Nearly a Year

Image by Si Scot

That's how long it's been... That's how long everything else has been all consuming. Sometimes I don't know if it's funny or maddening how easy it is for life to open her throat ever-wider and simply swallow me down. Sometimes I wish the tramp would spit...would be easier.
What if the problem is not merely life, but within me. Perhaps I enjoy torment to such a degree that I inject myself into it or linger in its mist, even in daily life. I could also truly believe that I can save everyone. It doesn't matter either way. The point is mute.
My skin itches. It's taut and restless, so I claw at it. There is no true sagacity... The tinge lies deep, yet it feels a breath away. The thing has such glorious claws that pry at quietly laid thoughts. Silent beings rapidly turn to riled prisoners…
I just need to breath. They’ll have none of it. A fish and no water...

Lately...

So what do you do when you realize that your life is no longer what it once was? You have options, like them or leave them, they are there. I don't want to accept defeat. I truly don't even understand how one goes about that...it just isn't in me. I don't want to run away from my problems and wait while all the other people in the world should somehow fix it. I want my life repaired. I want the things that once were good to be good again. That is where the problems begin. Mental illness can make you crazy. Then, dealing with the medication changes, the side effects, the ups and downs from tiny things that to them are mammoth, etc. It truly is enough to make you crazy, even though you aren't the sick one. Next is the truly unbearable part...damage control. In the midst of everything else going on you must protect them from the things in life that are too hard for them, protect other people from the bad times, try to make it better when you can't protect others (which isn't easy with kids), take care of them without them always noticing you are playing nursemaid, try to give them room to move and some responsibility while constantly watching from a distance because you can't really let them do things alone... I want to scream. Some days I want to hit something. Other days I actually just want to get the kids in the car, go somewhere, and pretend that I'm not terrified of him being home alone for 30 entire minutes... I'm grateful he hasn't gone back to the hospital in a couple months. I'm relieved that so far the latest med is helping, but wish the side effects didn't change who he is. It's funny, so many versions of the same person in the last year or so, but none of them did I marry...none are the father of my children...but I'm supposed to treat him as such. Most days I just don't know what to do with this, so I carry on and silently mourn what I lost...hoping that one day I see it again.

Beast versus Charming

I love the movie Beauty and the Beast, always have. Something about a girl that knows she doesn't belong where she is and with the people around has always hit home for me. However, the end of the movie is always so sad to me. She lays across his chest, believing him to be dead, and pours her heart onto his chest through her tears. At this point we're still OK. Then it happens...the spell is broken and he is lifted into the air, magically transformed into Prince Charming. Now they have gone and killed it.

Who are they to say she wanted the soft and squishy Prince Charming? I for one would have protested. Something about taking a huge beast of a man and turning him into a man almost as pretty as her revolts me. Perhaps it feeds back to the type of female that I am, but I want the beast. Don't misunderstand...I'm not saying I like fooling around with animals...we aren't going there... I'm just saying that if I fell in love with a man that towered over me, could cast me aside with a flick or throw me over his shoulder just the same, could destroy everything or tear the world apart to get to me.... I would want what I fell in love with, not a fill-in. It is possible that I am just a bit too twisted to buy into the Prince Charming, but who could ever settle for a shadow of what they once loved?

Spiral

It's amazing, and sometimes breathtaking just how far things can fly downward in record time. It is almost like a virus so perfect and indestructible that it is pure poetry. Where there should be a weakness, there is a strength hiding in wait... Where you think you may finally pause and breath you find a step is missing and you slip, falling sharply onto your ass, and instantly fly in the most painful of manners down two dozen metal stairs. The next thing you know, you have this inner strength pushing you to continue, to fight and keep your feet beneath you. What you discover is that each time you move a muscle cramps, a bruise stings to the bone, or a cut stings as if freshly cut. You bite your lip to distract yourself, then realize you are nearly making it bleed just to have a different pain to focus on. If you stop, if you stand still, even for a moment, you aren't sure if you'll have the will to move again. Yet each time you slow down, almost coming to a halt, you know that you have to keep going because everything is riding on you. The light at the end of the tunnel is that one day you will be climbing up, not down.

A life that has barely began, yet how quickly one is jaded;
A heart carries too many scars to tread that path again.
Should I crack my chest and offer the sweetness of soul?
Will I hear words from a tongue so warm and caressing?
So afraid of joy and pain, while up to the hip I’m sinking;
To be held in those arms a lifetime could fly by.
Run from here and hide, through pain and tears of loss;
Left to one’s own self...is this even a conclusion?

The only true alternative gleams of unacceptable.
Thoughts race through my mind while all the while aching.
Such memories a blessing but in the dark a curse,
While nothing strikes fear more than to open once again.
A mere thought of vulnerability appears utter madness,
Yet somehow deep within it is the glow that is clung to.
To feel the warmth of those days again, kissing tender cheeks,
Such things would be graced, but how quickly hope can fade.

Come to me love, bring the night over us. Let your hands show me your true intentions. Keep me tucked within your embrace, protected as if a secret you hold. Listen with care as I whisper my love. A heart is poured before you, fully bare. Countless dreams are told in a single kiss; the pain sets in as I just walk away.

Skin Deep

So here I sit, alone, drinking whiskey. Now some would call this a problem saying that drinking alone isn't healthy and made more so by drinking to drown a memory...but I must disagree. I didn't need a drink, I simply wanted it. It won't be followed by another and actually is the only one I've had in a couple weeks. I would call it more a dulling of the senses...

I'm working on my grandmother's flowers for her headstone. They were sun bleached and seemed sad to me, so she needs new ones. It's depressing really when you get to the point that you think of and do things for people who are gone, and as if being late for a scheduled event with someone still living, you feel the need to apologize to them for what kept you. I wish I didn't have so many people to do that with, especially lately. I've lost nine family members in the last 18 months or so...well nine that were second cousins that I grew up with or closer. The last was my aunt, who was close enough to feel like a part-time mother to my sister and me.

It's funny, everytime I see a military funeral the gun salute always seemed as if it would be so harsh, gunfire when already in so delicate a state. The opposite was true. I cried but not from anguish in the reminder of death at the gunfire...I cried at the honor that my aunt was being shown for her dedicated service to this country. I cried that those men drove 2 hours from their station and told us that they were honored to be able to perform this show of respect for her. Then I cried that it had not been done for my grandfather.

My grandfather was a Korean War vet...air force pilot actually. He missed seeing his fourth child, his only son, come into this world and the first several years of his life. I can't count the number of times as a child he scolded me if i didn't eat every scrap of bread crust. Then he would talk about the war and how men would sit around and desperately long for even so much as bread...or even the crust. He ment it too, and I knew that, even at the age of six and seven, I knew.

I have lost so many family members that I honestly can't count them all without sitting down with family from both sides to help. The beauty of a large family is that there is always somebody around...the pitfall is that somebody else is always dying. So here I sit, drinking alone, scolding myself for not having grandma's flowers done for mother's day, even though my health simply wouldn't allow it. I have tiny cuts on some of my fingers from taking the old one apart...the weather left them rusted stubbornly in place. I'm actually happy for the tiny cuts, twisted as it may be, because every time something hits one and I look down at it, every time that something make one pop back open and burn...I will think of grandma. Next is my aunt's flowers...hers doesn't involve the sharp metal spikes though...I feel torn about that.