The Dark Madness

seems the darkness wants to come visit. i shouldn't feel this way. i have a good life. i have a very good life. i have a husband who waits for this. he fears it in ways i can't explain. it makes it hard to have a good cry. he watches for signs and thinks they should be pre-empted. stopped dead in their tracks. sometimes he's right. sometimes it needs to feed awhile first.

As a child I was left to my own devices much of the time. I remember being five years old and playing in the sandbox for hours. At one time I mimic'd my parents' planting flowers and planted 'flowers' (weeds) in my sandbox. I grew a nice crop that year. I spent a lot of time picking cherries off the tree in our back yard and eating them and even more time playing with my beagle puppy.

As I grew older I spent time with  my dog or doing chores… everything from taking out the garbage to shining my fathers' shoes to weeding the gardens to picking up the apples that fell from the tree and scooping dog poop out of the yard. I was to set the table and clear the table and do the dishes. Saturdays were not for cartoons but for cleaning house. Dusting, vacuuming, cleaning of bathrooms with old toothbrushes, washing windows until they gleamed.

Somewhere in-between was homework and cooking and living – trying to be invisible.

I became very good at entertaining myself. Some would think I was a bit odd… I would sit and rock and stare at my image in a mirror and wonder why my parents hated me and why I wasn't good enough. I would listen to music and read and write and dream. I would save the screaming and crying and throwing myself down the staircase until those times when I was alone in the house. It never seemed to hurt. The bruises were already set in too deep.

I wish I'd figured out earlier in my life how to break this awful cycle before my childen had to experience it. I think they forgive me. I hope they forgive me. I can't expect them to forget. That's just not the way it's done.

I lived a solitary life and in many ways am still a very solitary person, surrounded by the bubblewrap of love that my husband and children have provided me. It keeps me sane in those times when the darkness threatens to envelope me again. I will not let it have me – not with the full immersion it held me in once. There will always be that glimmer of light that my family, and, yes, you readers give to me. It keeps me whole. It keeps me sane.

My youngest daughter wrote a post for Mother's Day. It moved me to tears. It is one thing to throw all these horrors at your children during your lifetime and try to then explain to them how you ended up being the person that you are now. They lived through a lot of it with me, in one form or another, but that doesn't make it any easier. It is such a feeling of overwhelming love to read what she has written and be able to say, "She gets it. She really understands me." I don't think too many parents get that opportunity. So many times we're trying to figure out what makes out kids tick and never think that maybe they are wondering the same thing. I've said it before and will say it again… I am so proud of my children. I am the woman who, as a teenager, never wanted to have children. Now? I can't imagine my life without them. I love them so much… and I am so blessed to have that love returned ten-fold. Thank you, Em, for the most beautiful words.

I've noticed through the years this ability of humans to re-write history. Sometimes it becomes very obvious, as in the case of our text books and how researchers delve into the pile and come up with discrepencies. More often than not, however, it is on a much smaller scale. It is the personal history that one re-writes. It can be for many reasons, but the most common is to make life more bearable. Some people do things that are so unspeakable, so horrid, that the only way they can live with themselves is to re-write the events in a different light – painting it with a different brush.

I thought it was only me. I thought maybe I was the only one that had this experience. Because of the things that happened to me, I wanted to make this blog – to write down events before they were colored differently. I know my parents have already done that. I'm hoping I haven't done it, too. I'm hoping the things I put down here have brought the truth with them and I haven't changed history to make myself look better – or worse.

In talking to people, I've found I'm not the only one. My very own husband has had this experience with his mother. She's tried to tell him that "he doesn't remember it correctly" or "he didn't hear her right". Only I was there, too, for some of the things she says she didn't say… She has already re-written history.

What's that old adage? "Those who do not remember history are destined to repeat it"… I'll go one further. "Those who re-write history are destined to repeat it". I'm just trying to get it right.

This blog has moved to a new server, also… thanks to my good blogfriend Brad. Glad you could make it!

whisper
no
can’t be
hoax
movie clip
not
true

bodies
people
souls
falling
from planes
from clouds
no clouds
no net
no chance

sirens
screams
disbelief
horror
muffled
in
black
thick
endless
smoke
dust
rubble

looking
looking
looking
never
stop
looking
hoping

a miracle
just one
selfish
don’t care
find
him
her
mine
now
please

done now
silent
hope
gone
angry
still
love
always
forever
endless
never
forget
never

whisper
why?

She’s gone
He whispers to himself
The fear a tight ball in his stomach
The chill erasing his senses

He calls
She doesn’t answer
She always answers
Always

He waits
Hoping she’ll call back
Did he forget?
Did she tell him?

Where can she be?
Panic rising in his throat
Heart racing to its own beat
Cold sweat breaking out

Can this be?
Must it be?
Is it happening?
Again?

Flashbacks
Ghostly memories
Eleven years has passed
It seems like yesterday

She was here
She was fine
So he thought
He was wrong

She’s gone
He whispers
She’s gone

The phone rings…

a friend reminded me today of what a leap in time i have made over the past twenty-five years. a leap between hating myself to liking myself to loving myself. i give the biggest share of the credit for this to my loving husband. he saw a goodness and a beauty and a spirit in me from the beginning that i could never see and nurtured it into the woman i am today.

in the beginning, a compliment would send me spinning into a beet-red tunnel of confusion. i would shake my head and think “what? are you nuts?” and words slid into my mind from voices long ago “stupid” “liar” “ugly”. how could anyone think otherwise?

as time went on i began to see that i wasn’t as bad as they said i was, but a compliment was still difficult to handle. i would begin to think that they wouldn’t be saying those things if they really knew me. i was an imposter. they would find out soon enough and be gone. it happened enough times i could believe it.

finally, my husband convinced me that it wasn’t me, but them. i wasn’t the problem, they were. they were the ones with the misconceptions. they were the ones that beat me down day after day, year after year, word after word. whoever said “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” was never a verbally abused kid. the pain from the beating with a fist always lasted less time than the carefully aimed word.

it’s been a long time coming, but i’m almost there. i can value myself as a human being from the viewpoint of my husband, my children, and even my animals. i hope in time my friend will feel that value, too. she should. she truly is a beautiful human being.

he’s small. he’s sweet. he’s too smart for his own good.
he tries to act tough.
his friends in the school yard find a birds’ nest.
they take it from the tree.
they smash it into bits.
they kill whatever life there was.
he yells at them.
he cries.
they laugh.
he runs.
they let him.

he gets older, but no bigger.
he is handsome. he is witty. he is charming.
he has friends.
good friends.
guy friends. girl friends.
he pretends in plays. he plays in sports. he wishes he was better in both.
he gets hurt in football.
he promised not to touch the ball.
he touched it.

he gets angry.
i look in his deep brown eyes and see the pain he hides there.
he tries to be stoic.
he tries not to cry.
my heart breaks for him.
his father has closed the door.
no reason.
no call.

he gets angrier.
he hates life.
he hates me.
he sneaks out to hang with friends.
he sneaks out to have a life.
he sneaks out to laugh.
laughter disguising the pain.

i’m helpless.
i try to tell him what has happened to me.
i see the stone mask his face becomes.
he doesn’t want to know.
it doesn’t concern him.
that’s my problem.
he has his own.
what happened to my sweet boy?

he’s gone.
he’s on his own.
he’s fine.
ask him, he’ll tell you.
he’s fine.
he’s fine.
he’s fine.

i look into his deep brown eyes and see the pain he hides there.
i can’t touch it.
i can’t move it.
i can’t take it from him.
all i can do is wait…
…and tell him i love him more than he’ll ever know.

the air is just cold enough to make her nose run. the jeans and flannel shirt she ran out of the house in is not enough to keep the shiver from coming up her spine. she runs past the neighborhood houses with their warm lights and the dinner tables full of food. their fireplaces leave a smoky trail in the night sky that blows down into the streets where she can smell them. the wood smoke has always smelled inviting. it isn’t inviting to her. not now. not at this moment.
the tears that won’t stop drip onto her chin. she wipes at them with her sleeve, ignoring the mascara smear they leave. her throat closes with the lump of pain she can’t scream out. she slows to a walk. she stops. she stands on the sidewalk in the shadow between streetlamps. frozen in place by indecision.

her mind spins. she is alone. she is afraid. she can’t go to her parents. they haven’t spoken since she left. her friends don’t know her. they don’t know the truth. they don’t know what her life is really like. she can’t go home. he is there. he is angry. he is waiting.

fall used to be her favorite.
he used to be her love.
everthing changes.