Summer

Lord, the days seem so long. Once summer hits, they’ll seem even longer, each day blending into the next and before you know it, fall will have arrived. It’s not so bad in the spring and summer. The heat can become unbearable at times, but there’s always a lot of laughter and a lot of good memories. But right now, the days are so long.

I miss the summer days when he and I didn’t have very many cares in the world. We would drive out to the lake after work and sometimes even on our days off. We would park in his Mustang on the overhang and look out over the water. Sometimes he would sing to me. He would always tell me things I never knew. He’s a walking treasure trove of knowledge- anything I could ever want to know, he knew. I loved listening to him talk. It was such a nice change to be spoken to instead of yelled at, insulted, belittled.

Summers were a lot better when I was a kid. Bible camps, reading challenges at the library, swimming days at Grandma’s with my cousins, watermelon and pretzels and making playdough, dress up and make-believe. Once I became an adult it was the daily nine to five’s, or in my case, mostly one in the afternoon’s until ten at night’s, followed by immoral doings with my immoral friends until long after the sun had gone down, sometimes until the sun began to come up.

Once I became an adult, the summers lost most of their appeal. While I was glad my children have the season off from school, I still have to work and they have to be somewhere. By the time I get off and get done with the errands and chores, I’m too exhausted for swimming pools and cantoloupe and homemade playdough, as was in my childhood. The kids don’t seem to mind, but I mind.

The lake was the next best thing to the ocean. My mind was clear when we were parked near the lake. The air was cleaner, crisper. The colors were brighter. Life was lighter.

Maybe it’s just something about being near the water in the summer that makes everything alright. Maybe it’s being out of that poisonous relationship. Maybe it’s something about Him. Maybe it’s all of these things, maybe it’s none of them at all.

 

 

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Csilla

Your face reminds me of a woman I worked with many, many years ago. She was from Romania and her name was Csilla Csu. Csilla was pronounced “Chee-lah” like “Sheila,” only not. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Tall and curvy with long, dark hair and magnificent, blue eyes, her voice reminded me of the ocean’s waves lapping at the shore on a calm, summer morning.

Csilla didn’t speak much, her voice was soft and reminded me of wind chimes, but when she did speak, every word was beautiful. She told me often of how her son and husband were back in Romania and how much she missed them. She told me about life back home and how much she missed that as well. Sometimes I could see the sadness in her eyes, I couldn’t ever really hear it in her voice, her voice was like a symphony, a very soft symphony.

I somehow got into the habit of taking Csilla home after work. She was living with an older couple who were sponsoring her visit. She always said they were nice. I couldn’t imagine what she and this couple could have had in common. I wondered if it made Csilla feel even more lonely.

This story really has no point. Csilla didn’t change my life in some unimaginable way. We didn’t speak again after she went back home to Romania. For awhile, I searched for her on social media. I never found her. But your face, it reminds me of her.

Misunderstood

Sometimes I lay in bed and think of all the grudges I harbor and tell myself I’ll never make it into Heaven if I don’t let these go. Most times I could care less, sometimes I feel resentment. I’ve never been very good at forgiving and forgetting and while I’ve never claimed to be a saint, I also don’t expect forgiveness when I know I didn’t deserve it.

There was a woman I used to work with at a daycare who used to treat the children rather roughly. She wasn’t particularly educated yet claimed to be in the process of obtaining a degree to teach. I couldn’t count on both hands and both feet how many times I saw her plop her fat legs over a child between the ages of three and five to force them to go to sleep during naptime. I voiced my concern about this woman several times and instead had the daycare director’s attention and criticism turned in my direction instead. This was six years ago and maybe two years ago I heard in the news that an infant died at this daycare. He was only a few months old and choked on a small piece of fingerfood while under the supervision of two children. By the time his situation was noticed it was too late and he was declared braindead at the hospital. He passed away a few days later.

The woman I mentioned wasn’t involved but it didn’t really matter because the family didn’t press charges or sue the daycare and I can’t be sure but I felt it might be due to the fact that the daycare paid for all of the funeral expenses. That poor sweet life taken far too soon.

There were two many times when I worked at that daycare when I suffered the consequences for other workers incompetence- mostly because it was easy to blame sweet, quiet Angie for the incidents. I can’t even count on both hands how many times I was suspended without pay for situations that weren’t my fault but I never spoke up for myself. I just took it, just like I always just took everything that was happening at home.

I tried my best to make friends with the other workers when I first started there but everyone thought I held myself above them, because I was the “Pastor’s daughter-in-law.” In reality, I was far too shy and much too depressed to speak to anyone, to take the time to get to know anyone. Looking back now it surprises me that despite my mental state all those years that I was still allowed to work there. I will say though that a baby never died in my care.

Every now and then I run into those women and while most of them try to make conversation with me and find out where I work and where I live, I remind myself that they weren’t ever there for me when I needed them to be. All the times I suffered through teaching a classroom full of preschoolers while I nursed my own broken bones, broken heart, broken spirit- those women couldn’t ever see past what they wanted to see.

Wish

It’s one of those days when my anxiety is high. Everything annoys me and all I want is to lay in bed, in the dark, where it’s quiet and cool. I cringed through so many uncomfortably pointless conversations and was thankful that a supervisor that dislikes me has been promoted and will soon be leaving the store I work in. I haven’t shared this thought of mine with anyone, she’s extremely liked by everyone. Everyone but me. I had the misfortune of seeing the crazy side of her once and it was immediately apparent to me that her individual type of crazy absolutely did not mesh well with mine. I imagine she devours innocent kittens as snacks and then smears herself in honey or something equally unappealing while watching surgery shows on the discovery channel, practicing later on frogs she’s caught in swamps or whatever type of nature she likes to prowl in. Horribly mean of me, I know, but ask me if I care.

After a lovely Mother’s Day, my house is a mess, mostly because of the puppy, and I am exhausted. My body and soul yearns to lay in bed and read and then pull out my journal and write words that I don’t ever intend to share. But what’s the purpose of words if not to share them? I’ll probably sit on the couch and mope until it’s time to make dinner. Can’t very well be productive when the Mister isn’t home, the rambunctious, if not somewhat temperamental puppy won’t allow it. When she gets like this I get started down that path where I start to think that I am an inadequate mother who cannot even get a puppy to listen to her and that I have no business raising human children. My thoughts escalate quickly.

I’ve tried to absorb myself in made-up words and it helps for a little while, but not nearly long enough before I am dragged back into the pits of reality. I keep searching for something real and wish that things would just fall into place. Quite selfish of me, I know. I’m old enough to understand that wonderful things only come to those who work hard for it but maybe I’m jaded when I think of all of the years I worked hard and things only seemed to get worse and worse.

I have dreams just like everyone else but until I’m able to work seriously towards achieving these I’m just another person taking up space. I eat and drink the same things every day, I say the same words over and over, I think the same thoughts and feel the same feelings, all the while telling myself that there has to be more to this life and that one day, not now but one day, I’ll reach out and grasp it all in my closed fists the way I always used to wish I could capture the stars in the sky and place them in a glass jar, like fireflies. Until then, all I really have the energy to do is exist.

 

Wildfire

What was it this time that set me off, set me down this path? I think it was the nightmare a few days ago. I spoke aloud about it in the hopes of chasing it away, to fight off the effects. I cried a bit and reassured myself that it was only my imagination, but my nightmares have a way of coming true. And now here I am, once again, at war with my insides, fighting to keep control before everything rages wildly.

Silence

I used to be the type of person who always tried to memorize the lines of another person’s face, in case this time was the last time I ever got to see them. Then there came a period in my life when I tried my best to erase the lines of faces I had etched so deeply into my core. Faces that haunted my dreams and then even my waking moments. I turned into a person who stared at shoes instead while I stood in front of a person and listened to their voice. And that’s really all it was, listening to their voices without really hearing what was said. Now I try to avoid eye contact while filtering out the words that pull my heartstrings so I can turn them into beautiful images in order to remember them, even if only for a little while.

Glance

Thinking about how much I hate wasting my words on people and situations that don’t deserve them and I turn to pen and paper instead. Half the time my spoken words aren’t acknowledged and the other half of the time they are disregarded. It’s not this way when I write though. It’s not that I’m seeking acknowledgment but why ask me what’s on my mind if only to half listen? I’ve already spent so much of my life living this way and I don’t have the time or patience for it anymore. Thinking about the award I received at work today as appreciation for all of my efforts over the past few months and it made me feel good for awhile to think that for a change I’ve done something right. Maybe not even that I’ve done something right but that I am being acknowledged. It’s like wandering through the darkness sometimes, my eyes on that light at the end and while I am focused, sometimes I become temporarily distracted by things to which I am also only a temporary distraction.

Remedy

Once I again I find myself in this waiting room and it’s no less depressing today than it is any other day. The lack of colors makes me feel as though I’m going blind, the television muted and playing some programmed nonsense about the services offered at this clinic. All I want to do is get my medicine and get on with my life. Today was supposed to be Our Day and here we are, starting it off in this room that smells like madness. I pray that no one comes out of the bathroom with his pants around his thighs like usually happens when I’m here. I have the Mister with me today and I worry that if he sees something like this he will realize just how bad my insides have become, how bad they’ve always been. I don’t want him to see me like this. Today there is no young, Gothic girl sat with her mother, picking at her dark nail polish, her braided bracelets spread up her arm, her scene girl haircut a dark purple, her black eyeliner thick and alluring and I’m thankful for this. This is the type of girl he goes for and I would feel threatened. We watched a Harry Potter movie together once and he made a comment about how he thought Helena Bonham Carter was beautiful because he likes those Gothic types and it hurt me somewhere deep inside, a place that I didn’t think could hurt any more than it has been hurt in the past. I tucked this away in that deep, dark place that I keep hidden all of my hurt and made a note to overthink it at a later time. That’s what I do most magnificently, overthink things. Sitting next to me he texts me and tells me that it smells bad in this waiting room and I inhale a deep, long breath. I don’t smell anything out of the ordinary, certainly nothing unpleasant and I feel a bit sad because I know he is smelling a type of crazy that is different from his own, my type of crazy. I text him back as much and he looks over at me with that look he has reserved for when he needs to tell me not to be ridiculous. I think about all of the times he has told me that we are so good together because our individual types of crazy are compatible but sitting here in this room, I can’t help but wonder if he still feels this way in this moment. I think about all of the times he tells me that one day when we’re old and gray he’ll reach over and poke me in the cheek and tell me “I told you so,” told me we would make it and I wonder if seeing me in this waiting room has changed this at all. It’s a ridiculous line of thoughts at this point, mostly because I haven’t taken my medicine in a week, but they are valid in my mind nonetheless. I tell myself that in the end, we are all crazy and hoping that we find someone who can understand and accept our own individual type. I tell myself I am thankful that I have found someone who understands mine. This is what I tell myself.

Weatherman

I know it was in part because I hadn’t taken my medicine in a few days. It couldn’t be helped. I always tell myself I will call in a refill earlier next time, and then life just happens. Maybe it was because today was the first time He came with me to the clinic to pick up my meds. I was thankful there wasn’t a man who came out of the bathroom with his pants around his knees this time. It hadn’t too much phased me, but I’m not sure how the Mister would’ve taken it.

I was glad there weren’t any patients wandering around nervously, talking to themselves or talking to people that only they could see. I was thankful there weren’t any gothic girls waiting with their mothers because those are the type of girls he adores. I might add that I am not a gothic girl. I am quite the tomboy and listen to a wide variety of music, but nothing that He listens to.

Today was supposed to be our day. After we got my medicine, we went and grabbed a bite to eat and then we wandered around a store for awhile. I didn’t buy a journal, as tempted as I was. I bought some posters to hang in my daughters’ room. I’m going to surprise them tomorrow and hope that they are as excited about it as I was to buy them. I picked up one for my son as well. I hope he doesn’t feel as though he is too grown up to have it in his room.

I got a new pair of shoes, which I was desparately needing, and I took a silly picture of the Mister in a hat. There was another errand I was supposed to run today, but the Mister was concerned about what it would do to my anxiety afterwards, he worries so much about me. Turns out he didn’t need to worry because my anxiety did it’s thing all on it’s own.

My puppy is going through some changes and this made me anxious as well. I have a hard enough time dealing with the physical and emotional changes my human children go through and now I have a puppy to worry about as well. There’s some huge dogs next door who have been attacking the fence all day while the Puppy is outside, I think they can sense it. This makes me anxious. The fence isn’t sturdy and it was leaning and groaning every time the male dog lunged against it. It reminded me of another dog I had a long time ago. Her Owner had bought her a turkey leg and smoked it for her and she had been so proud of it. She had paraded it around up against the chain link fence separating our yard from the neighbor’s. Later that night, one of the neighbor’s dogs got ahold of my puppy’s floppy ears and in the morning, they weren’t so floppy anymore.

About an hour ago, the anxiety took over and I went and lay down in bed. I told myself I would only lie down for a moment and rest. The Mister cleaned up a bit while I lay there in the dark and the Puppy scratched at my closed bedroom door and whined, wanting to be let in. Both of these things made me anxious. I ended up crying and apologizing for being so, just SO, when the Mister came to check on me. He tried to comfort me and reassure me that everything was fine and that he understood. He’s always so understanding and accepting.

After awhile I calmed down and came back into the living room and tried not to think about everything that led up to me being the mental and emotional basketcase that I am today so I wrote this instead. I write because sometimes it’s the only thing that helps. I write because sometimes if I don’t, I end up going mad. I write because sometimes it’s all I have that makes sense.

It’s like a storm inside me that never diminishes, only relents momentarily, always only momentarily. The winds and torrential downpour ease up to a steady drizzle but it never really dries up. The eye of the storm swirls and spins, building momentum and then unleashing it’s fury. It’s a storm that I’m never equipped for and I can’t for the life of me ever predict it’s movements so that I can find shelter. It’s a storm that is always forming.

Bloom

All those years ago, we stood at the edge of that cliff, my hand clinging to his, my knees shaking, our hearts racing. Or maybe his wasn’t, he’s usually calm, cool and in control. The drop was far, I didn’t think we’d survive it so I told him I love him. He sang me a song, softly of course because he knew how loudness spiked my anxiety. His right thumb caressed the back of my left hand as my palm sweated and cramped from clutching onto him so tightly. The breeze blew so faintly, yet I was positive it was going to push me off the edge prematurely.

We stood for so long, there on the edge, looking at the vastness of the desert in front of us. A wasteland, nothing worth saving, nothing worth recreating. The only way was for us to start over, completely, from nothing.

He rocked back and forth on his heels, so slightly that I wouldn’t have caught the movement if I hadn’t been staring intently at him, waiting for a sign as to where we were going next. The thought of falling terrified me but the thought of dying and passing it off as living frightened me more. I was so exhausted and ready for the next phase, the next act, the next life; I don’t know what I was waiting for.

I wanted to ask him if this was the right way but I knew he would only ask me what I wanted to do and that wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I wanted to know that this was what was right and that this what he wanted too. I know he knew this is what I wanted but he’s always been the type to wait for me to voice my own opinions, I think it’s so that I don’t feel as though he’s manipulating me. He’s always afraid I’m going to think he’s like  the Other…

It happened so quickly, the air rushing around us as we sailed through the sky. I wanted to close my eyes because I was afraid but the world around me was just too beautiful. Birds flew past us and I felt wisps of clouds. The sun never seemed so close and the air up here seemed so much more unpolluted. It smelled like sunshine and Heaven and his shampoo and jasmine.

We fell for so long, yet it only seemed like seconds. I closed my eyes for a moment as the ground loomed up to meet us. When I opened them, he was next to me, sleeping peacefully. I ran my hands over the clouds that covered us, only they weren’t clouds, they were silky soft sheets and fluffy pillows. His face was so close to mine, his lashes fluttering softly as he began to surface from a deep sleep. It was so quiet in that apartment that first moment after we jumped, together, hand in hand. It was so quiet in my mind. My heart beat steadily. My hands didn’t shake or sweat.

We jumped and then we woke next to each other.

We jumped and then we awoke and stared at each other in awe, as if seeing each other for the first time all over again.

We jumped and then we embraced, his fingers lingering in my long strands of curly, black hair, my nails digging into his back as I clung to him.

We jumped and then we started the first day of our forever.

We jumped

so that we could be brought back to life.