heart in the slightest. He can't say he doesn't understand how I feel about him or where I would like us to be ten years from now. He knows all of this. He knows I want a life with him in it. The only thing he doesn't know is how long I'll wait for him to figure all this out… And that may be the only answer that I don't truly know… Though I know I won't be able to wait on him forever...

Traveling By Dark

Somebody should always know where you are even when you're not quite sure. This is a theory I subscribe to, especially when I find myself doing the unexpected; like taking a trip I hadn't intended to take on a night not fit for driving any distance beyond the miles it takes to just get home.

I was in Amsterdam, pulled up at a drive through window paying the clerk for my blueberry coffee with one hand and holding my cell phone in the other, Brenda's voice buzzing in my ear.

I'm checking in, I say, the sound of my voice tired and gravelly from a not gotten over yet cold. Just stopping for coffee and gas. I'll call you back after I'm back on the road, I tell her hanging up.

At the gas station, I keep to the outside edge beneath the lights, not as close to the store as I would normally be, choosing instead to avoid a small group of people loitering outside their doors. My eyes dart between the numbers adding up on the pump, and the loiterers with their music cranked up and their pants near down to their knees as new sounds drifting in from across the street draw my eyes outward into the night outlining the silhouettes of three people stumbling in the darkness towards my side of the road.

The tank isn't full yet but I consider leaving, estimating the amount of time it will take for these new hazards to reach where I am, to how long it will take for my receipt to print and to get inside my car where I can be safely locked inside. Alone in a place I've only been in long enough to just pass through, I err on the side of safety, and make myself ready to go.

It takes two hours of solid travel time to get from here to there. Amsterdam is my one hour mark. I pick up the phone to call Brenda back, setting it on speaker so I can drive hands free in accordance with the laws of New York State. (FYI…Mom.)

I can't talk long I say even before I say hello. It's foggy out and I can barely see and some asshole behind me is riding my tail like I'm his Seeing Eye dog and my nerves are completely shot just trying to figure out where the road is and where it isn't and I've got to call you back because I'm got to concentrate on my driving, I manage to say all in one breath, I'll call you again when I reach the Northway.

These are my rules. They are quite simple. Someone must always know where I am at all times. Even if it's only to say, I last talked to her here when she was there. When I think about it, it's kind of funny this neurosis of mine. And even as I wonder what it means to be so fearful of getting lost or simply just disappearing from a place where once you were, the answer itself waves to me from the backseat of my car.

I know why and for me that's more than enough.

---

Calls & Conversations (Heard & Unheard)

Proving to herself that she's ceased to care backfires the moment she hears his voice coming crystal clear across the phone. She keeps it professional, keeps the conversation to the job, keeps the bad thoughts she's thinking about their history to herself, stops herself from becoming that girl all over again.

You know that girl; that girl who just didn't want to get it; the one who wanted to believe in love conquering all, against any and every odd. Glass half full and not empty girl, the one who played the cards in a deck stacked against her because she believed she had a chance. The stupid girl who thought she knew him much better than she did, and thought that he – HE! - Of all people! - wouldn't play her like that. She believed the best of him. She never considered he might treat her like some fly by night fuck and run, and in the morning there'd be no question of respect or having lost it. He wouldn't do that. He wouldn't do that to her.

She was that girl; that girl who cared about him in every possible way. The one who thought he hung the moon. That same girl who heard his voice and felt like she'd finally found out who the right person was all along, and judged him not by a past he couldn't alter but by the man she knew him to be. She saw him, saw past what others said was good reason to walk away, saw beyond the smoke and mirrors of his own defense and fell in love with him imperfections and all. She believed him to be a man worthy of coming home to.

And she was the girl who would have met him halfway in everything he did or would want to do. She would have hung the stars in his sky. That's how she felt, though she doesn't know now how she feels, she should hate him – he's even said so himself - because he way that boy. That boy who made that girl feel like an absolute slut, like she had something to be ashamed of, because they shared one night together. One blissfully glorious night when everything that could be was, and the heavens reached down to touch the earth and the world consisted of just two people. Him and her.

Now that girl can't think about that night without wishing that it did and didn't happen. Recalling it now as an act of shame. Shame because she had believed and shame for allowing herself to be disillusioned. She wonders how he feels. She wonders if he feels the same…

She didn't want to be that girl. Didn't want to be the fool. Didn't want to be counted among the ones who didn't matter. Because she wanted to matter – just to one person – and she wanted most to matter to him.

---

Detours

My eyes hurt today. Well, not just today. Most every day. They tear on their own, whether I'm happy or sad, so that when you see me, you'd think that I was crying, but mostly I'm just wiping the excess moisture from my eyes. Sometimes this comes in handy like at church last Saturday night, it's easy to explain tears away with an excuse. My eyes water constantly. I think I'm allergic to something. It must be the lighting. Except those tears, they were the real kind. My pastor however is convinced I'm where I need to be. She told me that a few weeks back, not expecting a response, but knowing she was right all the same.

The easiest thing for me to do would be to pick up my phone and make an appointment with an eye doctor. I could learn to live without twenty/twenty vision. I could acclimate to a pair of glasses. I could even get it substantiated from an honest to goodness professional that something as simple as an allergy pill could clear all this up. But I won't pick up the phone, I won't make that call and I won't go… At least not until it gets worse than it already is. This is how I deal with problems, ignoring them until they go away, or until they can no longer be ignored.

The writer in me prefers to think of these unwelcome tears – the ones I don't intentionally shed – as a purging of sorts, my body's automatic response to sadness and the removal of it from my life. An ocean load of tears I've stored in silence that I'm no longer able to contain. And maybe in my world of avoidance, there is a shred of truth to my belief.

Last night with the snow blowing like a mad hatter across the highway, creating a white out from the wind alone, I came to a forced detour, a fire truck parked sideways in the middle of the median and its crew with flashlights in hand directing me down a road that wouldn't get me home. I didn't take this detour in stride. I felt put out, thinking to myself how much longer it was going to take just to get where I wanted to be and wondering whether or not the next road would lead me back round to a stop or if it would still be open for travel.

I followed a lone line of cars, neither too closely nor too far behind, until we reached a fork in the road. The cars in front of me all opted to turn left, the quickest way back to the main road but I drove straight on, keeping to the back roads as I'd been taught, knowing from where I was it was my quickest way home. How funny it was to have that thought, that memory from my childhood mind, the lesson I learned from my stepfather still so deeply ingrained that there wasn't a thought to following the pack, and absolutely no fear of going it alone.

I was smiling at the thought of being in control, back in the driver's seat, taking my time over the ruts, the bends in the road and when the snow blew and blustered I let out my breath and made my way slowly through the temporary blindness. Confidence, whether falsified or on demand for the moment, had me believing that my little adventure out of the ordinary wasn't the least bit significant. Accidents happen. Roads get closed. Detours are just the long way home. But I know that even the smallest of things can set some of the biggest of things in motion, and how those moments can alter a life forever. And in the blink of an eye, it can all change, because I had seen what he had not… I had seen him.

The whole thing may have lasted for ten seconds, though to me it might have been a full length feature movie. In one space of seeing him, I took in everything from the truck he was driving to the shocking whiteness of his hair, to the smile on his face that suggested he was listening to something humorous on his radio. I willed him to look, to pay attention, to see that the car he was passing was me but he took no notice and he passed by with nary a glance.

I wanted to stop in the middle of the road, get out of my car and run after him like a child not ready to say goodbye. I wanted to scream, "Dad! Come back! Don't you know it's me? I'm right here! Don't leave me! Don't go away!" But he didn't stop, and I didn't turn around and life - it went on as if it had never happened at all, as if I never needed a hand to hold onto.

The hardest lesson I've ever had to learn during the course of my life is admitting that I can't always be in control. I can make choices but I can't always predict the outcomes, I can love someone and yet have absolutely no contact with them, and I can push away when I mean to hold close. And I can be wrong. I can hurt people with a quiver of words, I can twist them in a way that attempts to mimic the manipulation I despise, but I can also use them to heal, to bring hope, to show affection, to offer love and give comfort. But no matter how they are given, I can never take them back when they are no longer mine to own.

The man who is and isn't my father knows this to be my greatest flaw. The child who loves too much can hate to the same intensity. The child who feels abandoned and betrayed becomes the woman who knows it as fact rather than fiction, growing to expect it from each and every person she encounters, wounding herself repeatedly with the same mistakes over and over again to punish herself for what she considers her crimes. It doesn't occur to her that she might be innocent. She's spent so much of her life feeling guilty…

In my thirties, it seems a little ridiculous to broadcast that I've got Daddy issues. Then again, a girl with a count of three to the one you're supposed to have should be entitled to a certain amount of leniency in this arena. Divorce and remarriage was simply the norm growing up. It still is. People fall in and out of love as easily as falling asleep, though I don't say that to be cruel or unkind. Each divorce that ripped its way through my household was a catastrophic event for at least one if not all of us. And anytime you divorce someone that you love – that you both love – for reasons that have simply spread out beyond the limits of what can and can't be controlled, it hurts like hell. And it hurt like that never really goes away.

When I was a kid, things seemed so black and white. There was no in-between, no gray area where we could lay the blame, when the blame to me was disguised as more than a dozen beer cans consumed in the course of just one night, every night and the confrontations that would always follow by a vast array of players. I think that's why – as an adult or as adult as I'm ever going to be - I hate confrontation so much. Hate it to the point of avoidance. Hate it enough to tolerate bad behavior and allow it to be a weakness in what was supposed to be my arsenal of defense. I simply stall out when faced with a fight which is the oddest thing for a girl with one hell of a temper and the countenance of a lion turned mouse.

My solution for all this was to walk away. But don't believe me when I tell you that by doing so I left the pain behind. I've dragged that around for more years than I care to count and added loads more to it along the way. And I've hurt the man I consider as much as a Father to me as my flesh and blood Dad. They both were –well, are – flawed men. Men who have made as many mistakes as every other man on the face of this planet, men who couldn't possibly have lived up to the pedestal I put them on and toppled off as you would expect they would when it got too high. But when it came to separating themselves out from the rubble, no hand of mine reached down to help them out.

I won't say my (step)Dad never tried. He did and on more than one occasion I turned away and sent him packing without ever leaving my room. But I watched his retreat from the window on Christmas Day and every day there after as I shoved him to the peripheral of my life, as I let the years slide by with no letters, no calls and no contact at all. If you doubt that I have in me the ability to be cruel doubt that in me no more. I'm not proud of my behavior but neither can I change what already has been done.

I went to college, dropped out of college, had a fiancé, had a baby and then only a ring to prove I'd once been engaged, and then a life that seemed to propel forward on its own accord. The first time he broke down the wall was after KC was born. I opened my door and there he was and it was all I could do to keep from crying and knowing how I am with the waterworks, you can imagine that I flooded the room with my tears. But one visit does not solve every little thing; it does not take into account years of problems left unresolved. We tried – as anyone can really try wearing kid gloves and walking on egg shells to resurrect the relationship we had lost but it was a difficult task. It required an amount of commitment both in time and temperament that neither one of us was fully prepared to make, he with the family he now had and me and the baby that was mine.

For years we've gone on this way, half hearted attempts to do the right thing, to say the right thing. But I think most of the problem with this is that I've never simply sat him down and told him the truth about how I've felt for all of these years and I've never given him the opportunity to do the same.

Do I know that man loves me? I've no doubt of it at all. I'm the daughter of his heart and he is the father of mine. And I owe him another chance to help me make things right. And though he doesn't know it, at least not yet, I made a promise at the beginning of this year – one to him and every other person I consider to be important in my life – a promise that I would make each and every moment matter, that I would say whatever needed to be said, no matter how hard it might be for me to say it, and that I would leave no one in any doubt – least of all myself - of how I truly feel. And if the only success that comes from my promise is closure, let it be said that I opened the door to the future and not that I closed it on my past.

---

One Moment For the Pity Party

How old is too old to run away from home? I asked myself this today just as I was getting ready to leave work. Sometimes I think it would be easier to just pick up and move; start over in a new place just KC and I away from anyone and everyone who knows anything about us. I'm just so tired. Tired of trying so damn hard, tired of wanting too darn much and tired of watching people walk in and out of my life according to their whims and then pretending that I'm perfectly okay to watch them go when all I want to do is drag them back and convince them to stay because I'm a good person... I really am... And someone, somewhere has got to see that... If I could just be more convincing...

Sure I know that running away would solve absolutely nothing, just like crying is only good for giving me a headache. But I'm full to the brim with tears tonight and no one around to help make them go away. So what is going to change in the next few moments other than sending off this post, collecting my books and going home?

What needs to change? What change has already occurred? When will I get myself together?

Homesick

Home isn't the arched doorway leading into my living room or the gray blue walls that warm the kitchen despite the cold stone tiles.  Home isn't the fireplace that seems more cold than warm, or an upstairs view on a downtown world.  Home is a place that is missed like the sound of silence on a cold winter's night when everything is so still you can hear the sound of the snow itself falling flake by flake.

 

And how I wish I could go back to where I was, tucked away in my quiet world where nothing manmade broke the stillness of the night.  Home with the grass filled field across the way and a backyard so big it went on for miles in a sea of green.  To the place where I could sit alone under the cover of darkness and turn my face  to the stars above, feeling safe and far removed from the glare of streetlights and the harsh sounds of a city always on its way to somewhere.

 

But I can't take back the mistake I made, and the home I left for little more than false hope, empty words and broken promises.  I can't right the wrong that rocked my world and stole my daughter away from the innocence of climbing trees, the sunshine days of our summers.  I can only learn my lesson and learn it well. 

 

Only leave home when you have everything to gain and nothing at all to lose. 

A Matter of Choice

I’m not waiting for life to just happen anymore. I want to be part of it. Every small decision, every giant leap of faith, every moment that the sun shines and the moon ebbs the tide away back to sea.

 

I choose to see life for what it is, a vast array of options and opportunities. To choose one thing or let go of another. To say yes with everything in my heart, or to say no when what’s been offered is not enough.

 

No one should ever wait for perfection, if the right time and place occur; it’s a joyful accident of fate. One that should have us raising our voices in praise of God above for the miracle that has been bestowed. And if we are lucky enough to realize what we have, we learn to hold onto it and give it value. For nothing is as random as we would like to believe it is and a gift offered and turned away is a gift that may never be given again.

 

A man who is in earnest for my affections will never leave me in doubt of his. He will no more play cat and mouse with my heart than I would his. A man who did not want to lose me would never take the risk to put me on hold and have me walk away, or tide himself over with pieces of me until he’s absolutely certain that I am the one he wants.

 

The man who gets me must be decisive. He must know his heart and mind at once to know one very simple thing, the heart that says yes will always trump the mind that says no. And the man who doesn’t love me enough, should be man enough to let me go…

(For GB... My heart says yes...)

Left With Questions

 

I don’t like the way of the world right now.

A world where you are and I am -  but we are no more.

I miss everything. Known and unknown.

Words that now belong to only you.

And words I used to say in response to yours.

Who talks you now to sleep?

Who ushers in your darkness?

Who saves me from mine?

Spent

A thousand thoughts and not one of them solid enough to volunteer itself for interpretation.

Today the blank page wins...