The world has been fed an act, the play you have performed perhaps too well. To find that so much has been a farce cuts to the very core of my heart. It makes me question the integrity of much of what I thought of you. Maybe you aren't the one I've held near and dear. Maybe neither of you are. I feel unsure if I'll ever know with certainty what is true and what is illusion. Only God knows how badly I wish someone would tell me how it is that I should be feeling and reacting. I can't help but to feel foolish, to feel like I'm putting my feet wrong at every step. So often, lately, you chide me with the knowing tone of a mother, though it is becoming obvious to me that you know less of propriety than I once gave you credit for.
How does it come to this? And am I doomed to follow the trails blazed before me? If you were in my place, you most certainly would be wondering the same thing. You would question whether this was a reality also written in the stars for you, acted and re-enacted time and time again before your eyes, so familiar to your heart that it is almost expected behavior, comforting, the right thing. What we have have known, what we have seen, those are not the ways intended for us--the breaking for the purpose of breaking, the suffering we think will bring us closer to our Maker because pain must be the pathway to true joy.
Dear one, I love you with a love that was implanted in my very soul before my bones were knitted together, my instinct to protect you from harm is as strong as if you were my child--but my love alone can't keep you from setting foot in the traps you are placing for yourself, my words not enough to change your course. And now my heart is in turmoil because it is becoming clearer to me, day by day, that I will be made to choose between loving you enough to let you go and loving you too much for your own good.
I found myself, the other day, thinking happily about the day when all would be put right, order restored. Happy comes with a price, now. I'm afraid that in order for happiness to find you on this earth, you must first be broken in two pieces, or perhaps more. It scares me to consider that returning to joy may not mean that the pieces will come together the way I hope they will. This loss of control is almost too much--I do not want to know what comes next or how far you will fall before you can climb upward once again. I want you to return to the quiet hills where we spent our happiest, carefree hours. What I wouldn't give to once again climb the trees and laugh with you when I don't know how to climb back down!
It has been said that God works in mysterious ways--and while I know in my bones that He is not working in the way you believe He is, I know there is a rhyme and a reason for all of this. The trick is learning to accept the part He has written.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
The Journey
She pressed her fingertips together, hesitating, with the demeanor of one who is far too familiar with delivering bad news to others, her eyes lowered to a haphazard stack of papers that may or may not have had anything to do with us. My husband and I sat opposite her at her desk, hanging on her every word. When she spoke again, she spoke words that changed our lives forever. What did it mean that our son probably had a place on the spectrum? The “spectrum” sounded like an airy, whimsical place where all might be sunshine and daisies. The scream and shuffling from the other side of the office door confirmed that was not the case. Of course, she added quickly, she didn’t have the ability to diagnose him, but she had seen hundreds, nay, thousands of children just like ours, and he fit the description.
Are you okay, she asked quietly and genuinely, leaning forward to peer over the top of her eyeglasses. A lump had formed firmly in my throat, and my eyes had moistened instantaneously. The voice of the child psychologist we had seen several weeks ago echoed in my ears, promising us hectic years to come should we choose to pursue finding help. Hectic but rewarding, he had promised in not so many words.
I looked quickly to my husband, who smiled weakly and perhaps tried to utter a shaky response, I don’t know. I turned away from him to try to regain my composure. What this translated to was that I was becoming lost in self-despair imagining my next few years saturated in driving, endless appointments, and medical bills beyond my wildest dreams. This moment was born and bred for self pity, it couldn’t be helped.
---
I felt my eyes inadvertently widen as we entered the large, yellow room. Most of the floors and walls were covered with padding. There were pulleys and ropes anchored to the ceiling, resembling what I could only imagine a modern-day torture chamber may look like. Nearby a child flashed an awkward and toothless grin at me and said “hello”, prompted by a woman shuffling through a binder. He wore large headphones on his ears, fastened in place with a sweatband. His legs and arms were wrapped in ACE bandages, as if at any moment Richard Simmons might walk through that door and lead him through a rousing bit of “Sweatin’ to the Oldies”. I had officially entered a brand new world.
---
There it was again. I groaned inwardly, wishing I could just bury my head under a pillow and pretend that I didn’t hear it. A loud, rhythmic impact to his door, followed and covered and criss-crossed, and, please God, make it stop, by ear-splitting shrieks. Maybe I had been sleeping for half an hour, perhaps an hour—my eyes couldn’t focus on the clock even with the aid of the blue light from the baby’s nightlight. My husband was still at work, plugging away at what had to be another one of the twenty-hour days that were becoming all-too frequent in his line of work. So it’s my turn by default.
When I reach the door, it is still quaking and threatening to splinter in an undertone to the commotion behind. He is there, hovering behind the door, with surprisingly dry eyes despite the fact that a messy homicide possibly could have taken place with less noise and much less dramatics. Already I can see that his forehead is dark in the old familiar place. His eyebrows are furrowed as he whines and attempts to push past me with his shoulders into the hallway. I push him backward with a hand, and sit down in front of the door, asking him to please, please, please! lay down and go to sleep. He wails, and, because I am blocking the door, decides that the wall is a viable alternative.
He bangs his head on the wall, a sickening noise for anyone who has been privileged to hear it often enough to make it an hourly occurrence. Sometimes it was a somewhat sedate clunk against a vertical or horizontal surface, depending on if he had thrown himself to the floor in a tantrum. At other times, it was a frenetic, arm-flailing, eyes-closed, full-out run into the wall head-first. Either situation should never, ever happen. I have long since grown tired of explaining the perpetual bruise to strangers, who certainly must think secretly I am beating my child for his obvious lack of manners.
I choose to carry him to my room so he can lay by my side and rest. Which he does for approximately as long as it takes for his head to hit the pillow, then he immediately sits up in bed, revived. I fall into a restless sleep, subconsciously aware that he is pacing three sides of a table nearby, studying it with first one eye, then the next, all the while cooing in his own unique way, over and over. When I pry open my heavy eyes again, he is staring at me, his dark eyes glowing in the dim light cast by the nightlight. He has turned away from me and is doing an odd, repetitive jerking motion with his upper body, stooping forward a little, then snapping upright, all the while cooing and occasionally turning his head to focus on me. I am scared.
---
His haircut is cute and close-cropped, showing off the deepness of his eyes. We are sitting at a booth in the restaurant, fawning over him and discussing how his lack of hair really makes him appear so much older. He is looking out of the corner of his eye at something in his line of periphery. And then he keeps looking, turning his head in the opposite direction while still looking out the corner of his eye. We laugh because we don’t know it’s not funny. And then he does it the other way.
---
The room is dark, the large window providing the only light. The chairs try hard to be comfortable and accommodating, but I shift and yawn and wish I was curled up in bed instead. We stare at them as we might tropical fish in a large tank. Just like those fish, we are unable to do much to affect their movements, their motions, but we continue watching and waiting for a single moment in time when we might experience wonder.
He is beside me, playing with a container full of small plastic animals the therapist has given him to help pass the time. I try to tune him out, as it is difficult to hear conversation over him. He has given to laughing and coaching his brother through the glass as of late
I feel a light touch on my arm, and turn to look at him. He is holding a plastic gorilla on my arm and smiling slyly, those liquid eyes swimming in the light from the other room.
Huntie, what is that, he asks, looking to me to repeat the question so he may enlighten me.
What is that, I ask quietly, smiling at his playfulness as the gorilla remains on my arm until I ask the question.
It’s a monkey… on shoulder, he states plainly, surprising me because I didn’t know he knew the word “shoulder”.
---
A small crowd has gathered, and we willingly place him on display like a sideshow act, or maybe, just maybe, like parents do when their children do something adorable that the whole world needs to know about and bear witness to: A child learning to shake a diapered behind to a beat, taking a precarious step, some milestone… Something altogether more normal, more right, than what we are showcasing.
The tip of the Sharpie marker is suspended over nothingness, placed with the utmost care by chubby yet dexterous hands and the precision afforded by eagle eyes. Everyone’s attention is fixated entirely on him, and he seems to notice none of it as he works. He has moved on to place another marker on the edge of the desk, tip over the edge the very same amount as the one before, and the one before that, and the one before that.
A devious giggle escapes from someone who has decided to disrupt the process by moving the markers from position. It is meant to amuse us only, because the panic he is stricken with as he tries to make it right again, as he tries to reorder the chaos in his life, cannot and will not ever be amusing to him.
---
The voice on the other end falters, hesitating a little before she blurts out that she doesn’t know what that diagnosis means. When she tries to pronounce it, it sounds a little bit like sensory disintegration dysfunction, which I can only imagine would assuredly be a pity to behold. I let out a slow, even breath, trying to hide my agitation at this young girl—and, more distinctly, the company she works for. No, no, it’s sensory integration dysfunction, and would the diagnosis codes I have here help? She jots the codes down in my paperwork and promises we will hear back from someone soon.
And we do.
A big, fat packet of papers arrives in the mail several days later, congratulating us, announcing to the world that we have been accepted for coverage by their fabulous company. What a wise choice we made! How easy it was to get excited and skip over the smaller print that informs us we will pay more because I am obese and my husband has mysterious health issues. With no word or inkling of any apology for the inconvenience, they inform us that our child is not covered at all. Thank you, and have a very nice day.
As I speak with Customer Service, I ask them, with some measure of disbelief, what this means, even though I am a bright person who can read and interpret for herself what seems to be very straightforward. My mind is not grasping it all: How can a child who is in many ways so normal not be granted even the most basic of medical care?
I find I am not above begging and pleading, just a little bit, as I barrage the Customer Service agent with questions leaping out of a very distressed and positively aching place in my heart. So what you’re telling me is that even if I promised to never, ever submit a claim pertaining to do with his delays and subsequent therapy, he still would not be granted coverage? She assures me what I’m saying is her company’s stance, and we part ways.
I’m not sure how long I cried, tired and angry and hurt and frustrated. Not only am I upset for my child, I am upset for what the thousands of families who are presented with this situation every day. The insurance company in essence, says my child is a liability, a loss, someone in whom it is not fiscally advantageous for them to invest. They are grabbing my son’s shoulders, spinning him about-face, and pushing him out the open door, only to slam it in his bewildered face. It is your problem, they mumble from the other side of the door. We wish we could help now, really we do, but maybe you should return when he is an adult and what we could have helped you change as a child cannot be reversed. The struggles he will face in school are not our concern—isn’t that what the school system is for, after all?
No, and no, and NO! It cannot be!
I curse the insurance company. I curse money. I curse my husband for leaving employment where the health coverage was not at all perfect but was one of a small handful of companies that did pay a percentage eventually. I curse myself for not knowing that I was going to have such difficulties procuring new insurance. Suddenly, the move from a job that assured us that Daddy was just a paycheck and quite possibly a figment of our imaginations felt like a huge failure in our strategy to live happily ever after.
---
My face glows red, and I start feeling condescending, inconvenienced eyes focusing, one by one, upon me, upon him. He is beside me, tossing and turning, screaming and screeching, occasionally surprising or hurting me by grazing my face with a limb. My bag of tricks is empty, torn to pieces, stomped into dust, and he is still making a scene worthy of an Oscar. Thank heavens no one has had the gall to walk up to us and make a snide comment, for there would be no stopping my tears.
I am tired, but no one ever asks if I am tired. Naptime for the children is the closest thing to liquid gold I have, yet it does not come often enough or coincide nearly enough to give me the time to recharge my batteries. When all seems well and children are resting, I find that, all too often, I must wake them up to pick up my eldest from school. Or perhaps children from the neighborhood come over to play and cause such a commotion that sleeping children arise too soon. There is little question in my mind that I am known as the grumpy lady on our street, and as much as I wish it weren’t so, I have little control over my emotions to be anyone different. I am tired of being compared to others in my family who are also struggling. I am tired of being told that God only gives us as much as we can handle. I am tired of being told that with great privilege there comes great responsibility.
All I want at this very moment is a sedate breakfast with my mother. I have stopped hoping that maybe he will eat this time.
The waitress brings us a children’s menu, the kind printed on a disposable placemat, and a small pack of crayons. He should be the age where coloring sparks some interest, but the effort to hold the crayon at all, no less with an effective grasp, is difficult and he has stopped attempting it long ago. Instead, he yells, eyes focused on the crayons, which I am thankful for. Often his cries are not accompanied by cues that let someone know what he wants, leaving that person to play a frantic game of Is this what you want? until he stops his tantrum.
The crayons are unwrapped and placed before him, where he grabs them quickly and begins his work. With the poise and precision of a surgeon, he places the first crayon on the table. It stands, now, balancing on the flat end, pointed end up like a colored picket fence. His hands move carefully away as to not ruin his masterpiece, fingers splayed outwards as he makes his cautious retreat. This calculated process plays over and over as crayon number two, crayon number three, and crayon number four all find their places in line.
My mother grabs another pack of crayons as he is working, and places them in front of him. He continues in relative silence, save for the ever-present coo that means he is ordering his world and trying to forget he is part of ours. With all eight crayons in formation, he is eyeing them with more wonder than pride. I am not sure whether I should be scared or amused or something else altogether, but I manage to squeak out a teary, weak giggle.
I’ve never seen anything like that, my mother says breathlessly.
Are you okay, she asked quietly and genuinely, leaning forward to peer over the top of her eyeglasses. A lump had formed firmly in my throat, and my eyes had moistened instantaneously. The voice of the child psychologist we had seen several weeks ago echoed in my ears, promising us hectic years to come should we choose to pursue finding help. Hectic but rewarding, he had promised in not so many words.
I looked quickly to my husband, who smiled weakly and perhaps tried to utter a shaky response, I don’t know. I turned away from him to try to regain my composure. What this translated to was that I was becoming lost in self-despair imagining my next few years saturated in driving, endless appointments, and medical bills beyond my wildest dreams. This moment was born and bred for self pity, it couldn’t be helped.
---
I felt my eyes inadvertently widen as we entered the large, yellow room. Most of the floors and walls were covered with padding. There were pulleys and ropes anchored to the ceiling, resembling what I could only imagine a modern-day torture chamber may look like. Nearby a child flashed an awkward and toothless grin at me and said “hello”, prompted by a woman shuffling through a binder. He wore large headphones on his ears, fastened in place with a sweatband. His legs and arms were wrapped in ACE bandages, as if at any moment Richard Simmons might walk through that door and lead him through a rousing bit of “Sweatin’ to the Oldies”. I had officially entered a brand new world.
---
There it was again. I groaned inwardly, wishing I could just bury my head under a pillow and pretend that I didn’t hear it. A loud, rhythmic impact to his door, followed and covered and criss-crossed, and, please God, make it stop, by ear-splitting shrieks. Maybe I had been sleeping for half an hour, perhaps an hour—my eyes couldn’t focus on the clock even with the aid of the blue light from the baby’s nightlight. My husband was still at work, plugging away at what had to be another one of the twenty-hour days that were becoming all-too frequent in his line of work. So it’s my turn by default.
When I reach the door, it is still quaking and threatening to splinter in an undertone to the commotion behind. He is there, hovering behind the door, with surprisingly dry eyes despite the fact that a messy homicide possibly could have taken place with less noise and much less dramatics. Already I can see that his forehead is dark in the old familiar place. His eyebrows are furrowed as he whines and attempts to push past me with his shoulders into the hallway. I push him backward with a hand, and sit down in front of the door, asking him to please, please, please! lay down and go to sleep. He wails, and, because I am blocking the door, decides that the wall is a viable alternative.
He bangs his head on the wall, a sickening noise for anyone who has been privileged to hear it often enough to make it an hourly occurrence. Sometimes it was a somewhat sedate clunk against a vertical or horizontal surface, depending on if he had thrown himself to the floor in a tantrum. At other times, it was a frenetic, arm-flailing, eyes-closed, full-out run into the wall head-first. Either situation should never, ever happen. I have long since grown tired of explaining the perpetual bruise to strangers, who certainly must think secretly I am beating my child for his obvious lack of manners.
I choose to carry him to my room so he can lay by my side and rest. Which he does for approximately as long as it takes for his head to hit the pillow, then he immediately sits up in bed, revived. I fall into a restless sleep, subconsciously aware that he is pacing three sides of a table nearby, studying it with first one eye, then the next, all the while cooing in his own unique way, over and over. When I pry open my heavy eyes again, he is staring at me, his dark eyes glowing in the dim light cast by the nightlight. He has turned away from me and is doing an odd, repetitive jerking motion with his upper body, stooping forward a little, then snapping upright, all the while cooing and occasionally turning his head to focus on me. I am scared.
---
His haircut is cute and close-cropped, showing off the deepness of his eyes. We are sitting at a booth in the restaurant, fawning over him and discussing how his lack of hair really makes him appear so much older. He is looking out of the corner of his eye at something in his line of periphery. And then he keeps looking, turning his head in the opposite direction while still looking out the corner of his eye. We laugh because we don’t know it’s not funny. And then he does it the other way.
---
The room is dark, the large window providing the only light. The chairs try hard to be comfortable and accommodating, but I shift and yawn and wish I was curled up in bed instead. We stare at them as we might tropical fish in a large tank. Just like those fish, we are unable to do much to affect their movements, their motions, but we continue watching and waiting for a single moment in time when we might experience wonder.
He is beside me, playing with a container full of small plastic animals the therapist has given him to help pass the time. I try to tune him out, as it is difficult to hear conversation over him. He has given to laughing and coaching his brother through the glass as of late
I feel a light touch on my arm, and turn to look at him. He is holding a plastic gorilla on my arm and smiling slyly, those liquid eyes swimming in the light from the other room.
Huntie, what is that, he asks, looking to me to repeat the question so he may enlighten me.
What is that, I ask quietly, smiling at his playfulness as the gorilla remains on my arm until I ask the question.
It’s a monkey… on shoulder, he states plainly, surprising me because I didn’t know he knew the word “shoulder”.
---
A small crowd has gathered, and we willingly place him on display like a sideshow act, or maybe, just maybe, like parents do when their children do something adorable that the whole world needs to know about and bear witness to: A child learning to shake a diapered behind to a beat, taking a precarious step, some milestone… Something altogether more normal, more right, than what we are showcasing.
The tip of the Sharpie marker is suspended over nothingness, placed with the utmost care by chubby yet dexterous hands and the precision afforded by eagle eyes. Everyone’s attention is fixated entirely on him, and he seems to notice none of it as he works. He has moved on to place another marker on the edge of the desk, tip over the edge the very same amount as the one before, and the one before that, and the one before that.
A devious giggle escapes from someone who has decided to disrupt the process by moving the markers from position. It is meant to amuse us only, because the panic he is stricken with as he tries to make it right again, as he tries to reorder the chaos in his life, cannot and will not ever be amusing to him.
---
The voice on the other end falters, hesitating a little before she blurts out that she doesn’t know what that diagnosis means. When she tries to pronounce it, it sounds a little bit like sensory disintegration dysfunction, which I can only imagine would assuredly be a pity to behold. I let out a slow, even breath, trying to hide my agitation at this young girl—and, more distinctly, the company she works for. No, no, it’s sensory integration dysfunction, and would the diagnosis codes I have here help? She jots the codes down in my paperwork and promises we will hear back from someone soon.
And we do.
A big, fat packet of papers arrives in the mail several days later, congratulating us, announcing to the world that we have been accepted for coverage by their fabulous company. What a wise choice we made! How easy it was to get excited and skip over the smaller print that informs us we will pay more because I am obese and my husband has mysterious health issues. With no word or inkling of any apology for the inconvenience, they inform us that our child is not covered at all. Thank you, and have a very nice day.
As I speak with Customer Service, I ask them, with some measure of disbelief, what this means, even though I am a bright person who can read and interpret for herself what seems to be very straightforward. My mind is not grasping it all: How can a child who is in many ways so normal not be granted even the most basic of medical care?
I find I am not above begging and pleading, just a little bit, as I barrage the Customer Service agent with questions leaping out of a very distressed and positively aching place in my heart. So what you’re telling me is that even if I promised to never, ever submit a claim pertaining to do with his delays and subsequent therapy, he still would not be granted coverage? She assures me what I’m saying is her company’s stance, and we part ways.
I’m not sure how long I cried, tired and angry and hurt and frustrated. Not only am I upset for my child, I am upset for what the thousands of families who are presented with this situation every day. The insurance company in essence, says my child is a liability, a loss, someone in whom it is not fiscally advantageous for them to invest. They are grabbing my son’s shoulders, spinning him about-face, and pushing him out the open door, only to slam it in his bewildered face. It is your problem, they mumble from the other side of the door. We wish we could help now, really we do, but maybe you should return when he is an adult and what we could have helped you change as a child cannot be reversed. The struggles he will face in school are not our concern—isn’t that what the school system is for, after all?
No, and no, and NO! It cannot be!
I curse the insurance company. I curse money. I curse my husband for leaving employment where the health coverage was not at all perfect but was one of a small handful of companies that did pay a percentage eventually. I curse myself for not knowing that I was going to have such difficulties procuring new insurance. Suddenly, the move from a job that assured us that Daddy was just a paycheck and quite possibly a figment of our imaginations felt like a huge failure in our strategy to live happily ever after.
---
My face glows red, and I start feeling condescending, inconvenienced eyes focusing, one by one, upon me, upon him. He is beside me, tossing and turning, screaming and screeching, occasionally surprising or hurting me by grazing my face with a limb. My bag of tricks is empty, torn to pieces, stomped into dust, and he is still making a scene worthy of an Oscar. Thank heavens no one has had the gall to walk up to us and make a snide comment, for there would be no stopping my tears.
I am tired, but no one ever asks if I am tired. Naptime for the children is the closest thing to liquid gold I have, yet it does not come often enough or coincide nearly enough to give me the time to recharge my batteries. When all seems well and children are resting, I find that, all too often, I must wake them up to pick up my eldest from school. Or perhaps children from the neighborhood come over to play and cause such a commotion that sleeping children arise too soon. There is little question in my mind that I am known as the grumpy lady on our street, and as much as I wish it weren’t so, I have little control over my emotions to be anyone different. I am tired of being compared to others in my family who are also struggling. I am tired of being told that God only gives us as much as we can handle. I am tired of being told that with great privilege there comes great responsibility.
All I want at this very moment is a sedate breakfast with my mother. I have stopped hoping that maybe he will eat this time.
The waitress brings us a children’s menu, the kind printed on a disposable placemat, and a small pack of crayons. He should be the age where coloring sparks some interest, but the effort to hold the crayon at all, no less with an effective grasp, is difficult and he has stopped attempting it long ago. Instead, he yells, eyes focused on the crayons, which I am thankful for. Often his cries are not accompanied by cues that let someone know what he wants, leaving that person to play a frantic game of Is this what you want? until he stops his tantrum.
The crayons are unwrapped and placed before him, where he grabs them quickly and begins his work. With the poise and precision of a surgeon, he places the first crayon on the table. It stands, now, balancing on the flat end, pointed end up like a colored picket fence. His hands move carefully away as to not ruin his masterpiece, fingers splayed outwards as he makes his cautious retreat. This calculated process plays over and over as crayon number two, crayon number three, and crayon number four all find their places in line.
My mother grabs another pack of crayons as he is working, and places them in front of him. He continues in relative silence, save for the ever-present coo that means he is ordering his world and trying to forget he is part of ours. With all eight crayons in formation, he is eyeing them with more wonder than pride. I am not sure whether I should be scared or amused or something else altogether, but I manage to squeak out a teary, weak giggle.
I’ve never seen anything like that, my mother says breathlessly.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Caveat
The hubs read my prior post and declared that he was convinced I needed therapy and/or some serious drugs because what I wrote was so disturbing. While I won't dispute the fact that I tackled some serious stuff in that posting, I wanted to stress that I find writing to be immensely therapeutic.... I am not depressed..... and I am being overly descriptive because, well, I am writing.
Please, you can return the straight-jackets to their hangers, now. ;)
Please, you can return the straight-jackets to their hangers, now. ;)
Leaving
You left me. I was just a child. I don't even remember being left. You thought with anatomy that wasn't your heart, nor your mind. Twenty-plus years later I still reel from blows you knew you dealt me, you rationalized away for your own happiness. I didn't deserve those consequences, which haunt me day to day to day. And now you see what your deeds have done, brokenness. Women who cling to the first affections thrown to them, who don't know what exactly it is to love, to be in love, to return love, to speak love, because you did not exemplify it, because you allowed an absence of it. Women who close their hearts like battlestations, impenetrable, impervious.
You would rather subject us to spiteful words, the two of you, playing children as pawns in a game we did not wish to play. In your mind, your actions affect no one but yourself.... and your days of dealing with the aftermath seem to be long past. Don't you realize that we were wrecked before we began? Can't you see that we never had a chance for happily ever after?
--
The knot is there in my stomach. The room is black despite an hour that is not late. I am too ill to eat, but it's not the illness that I am worried about. I feel afraid, alone. Around me, life is moving on, marching on like it has yet to notice that my world has stopped spinning. He doesn't return my calls, allowing me plenty of time and opportunity to leave him desperate messages on his machine. I drive to his place, but the look that crosses his face when he answers the door is not pleasant. Inconvenience. As if my walking out the door and never returning would neither phase him or sadden him. The pit in my stomach is more than a pit, it is a squirming, a fluttering, of new life that feels more like the end of my own. Never has the world felt so real, and yet so unreal, like a rose-colored veil has been lifted and things are more clear than they ever have been.
--
The line of your jaw is hard and clenching. You dare someone to say the wrong thing, to tell you you're not right. You're dressed in clothes that are aimed to subtract a decade from your age, but all it succeeds in doing is serving a painful reminder that all is not right in the world. I see him sitting next to you, painted smiles and hollow eyes. He is trying to be the person you wanted a long time ago, but you no longer want that person and have decided another will do just fine. Yours is a hurried and careless version of the status quo, though there are cracks forming at the foundation. I am waiting for the pieces to crumble down and take the rest of us with them.
You would rather subject us to spiteful words, the two of you, playing children as pawns in a game we did not wish to play. In your mind, your actions affect no one but yourself.... and your days of dealing with the aftermath seem to be long past. Don't you realize that we were wrecked before we began? Can't you see that we never had a chance for happily ever after?
--
The knot is there in my stomach. The room is black despite an hour that is not late. I am too ill to eat, but it's not the illness that I am worried about. I feel afraid, alone. Around me, life is moving on, marching on like it has yet to notice that my world has stopped spinning. He doesn't return my calls, allowing me plenty of time and opportunity to leave him desperate messages on his machine. I drive to his place, but the look that crosses his face when he answers the door is not pleasant. Inconvenience. As if my walking out the door and never returning would neither phase him or sadden him. The pit in my stomach is more than a pit, it is a squirming, a fluttering, of new life that feels more like the end of my own. Never has the world felt so real, and yet so unreal, like a rose-colored veil has been lifted and things are more clear than they ever have been.
--
The line of your jaw is hard and clenching. You dare someone to say the wrong thing, to tell you you're not right. You're dressed in clothes that are aimed to subtract a decade from your age, but all it succeeds in doing is serving a painful reminder that all is not right in the world. I see him sitting next to you, painted smiles and hollow eyes. He is trying to be the person you wanted a long time ago, but you no longer want that person and have decided another will do just fine. Yours is a hurried and careless version of the status quo, though there are cracks forming at the foundation. I am waiting for the pieces to crumble down and take the rest of us with them.
Beginnings
Welcome. I've started this blog to share some of the writing that I am working on with my writing pal/sister-in-law. Please don't share these with anyone unless you've asked permission first. I'd love any input you might have.
Thanks for reading.
Thanks for reading.
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