Story

They say to heal you should try to write your story. I don’t know where to start. Maybe at the end. Me on the floor, book covers ripped from their backing, sobbing, broken, weary. Not the bottom, but not the top. Maybe the lower quarter if you want to get mathy. That’s where I’m at.

I married an addict. I did not know this when we dated, when we got engaged, when we were married, when we had our 5 year anniversary, when we went to Paris, or the night I told him I was leaving.

But I loved an addict for 10 years. I did not know he was an addict, though I lived with the repercussions of his addiction every. Single. Day. And wondered why I felt so lonely and crazy and unsafe. I’m still unwrapping my last 10 years: tenderly, slowly and sometimes all at once in a puddle on the floor.

Only a spouse of an addict could understand the loneliness and confusion perpetuated by The Addiction. He is a good person. Anyone would tell you that. He grew up with difficulties children shouldn’t have to deal with. His addiction goes back to his father and to his father’s father and who knows how far beyond him. But he had convinced me he did not have his father and grandfather’s issues. He was different. He was unaffected from his trials as a child. And I knew he was telling the truth; I never thought twice. Why would I? I knew him from 13 years old. Dated him when we turned 16. Marrried him at 20. I knew everything there was to know about this person except his deepest, darkest secret, which would shape my childhood, young adulthood, and now my future in ways I never imagined.

I am the recovering ex-wife of a sex addict. It is the most silent, the most emotive smothering, most invisible addiction out there. It breaks hearts, dreams, and families. But I don’t want it to break me.

Don’t look back.

Run like mad.

And I don’t want to be a pillar of salt,

So don’t look back.

Run from babies never imagined,

Run from bunnies in yards

Who made it, even when we couldn’t.

Run from those broken dreams

Run from those realities that weren’t realities that were realities you didn’t even know were existing

While you woke up every morning

And ran like mad.

So, child, don’t look back.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

I have yearned, always,

For something indefinable.

Something buried in the hymnal,

Or the bottom of a communion cup.

Maybe something hidden just beneath my skin,

Or within the puff of this cigarette,

…the song hummed by my niece while coloring…

And I think its life beckoning.

I found the never defined, and fuck, is it moving.

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I spent my evening on the freeway.  I drove a Suzuki LS650 Savage 60 miles in the gusty wind and it was so much fun.  My hands and feet are still reverberating from the trip and I felt great on the bike.  The clutch was quite a change from what I've been dealing with on my Buell Blast...I'm tempted to steal the Suzuki for myself but I do love the Buell; I'm hoping after some time in the garage tonight installing a MRC clutch assist it will be a better ride for me.  My jacket also came in the mail, and I'm struggling to decide if it's worth keeping.  If it was just a jacket I'd send it back and find something new, but unfortunately for me, XS is the smallest they make motorcycle jackets.  I suppose motorcycle jackets are meant to make one look like a line backer, but I'm fairly certain the shoulder armor is actually supposed to rest ON the shoulder, not the arm...
Freeway riding is actually easier than city driving, at least when there isn't stop and go traffic.

I feel a little buyers remorse over my bike.  It certainly is the right thing for me right now, but I feel I will grow out of it sooner than I anticipated.  The great thing about used bikes is once they are a certain age they seem to keep their value.  I think I will spend a year on the Buell getting used to all the new technique and skill I still need to develop and perhaps consider upgrading next season.

Mostly, the hour long drive on the bike helped solidify the decision I've made to ride.  It's scary and thrilling and dangerous and satisfying.  People at work remind me everyday I'm going to kill myself doing it, but right now riding is something I want, and it's a want I can actually fulfill, do something about...T hat doesn't happen all that often, getting exactly what one wants...so I will take what I can get.

It took a few hours, but finally, while making a turn, only in second gear, I leaned with the bike and it was the euphoric high I've experienced after a great run.  The sun on my back, the amount of control in my body leaning to the right while the wheels stuck to the ground and I made a lovely whoosh sound as I changed to third...and everyone keeps reminding me people die on these things. And it's true. I know. My childhood friend, James, who I had a terrible crush on in my early teens, and who grew into such a kind, handsome young man, died in a head on collision on his bullet bike.  I found out while in study group through a text message.  And I hate open caskets, because that isn't the person at all, it just makes everything worse...I visited his grave once.  It was near a chain link fence and someone on the other side was smoking and life can be snuffed out so quickly and suddenly we are rotting bones with feet on top of us.  People talk about where he might be in life now, but I think about all he did. How happy he was.  And though he died young, at least he died doing something he loved.  And maybe that's better than being slumped over in some nursing home being fed apple sauce...
I know what love feels like, what life feels like, and I think it's a little silly not to do something because it's risky.  Because if I make it to the nursing home, I'm going to have some fucking great memories.  Hopes and dreams that may or may not have come true, triumphs and failures, and risks taken that make me joyous and broken and filled with gratitude.
So, whoosh...

Railroad tracks separate me from where I want to be.
And I run like fuck to cross,
wondering if I've ever been home before this.

I'm just running like fuck.  

We are all just running like fuck.

And it's neither here nor there;

it has little to do with where at all...

I think it's mostly who we're running near.

I would whisper the dirtiest word and scream the loveliest dream and it would all mean the same thing.

I sat at my desk in my cubicle with my hands cupped over my nose and mouth.  Staring.  Not seeing anything.  Just trying to tell myself to take a breath and move my hands.  You are fine.  Move your hands. Count to three and then move your hands from your face and get back to work.  But I couldn’t ever count to three, and so I just kept sitting there that way.  And then finally I took a deep breath and moved.

I don’t freeze up like that often.  But sometimes it happens when I become anxious; generally caused by a perfectionist mentality where I feel I've made a mistake or I’m not smart enough or any such nonsense that I try to sift through on a regular basis.

It makes me feel weak to have an aspect of myself so vulnerable and needy.  It’s not something new; it has been a background demon my whole existence.  Every year I conquer more of it, or at least a different aspect of it, but I cannot completely rid myself of it.  Maybe someday, maybe not.  How I react to it has morphed throughout the years and currently I believe I’m in the best place I’ve been.  But becoming anxious…freezing up…sometimes it’s just too much for me.  Sometimes I really just don’t know what to do but give in.

I can change a lot about myself. I have changed a lot about myself.  But right now this is still a very real aspect that I deal with on a daily basis.  It may look like I’m complaining.  It may look like me whining.  But it’s really just that I don’t know what to do and I don’t know how to handle what my mind is telling me.  Because I don’t want to believe it, but I don’t know how not to.

Today I crashed my car.  I let this anxiety control me.  I let it turn a day that was beautiful, sunny, clear, into something hurried and ruined and terrible.  That was me.  That wasn’t the anxiety.  That was me that did that.  And I can be better than that.  I am better than that. 

I am responsible for my actions, my reactions, how I respond to situations around me.  I’m not broken. I’m not weak.  I may suffer from anxiety but that’s no excuse to let it own me and my happiness.  Someday, I will make it my bitch.  Until then I will keep trying, keep growing, and just be grateful for the sunshine when skies are grey.

I am not perfect, but I am authentic, and maybe T hat is better anyway.

I am a fire

always burning

burning, burning, burning

burning, beginning and...

the last sentence is just to show I gave up using Harvard commas

He begins to sing and everyone presses forward; I'm left leaning alone against the wall by trash bins filled with empty cans of overpriced beer.  I don't dare look at anyone's face.  It feels sacred and holy and no one makes a sound.  I have no right to see their tears, no right to attribute some meaning to them.  We stand silent and are moved all at once.  In some run down scene with no seats and no windows and no one breathes because it might shift what is building within that building; I rest for three songs.

When I get I upset, I get upset.
When I'm happy, I'm so happy.
When I lose, I am an epic failure.
When I win I'm on top of the world.
I am passionate and it is fucking painful to be that way sometimes.
I get tunnel vision.  There is no bigger picture.  It is only what is before me.  Sometimes that can be a good thing.  Sometimes not.
I'm sorry.  I'm sorry for being this way.  For lashing out at God and Life and losing heart and sometimes I really can be brave.  I really can hold my shit together, sometimes.  But sometimes isn't quite often enough and often enough I tend to give in to my emotional knee jerk responses.
Life is hard, but not too hard.  And if I can hope and love and bring some joy to someone else's life then it can also be so worth it.

I feel like I need to write this out, so it's no longer in me. Right now I am worrying myself sick about work. Sometimes I jump the gun; get ahead of myself. I worry I make poor decisions. I worry I do poor work. I worry I'm not smart enough. Everyone seems to be naturally inclined to the knowledge they possess, and I constantly have to review things I feel like I should know. I worry I come across wrong. I worry I hit "send" before I should; that I badger too often and can't leave well enough alone. I just want to be good at what I do, and I believe I am, most of the time. But it's the times I feel I fail that I can never seem to move beyond. And they weigh on me. And it makes me squirm. It makes my insides twist. It makes me feel like I felt when Joe Ben drowned in Sometimes a Great Notion. And I couldn't take it. How could someone write a death scene so devastatingly vivid? No, that isn't it. How could someone write something that described just the way I feel when anxiety is baiting me, when I am drowning? Those words on that page were the equivalent of every battle with myself. Fuck. No wonder it overwhelmed me to read.

I needed this. To write something out clearly. Simply. It doesn't solve everything, but I feel a little less like the world is caving in.

I'm trying to learn how to do this. How to breathe and let go and be strong rather than destructive. I think I can do this.

Perhaps some of us are born with our hearts already broken.

On Memorial Day I called my Dad. I asked him to tell me about my grandpa, James Earl Bass.
I remember vividly the sticks of spearmint gum he would give my sister and I when we came to visit. I remember the the magnets my grandma had that looked like chocolate candies, and just this year I realize that he must have known all along they were fake, but he always acted surprised when I would bring one to him like it was real and he bit into it. But that's all I knew. I was 16 when he died and that's all I knew and I am so very sorry for that. I watched them fold a flag in Arlington and give him a gun salute and now he has a stone that matches all the rest. And at the time his story was the same to me as theirs: silent.
You were a Technical Sergeant in the 3rd Infantry in WWII. Daddy told me you were shot at one point, and your feet froze on a few occasions. And then he choked up; he told me about a letter that came after you died from someone in your company. You were stationed in Africa and were trying to get your men out of somewhere when you came to an area of land mines. The writer said that you told your men, "Don't worry, I will get you through this. You just step where I step and I will get you home."
These stories aren't unique, and they aren't history either; they are still happening today. These men and women aren't fearless, but step on in spite of fear, because they must; and that is bravery.
I never told him thank you.
I never asked him a single question.
And that will always be such a regret.
So every chance I get, I want to say thank you now.
Thank you, Veterans.

Can I be?
Is there the slightest possibility?
With fingers crossed and eyes shut tight,
while wishing on right-side-up pennies.
But for what, and how, and when?
And does it matter?

Who am I?
An organ in need of tuning?
Played on Sundays;
Played for musings.
And somehow loved unconditionally,
Despite my pitch.
Or maybe for it...

Straightforwardly: I breathe deeply.
And that has to be enough.

Sometimes, I think I'm looking less for an answer, and more for the right question.

Rustling
Like any other animal.
The one antlered dear so near society.
The Scrub Jay in the Scrub Oak.
And I, running like some mammal with half a heart
(It beats brilliantly when complete):
Slowly, contemplatively, considering each step
(What if this is my last step?)
I’m wrestling.

What I want is to be contained.
To be pinned down, defined;
Placed in an air-tight container
with no escape for my spirit to seep through.
Because currently I am everywhere.
I am not a body with appendages,
But flagrant emotion dancing wildly.

Please, contain me?

I believe in God.
I believe in hope.
I believe in wishing.
I believe in someday.

I'm not used to being optimistic.
It's actually not so bad.

I watch quietly as all these stories collide interminably and they seem menacing. And my story sits silently, just letting the music bleed through me; the way coffee stains cheap napkins on patio furniture in the city. Or how you seem to effortlessly melt into my body.

And it moves me.

I’m bare.

My secrets are worn clean.

Drift wood drifting,

Smooth and honest;

An itinerant with misplaced wants and needs.

Until suddenly swept from the sea,

To be placed on your mantel;

For your benefit, your pleasure, your greatest desire.

Perched there, I am finally set free.