I found wrinkles today.
My reaction surprised me, since it wasn't alarm, as I anticipated I would feel upon greeting my first wrinkles. Rather, I felt a sense of relief, as though I no longer had to anticipate them at all and could just move on from there. It was like greeting a blind date and discovering they had actually showered and had something resembling manners.
They're right around my eyes, on the underside by the outsides, right where my mom's are. And that made me laugh. Which made them crinkle even more. You see, I love my mom's wrinkles. (She may be indignant for me saying that, but it's true.) They seem to accent her eyes every time she smiles or laughs or makes a funny face. They're obviously worn in from laughs, and every time she so much as giggles they crinkle up her eyes until she looks like her eyes are shut from pent up snickers and half-a-dozen held-in guffaws.
So the fact that I have them in the same spot makes me smile even more - probably setting them even deeper - because I always tell people that if I age half as good as my mom does, I'll be in really good shape.
Hello, Wrinkles. Please pull up a chair and make yourselves comfortable. You can join the Grey Hairs over there enjoying their tea.
I've had those since I was 17.
It occurs to me as I write this that I'm paradoxical in the aging sense. I've had some people tell me I don't age at all. And looking at old photos, I can see where they get that idea. I look basically the same now as I did when I was fresh out of high school. Not bad for being nearly twice the age. But the paradox comes from the fact that - despite being a relatively young 32 - I seem to have aged significantly more than many of my same-age friends.
I wake up every day in pain, now. Often it's my back, or my feet, or my neck. Often it's my shoulder. Sometimes it's my knees, which have bugged me for years. My shoulder has worsened, and I consign myself now to knowing that it will never fully recover; there will always be that twinge of pain from where the impingement syndrome sent my rotator cuff into an outright riot, even if they don't slip out of socket as much as they were. Oh, and yes - my shoulders now periodically slip out of socket, with or without my say so. They were always capable of it, even in my youth, and I thought it was a funny thing to do, but now my ligaments don't hold them as tight as they used to. Payment for the abuses of childhood antics, when I thought contorting my body in improper ways was hilarious.
My wrist aches in cold weather, and I never did get 100% range of motion back after the surgery. I have a crown now; unfortunately, probably the first of many to come. And while I've gained a fair bit of strength lately, I've lost nearly all of my flexibility and gained wrinkles. My butt is no longer as firm as it once was, but that bothers me far less than the continual decline of my vision and what I fear are the first signs of significant hearing loss.
So while I may appear to be young and vibrant, the truth is I feel far older than I look, and older than I think I ought to feel at this point in my life.
But what choices do I have in dealing with it? Complain? If I learned nothing else as a child, it was that complaining solves nothing. So even if I hurt when I get up, and hurt when I go to bed (even hurting when I sleep), I shrug my good shoulder, roll my eyes, and say - with great conviction - "...meh." I'll medicate myself if it gets bad enough to warrant it, and if I think something's actually amiss I'll see a physician, but what precisely could a doctor do for "pain associated with the body protesting from incorrect use over long periods"? My knees have always been a mess. I work retail. There's no way in hell I'm not going to have pain somewhere at any given time. That's just how it is now.
I write this as an idle observation, really. It just sort of struck me, as I examined my wrinkles, that I am in fact hitting that point in my life where I have to do as my dad always told me to, and make a friend of pain. "Oh hi, Pain," he'd drawl, not-quite sarcastically, "there you are again." No anger, no bitterness. Just... acknowledgement. Acceptance. I hurt. Then we move on.
And I think I'm actually beginning to understand what he meant.
I guess I just hadn't thought it would happen so soon.
May 31, 2014
December 26, 2013
So Sorry
I used to start posts like this one with an apology. Whenever there was a gap of time between posts, I would say I was sorry for not posting more.
But I try not to apologise unnecessarily anymore.
I have a jar. It's called the Sorry Jar, and my sister-in-law helped me come up with the concept. Apparently I'd been driving everyone absolutely bonkers with my constant unneeded apologies. Sorry for asking a question. Sorry for walking down the same hallway. Sorry for calling to say hello (because what if I'd called at a bad time and I didn't mean to disturb you I hope I'm not being a pest...)
Constant. A steady stream of "sorry"s from my lips at any given moment. And when I did something actually WORTH an "I'm sorry", like, say, bumping into someone, the stream became a river overflowing its banks with apologies and reassurances that it was entirely an accident and -
ENOUGH.
It had driven her to the point where she offhandedly joked that she should start charging me for unnecessary apologies. And for some crazy reason - I think it's because I genuinely wanted to stop driving people crazy (again, not for my own benefit, but for others, because I was doing something wrong again and I didn't mean to and I'm s-) - I agreed. We took an empty hot chocolate container, stripped off the label, and decorated it. The fee was simple: one nickel for every unnecessary apology.
I started out racking up quite the bill. I made daily trips, usually more than once a day. If I was out and about, I'd keep track of how much I owed the jar so I wouldn't forget. But slowly, over time, it petered off. I was making fewer trips. Once a day. Once every few days. Once a week.
Then I moved out here, with The Guys, and I told them about my jar.
Agreeing that the concept was both sound and valuable, they helped me determine what should be done with the money I put in it (initially I'd planned on using it once a month to get a manicure, but then, why would I reward myself for a problem?) as well as upping the ante a bit. In addition to the five cents I owed if I asked forgiveness for something that hadn't needed to be forgiven, I owed ten cents if I argued. For example, I would walk through the kitchen. It's a galley kitchen, a bit small, and walking through there when someone else is in there can be a bit awkward. So I said I was sorry. J would tell me to go pay a nickel to the jar. "But!" I would protest, "I was in your way!" To which he would patiently point out that, actually, I wasn't, and had our roles been reversed, would I have expected him to say he was sorry? No? Then the charge became ten cents.
The fee went up to a whole quarter for self-deprecations. Saying that I was stupid, or dumb, or an idiot - all things that slipped easily out of my mouth without so much as a thought - cost me twenty-five cents. And rightly so, for that kind of language is seriously damaging. It's how I got to this point in the first place. In order to believe it, I have to think it, and heaven knows that for the past several years I have NOT being thinking very highly of myself. So, slowly, with time and encouragement, I'm backing off on the negative self-talk, and replacing it with things like, "wow, I'm actually getting pretty buffed!" or "see? I can be smart!" or "... every once in a while, I have my moments".
Hey. Baby steps, people. It's an improvement.
The biggest new rule, though, was one that spontaneously showed up one night. I never even realized I was saying it. I'd be talking, and either fumbling the words until it came out as a language other than English, failing to convey my meaning entirely, and/or making the situation worse by sticking my foot in my mouth and sounding like a complete blithering idiot. At which point, determined to STOP sounding completely inane, I would say, quite determinedly, "I'll just shut up now."
Apparently to outside ears, this sounds far, far worse than I ever thought it did. It wasn't until M said it in jest (to and about himself) that I realized just how terrible of a thing to say it really is.
Telling myself to shut up not only made me believe that I had nothing worthwhile to contribute, but also that I had no skill for speaking, no ability to communicate properly, and a terrible social skill in general. It meant that I was better off being seen than heard, that my opinion counted for little if anything, and that it would perhaps be best if I just kept my mind to myself.
That little gem costs me a dollar.
I've had some people suggest that enforcement of these rules is just as bad (and controlling) as the behavior that got me to this point in the first place. To that, I have a few retorts. First, the jar and its enforcement were concepts I agreed to, and helped come up with in the first place. Second, the money I put into the jar goes down to my place of employment once a month, where it is donated to helping support shelter animals. Third, I have noticed a marked improvement in my personal behavior since this little game/exercise was put into place. I speak better about myself, have more confidence in what I'm saying, and hell, there are times when I call MYSELF on it and go pay the appropriate amount just because I want to keep improving. And it's not just The Guys, either. My family's in on it, as are many of my friends. If I didn't want to play anymore, I wouldn't. Simple as that.
That said, if you see me break any of these rules, and start either talking shit about myself, telling myself to shut up, or apologizing for existing without a permit to be, please call me on it. Shelter animals will thank you for it as much as I will, and I think it's helping drive other people a little less crazy while we're at it.
But I try not to apologise unnecessarily anymore.
I have a jar. It's called the Sorry Jar, and my sister-in-law helped me come up with the concept. Apparently I'd been driving everyone absolutely bonkers with my constant unneeded apologies. Sorry for asking a question. Sorry for walking down the same hallway. Sorry for calling to say hello (because what if I'd called at a bad time and I didn't mean to disturb you I hope I'm not being a pest...)
Constant. A steady stream of "sorry"s from my lips at any given moment. And when I did something actually WORTH an "I'm sorry", like, say, bumping into someone, the stream became a river overflowing its banks with apologies and reassurances that it was entirely an accident and -
ENOUGH.
It had driven her to the point where she offhandedly joked that she should start charging me for unnecessary apologies. And for some crazy reason - I think it's because I genuinely wanted to stop driving people crazy (again, not for my own benefit, but for others, because I was doing something wrong again and I didn't mean to and I'm s-) - I agreed. We took an empty hot chocolate container, stripped off the label, and decorated it. The fee was simple: one nickel for every unnecessary apology.
I started out racking up quite the bill. I made daily trips, usually more than once a day. If I was out and about, I'd keep track of how much I owed the jar so I wouldn't forget. But slowly, over time, it petered off. I was making fewer trips. Once a day. Once every few days. Once a week.
Then I moved out here, with The Guys, and I told them about my jar.
Agreeing that the concept was both sound and valuable, they helped me determine what should be done with the money I put in it (initially I'd planned on using it once a month to get a manicure, but then, why would I reward myself for a problem?) as well as upping the ante a bit. In addition to the five cents I owed if I asked forgiveness for something that hadn't needed to be forgiven, I owed ten cents if I argued. For example, I would walk through the kitchen. It's a galley kitchen, a bit small, and walking through there when someone else is in there can be a bit awkward. So I said I was sorry. J would tell me to go pay a nickel to the jar. "But!" I would protest, "I was in your way!" To which he would patiently point out that, actually, I wasn't, and had our roles been reversed, would I have expected him to say he was sorry? No? Then the charge became ten cents.
The fee went up to a whole quarter for self-deprecations. Saying that I was stupid, or dumb, or an idiot - all things that slipped easily out of my mouth without so much as a thought - cost me twenty-five cents. And rightly so, for that kind of language is seriously damaging. It's how I got to this point in the first place. In order to believe it, I have to think it, and heaven knows that for the past several years I have NOT being thinking very highly of myself. So, slowly, with time and encouragement, I'm backing off on the negative self-talk, and replacing it with things like, "wow, I'm actually getting pretty buffed!" or "see? I can be smart!" or "... every once in a while, I have my moments".
Hey. Baby steps, people. It's an improvement.
The biggest new rule, though, was one that spontaneously showed up one night. I never even realized I was saying it. I'd be talking, and either fumbling the words until it came out as a language other than English, failing to convey my meaning entirely, and/or making the situation worse by sticking my foot in my mouth and sounding like a complete blithering idiot. At which point, determined to STOP sounding completely inane, I would say, quite determinedly, "I'll just shut up now."
Apparently to outside ears, this sounds far, far worse than I ever thought it did. It wasn't until M said it in jest (to and about himself) that I realized just how terrible of a thing to say it really is.
Telling myself to shut up not only made me believe that I had nothing worthwhile to contribute, but also that I had no skill for speaking, no ability to communicate properly, and a terrible social skill in general. It meant that I was better off being seen than heard, that my opinion counted for little if anything, and that it would perhaps be best if I just kept my mind to myself.
That little gem costs me a dollar.
I've had some people suggest that enforcement of these rules is just as bad (and controlling) as the behavior that got me to this point in the first place. To that, I have a few retorts. First, the jar and its enforcement were concepts I agreed to, and helped come up with in the first place. Second, the money I put into the jar goes down to my place of employment once a month, where it is donated to helping support shelter animals. Third, I have noticed a marked improvement in my personal behavior since this little game/exercise was put into place. I speak better about myself, have more confidence in what I'm saying, and hell, there are times when I call MYSELF on it and go pay the appropriate amount just because I want to keep improving. And it's not just The Guys, either. My family's in on it, as are many of my friends. If I didn't want to play anymore, I wouldn't. Simple as that.
That said, if you see me break any of these rules, and start either talking shit about myself, telling myself to shut up, or apologizing for existing without a permit to be, please call me on it. Shelter animals will thank you for it as much as I will, and I think it's helping drive other people a little less crazy while we're at it.
July 02, 2013
Harder to Breathe
It's a catch-22. And I do mean that.
See, I have been told that the most terrible thing one must deal with when they have been violated, abused, damaged, taken advantage of, controlled, or assaulted is the silence. It's not the scars, the healing, the justifications, the building anew... it's the fear that by speaking out about what happened, you will be told that you are over-exaggerating, that you're being spiteful, playing the victim, trying to get sympathy, or worse. Some have been downright told they were asking for it, or otherwise shut down and further abused - simply for telling others the truth.
Take this as an example. A child is beaten by his parent. He tells a teacher. The teacher talks to the parent, and the parent not only assures the teacher everything is fine, they further harm the child for speaking out. Another example: a man is sexually assaulted - but if he tells a friend, then he's making things up because "men don't get raped", and gets made fun of, belittled, or shut out for being crazy. Yet again: a woman is mentally and emotionally abused/controlled by her spouse, but speaking to mutual friends means ruining his reputation, making her a spiteful, passive-aggressive bitch who just wants to hurt people.
I fall into that last category.
What happened to me is something that I can honestly say happened to me. Now, yes, I'm aware that some of you went through the same self-help seminars I did, beating into our heads the concept that we should not be "victims" but "choose out" of that mentality. That we can simply choose what happens to us, and how we react. But what I have learned since then has shown me two things: one, that that is only true to an extent, and two, that line of thinking is extremely dangerous to someone who is being controlled.
See, I have been told that the most terrible thing one must deal with when they have been violated, abused, damaged, taken advantage of, controlled, or assaulted is the silence. It's not the scars, the healing, the justifications, the building anew... it's the fear that by speaking out about what happened, you will be told that you are over-exaggerating, that you're being spiteful, playing the victim, trying to get sympathy, or worse. Some have been downright told they were asking for it, or otherwise shut down and further abused - simply for telling others the truth.
Take this as an example. A child is beaten by his parent. He tells a teacher. The teacher talks to the parent, and the parent not only assures the teacher everything is fine, they further harm the child for speaking out. Another example: a man is sexually assaulted - but if he tells a friend, then he's making things up because "men don't get raped", and gets made fun of, belittled, or shut out for being crazy. Yet again: a woman is mentally and emotionally abused/controlled by her spouse, but speaking to mutual friends means ruining his reputation, making her a spiteful, passive-aggressive bitch who just wants to hurt people.
I fall into that last category.
What happened to me is something that I can honestly say happened to me. Now, yes, I'm aware that some of you went through the same self-help seminars I did, beating into our heads the concept that we should not be "victims" but "choose out" of that mentality. That we can simply choose what happens to us, and how we react. But what I have learned since then has shown me two things: one, that that is only true to an extent, and two, that line of thinking is extremely dangerous to someone who is being controlled.
I am done being told what to do, how to think, what reactions are
appropriate. I know what happened; I was there. And I was content with my
silence, to allow that part of my history to be unknown. For fear that I would
be seen as passive-aggressive, spiteful, angry, childish, ill-mannered, and
ruining the reputation of someone in the eyes of friends. But then she happened.
"She" is a young woman in a relationship who I met at a bar. Complete strangers, we got to talking about random things. Who we are, what we do, who we're seeing, how we got here, where we're from. But something eerie happened. Something frighteningly odd, disconcerting, yet fascinating all at the same time. She began to tell me of her relationship. And my god... it was like listening to a recording of myself from days long since past. All the signs were there. The gaslighting. The dictation of what was allowed, what was not. The withholding of affection. The horrible words, meant only to hurt, belittle, damage. It was as though a ghost had run its finger up my spine. She was describing exactly what I had gone through, down to the minutia... except she has visible bruises. I had only had hands put on me once.
"She" is a young woman in a relationship who I met at a bar. Complete strangers, we got to talking about random things. Who we are, what we do, who we're seeing, how we got here, where we're from. But something eerie happened. Something frighteningly odd, disconcerting, yet fascinating all at the same time. She began to tell me of her relationship. And my god... it was like listening to a recording of myself from days long since past. All the signs were there. The gaslighting. The dictation of what was allowed, what was not. The withholding of affection. The horrible words, meant only to hurt, belittle, damage. It was as though a ghost had run its finger up my spine. She was describing exactly what I had gone through, down to the minutia... except she has visible bruises. I had only had hands put on me once.
Over the next several hours, we spoke in earnest of how no, it
wasn't okay that she was accused of a mental illness she does not have (another
strangely eerie similarity; we were even accused of the same illness); no, it's
not acceptable to be struck by a spouse, even once; no, hiding bruises is, in
fact, a big red flag. We talked of strategies for getting out, places to stay,
contacts, friends to rely on, how to break free. We talked of defense
mechanisms, justifications, constant fights. Every ten minutes was punctuated
with another realization of a similarity. Her knowing that someone else had
been through the exact same thing and made it free and into a great
relationship... that was enough to bolster her courage. She is, as I type this,
in the process of trying to reclaim her life as her own.
Why am I telling you all of this, you may wonder?
Because having spoken to her, acknowledging that this DOES happen, and it's NOT normal or healthy... I have helped her break free from a relationship where she was being constantly abused - mentally, emotionally, and physically. What if there were others among even my friends - the ones I know, care about, hold dear - what if among them, among you, there is another similar circumstance, and they have simply accepted it, afraid to speak out on their own behalf?
No. I must speak out. I must let others know what happened, what happens even now to others, and say definitively NO: this is NOT acceptable. This is NOT normal. This is NOT healthy. And by god, if you need someone on your side, I am here, and I understand.
What happened to me is in the past - but it can be used to prevent others from suffering the same fate.
I will relate what happened here (and place my self-justifications in parentheticals, so you know why I stayed).
Some time ago, before I found the remarkable relationship I now have, in which I am loved unconditionally, respected, and treated with equality, I had other relationships. Not many, I was never terribly experienced. But one of these relationships was unlike the rest. It started out as practically a dream come true. I was desperately in love, and being so head-over-feet, I would do, give, sacrifice everything for the sake of the relationship. It was pure bliss for about a year. Then something happened. I don't know quite when it happened, but the fights started happening regularly (every couple fights, that's normal). At first it was once every month, then once every couple weeks, then once a week. By the time things were over, I had kept a calendar that showed that fights happened no fewer than twice a week.
When we fought, I was not permitted to talk to friends. Particularly not my own friends. I could speak to a very certain degree to specific mutual friends - friends who were more familiar with him than with me, however - but only on the subject of what I was doing wrong. Any advice I could seek had to focus on what I was failing to do. Otherwise, “our private life (was) to remain private”, and I was forbidden from even asking my best girlfriend for advice, help, or council. Plastic smiles were plastered on our faces when company was over. Icy politeness was enforced. Nothing was to ever appear wrong to anyone. Ever. Or I would be punished, usually by the withholding of affection after a long session of being yelled at for failing to uphold the façade. (But that was reasonable, right? I mean, I failed to keep up appearances, to prevent drama, to keep our friends from being involved. It was my fault. No one should ever know we’re having a spat.)
Somewhere along the way, I lost most of my freedoms. Small things. Foods I was not allowed to have, drinks, places I couldn't go. I was forbidden certain things. (Couples make sacrifices, that's normal. I have to give up things to make him happy.) But I was also expected to perform certain functions. Things weren't just expected, but demanded. It started small - chores, financial contributions - that was normal, so long as it was on equal footing. But soon I was on deadlines. If the bed was unmade when he wanted to sleep, a fight began. If his socks weren't taken from the dryer and put folded into the drawer by midnight, I was yelled at. Some of these times I was made to sleep on the couch. (I did not do what I said I would do, I suppose it's fair that I am punished.) But why was I made to sleep on the couch when it was he who started the fight over socks?...
On the subject of arguments, if for whatever reason he did decide he ought to apologize, it was always with a qualifier. “I’m sorry you felt hurt” or “I’m sorry you didn’t think that was funny”. Not that he was actually sorry for havng hurt my feelings or that the joke made at my expense wasn’t funny to me, but rather that I was the one who somehow chose to have hurt feelings and he was sorry that I had chosen such a thing. The apologies were almost more sympathy than actual contrition. (But I’m responsible for my own feelings, right? Nobody can actually hurt my feelings, that’s something I allow to happen. All I have to do is to choose that the comment about my looks or actions or thoughts or likes wasn’t incredibly painful. That’s all I have to do. Surely he didn’t mean to upset me.) Though it would happen again, regardless if it bothered me, for it was something I should simply get over. I would have to learn to get over not liking horror films or being offended by flagrant cheating on a spouse. I was choosing to allow myself to be upset by these things, something I could be “trained” out of.
I was accused of having borderline personality disorder. Anyone who knows me well - and knows even a half an ounce of actual psychology - knows that's not true. Having worked with folks who DO have it, it's obvious where the differences are. Even so, the accusations made me doubt my sanity. I started having nervous breakdowns. The problem was me. Me. (I'm broken, so I guess I can only look at myself as the problem; it can't possibly be him.) I was told to go to therapy or we'd break up. Then again, I was told he'd leave me pretty close to every time we fought. I was taught that one fights for what they love, so I fought hard. I swallowed my pride and went to therapy. They advised medication. I bit the bullet and paid sizeable sums of money to go on medications. They would work for a while, then stop. Nothing worked for long. Any time I had a hard day, got emotional to any level, stood up for myself in any capacity, I was told I was having "an episode". My wants, needs, desires, concerns were dismissed. If I was bothered by something - be it sexual or violent - I was overreacting. I was told I wasn't sound enough of mind to know what I wanted. (I'm broken, and he's not, so he must be right.)
On the subject of sound mind, I was frequently made to question my memory. I would be told something, then told something else later. An example: going to see family, I was told I was too loud and shouldn't talk so much, for I was dominating the conversation; I backed off, then later upon going home was told I didn't seem like I wanted to be there because I hardly interacted with people. I was told I was childish for wanting to leave a party to get to bed at a reasonable hour for work the next day. Then scolded for not being awake enough the next day to stay up late again. If I made plans to go somewhere, but had to cancel for whatever reason, I was "breaking my word", regardless of advanced notice. And if I remembered something differently, I was told I was wrong. Period. End of story. There was never an option for me to be the one that remembered it correctly. (I'm the one with the bad memory. He's always right. He's so much smarter than I am. He knows so much more than I do.) Which is funny, because I'm finding that everything I thought I knew, everything that he told me... if it's turned completely on its head, that's the actual right way of doing a thing. Especially when it comes to cooking.
Mentally unstable, away from my own family and most of my own personal friends, in an area that didn't suit me and was far too expensive for someone like me to support, I worked full time in whatever work I could find, only to come home and immediately do housework. I would work several hours a week to do so. The expectation was because I couldn't afford as much rent, so I made up for it in work. I did all of the housework. So much as rotating the laundry was considered asking him to do my job. I was punished once for feeding the cat one minute past seven, instead of AT seven. When I played or knit, I felt guilty because there was work to do. I completely lost my creative mojo. I seldom prayed, seldom made anything for myself. (It makes sense, though. I should be grown up about this. Grownups don't have time for leisure. I have responsibilities. He's helping me afford this unaffordable place, so I owe him. I could never live here, I can’t afford to pay rent, so he’s taking most of the financial burden and I do work.)
When we went places or had meals out, I was often surprised with the expectation of financial obligation. Things would be ordered without my consent, but then I was expected to pay for them. Things I couldn’t afford, especially trips, were expected. Otherwise I would stay home alone. It wasn’t a question if he was going, but he would pressure me to go even if I could not reasonably do so. If I did not go, he made sure I knew he was disappointed.
My god. The disappointment. That word was used like a weapon. I was constantly ashamed of myself, of my behavior, my choices. I was never good enough, smart enough, fast enough, wealthy enough, creative enough. My raid-leading skills were constantly in critique, asked-for or no. I was made to feel foolish and unobservant for missing the “blatant” clues he hid in his RPGs. I didn’t clean things thoroughly enough or often enough. I wasn’t as good a hostess as I should have been. My clothing choices were tsk’ed, my taste in music monotonous, my interests to banal or childish. I was never socially savvy enough, I didn’t know how to talk to people correctly, I was bad at parties. I made poor work decisions, I spent my money unwisely. I was even told I didn’t treat my pets well. Nothing I did seemed right, or good enough. I was always a failure.
Pretty soon I was told how to spend my money. How much on what and when. Instead of lowering the budget for things like his alcohol, I would have to cut back on things for myself to meet his expected budget. If I didn’t get what he put on the list - ALL of it - I had failed to do my job and was yelled at. Though he would maintain it wasn’t yelling, since he technically didn’t raise his voice, but the admonition and scolding were absolutely scathing. He was always being disappointed by me. That word will forever echo in my mind… “disappointed”.
Another word that rings in my head: “fair”. I would tell him a rule or action wasn’t fair, and he would roll his eyes, “I don’t believe in fair”. (Life isn’t fair. I should be used to it.)
Yet he would build me up, too. Telling me I was pretty, that I was smart and creative and worthy. He would build me up and talk sweetly to me, reassuring me that he loved me and that I meant everything to him. Right up until I forgot to do something or lost track of time and didn’t make the bed prior to him wanting to go to sleep. Then he would tear me down again. Endlessly, up and down, up and down, until my life became a constant walk on a path of eggshells, frightened of what I might do or say that would set off his temper. (He has a temper, that’s all. It’s not his fault. That’s just who he is. I should be more mindful.)
If I asked him to not read something until after I left, he would ignore my request and read it immediately. Whether it was for a surprise or not, he didn’t care. He threatened that he would kill me if I ever left him or cheated on him, not that I would have anyway. And if I so much as dared to compare him to his father, he threatened to leave me outside of a mall several miles from the house to walk home. I asked him once flat-out if he respected me in any capacity, and he stated flatly that he did not, nor did he trust me either. He did not ask for me to improve myself, he demanded it.
And more. So... so much more. I'm too tired to remember it all anymore. It isn't worth it. I've tried to let all of it go. The only thing I can't let go is when he put me into a wall.
It was one of our fights. Again. Where he'd threatened to leave me. Again. Fights past, he'd told me I'd driven him to drinking, and that he'd never come so close to hitting a woman before. He was physically bigger than me, more imposing, so of course I was afraid. Often, I'd shut up, shrink. Stay small. It was safer not to draw his attention or move too fast. Even now I still do that when a confrontation arises, even if it's not directed at me. That scar runs deep. But there I was, attempting to actually stand up for myself. Rare, but it did happen. I KNEW I remembered something correctly. KNEW it. And would not back down. And so he came up to me, striding across the room, grabbed both my shoulders, and slammed me against the wall.
My brain shut down. Went into crisis mode. And if you’ve ever seen me in a crisis - an actual, true crisis - I'm the one who does not hesitate, does not fear. I push my horse into a gallop to pull a child from an icy, fast moving river. I dive into swift-moving creeks to save kittens. I shoulder-check bullies into trees. And I, brave, or stupid, looked at his hands, looked into his eyes, and told him to take his fucking hands off me.
He did.
The next therapy session, I justified it. I went right back to being who he wanted me to be. His trophy. The quiet, obedient, passive girlfriend who was somehow paradoxically a jet-setter go-getter and kick-ass chick. The one he showed off to friends, bragging about my appearance and my interests, but seldom my accomplishments... unless they were also his interests. I looked the therapist in the eye, told her what happened, and told her it wasn't him. It was someone else. It was him, his body, his hands, but he wasn't doing it on purpose, he simply had no idea what he was doing. It wasn't him. (It wasn't him. He'd never do that to me.)
But he did do it. And I will never forget the look on his face when he finally realized what he was doing. Not ever.
Why am I telling you all of this, you may wonder?
Because having spoken to her, acknowledging that this DOES happen, and it's NOT normal or healthy... I have helped her break free from a relationship where she was being constantly abused - mentally, emotionally, and physically. What if there were others among even my friends - the ones I know, care about, hold dear - what if among them, among you, there is another similar circumstance, and they have simply accepted it, afraid to speak out on their own behalf?
No. I must speak out. I must let others know what happened, what happens even now to others, and say definitively NO: this is NOT acceptable. This is NOT normal. This is NOT healthy. And by god, if you need someone on your side, I am here, and I understand.
What happened to me is in the past - but it can be used to prevent others from suffering the same fate.
I will relate what happened here (and place my self-justifications in parentheticals, so you know why I stayed).
Some time ago, before I found the remarkable relationship I now have, in which I am loved unconditionally, respected, and treated with equality, I had other relationships. Not many, I was never terribly experienced. But one of these relationships was unlike the rest. It started out as practically a dream come true. I was desperately in love, and being so head-over-feet, I would do, give, sacrifice everything for the sake of the relationship. It was pure bliss for about a year. Then something happened. I don't know quite when it happened, but the fights started happening regularly (every couple fights, that's normal). At first it was once every month, then once every couple weeks, then once a week. By the time things were over, I had kept a calendar that showed that fights happened no fewer than twice a week.
When we fought, I was not permitted to talk to friends. Particularly not my own friends. I could speak to a very certain degree to specific mutual friends - friends who were more familiar with him than with me, however - but only on the subject of what I was doing wrong. Any advice I could seek had to focus on what I was failing to do. Otherwise, “our private life (was) to remain private”, and I was forbidden from even asking my best girlfriend for advice, help, or council. Plastic smiles were plastered on our faces when company was over. Icy politeness was enforced. Nothing was to ever appear wrong to anyone. Ever. Or I would be punished, usually by the withholding of affection after a long session of being yelled at for failing to uphold the façade. (But that was reasonable, right? I mean, I failed to keep up appearances, to prevent drama, to keep our friends from being involved. It was my fault. No one should ever know we’re having a spat.)
Somewhere along the way, I lost most of my freedoms. Small things. Foods I was not allowed to have, drinks, places I couldn't go. I was forbidden certain things. (Couples make sacrifices, that's normal. I have to give up things to make him happy.) But I was also expected to perform certain functions. Things weren't just expected, but demanded. It started small - chores, financial contributions - that was normal, so long as it was on equal footing. But soon I was on deadlines. If the bed was unmade when he wanted to sleep, a fight began. If his socks weren't taken from the dryer and put folded into the drawer by midnight, I was yelled at. Some of these times I was made to sleep on the couch. (I did not do what I said I would do, I suppose it's fair that I am punished.) But why was I made to sleep on the couch when it was he who started the fight over socks?...
On the subject of arguments, if for whatever reason he did decide he ought to apologize, it was always with a qualifier. “I’m sorry you felt hurt” or “I’m sorry you didn’t think that was funny”. Not that he was actually sorry for havng hurt my feelings or that the joke made at my expense wasn’t funny to me, but rather that I was the one who somehow chose to have hurt feelings and he was sorry that I had chosen such a thing. The apologies were almost more sympathy than actual contrition. (But I’m responsible for my own feelings, right? Nobody can actually hurt my feelings, that’s something I allow to happen. All I have to do is to choose that the comment about my looks or actions or thoughts or likes wasn’t incredibly painful. That’s all I have to do. Surely he didn’t mean to upset me.) Though it would happen again, regardless if it bothered me, for it was something I should simply get over. I would have to learn to get over not liking horror films or being offended by flagrant cheating on a spouse. I was choosing to allow myself to be upset by these things, something I could be “trained” out of.
I was accused of having borderline personality disorder. Anyone who knows me well - and knows even a half an ounce of actual psychology - knows that's not true. Having worked with folks who DO have it, it's obvious where the differences are. Even so, the accusations made me doubt my sanity. I started having nervous breakdowns. The problem was me. Me. (I'm broken, so I guess I can only look at myself as the problem; it can't possibly be him.) I was told to go to therapy or we'd break up. Then again, I was told he'd leave me pretty close to every time we fought. I was taught that one fights for what they love, so I fought hard. I swallowed my pride and went to therapy. They advised medication. I bit the bullet and paid sizeable sums of money to go on medications. They would work for a while, then stop. Nothing worked for long. Any time I had a hard day, got emotional to any level, stood up for myself in any capacity, I was told I was having "an episode". My wants, needs, desires, concerns were dismissed. If I was bothered by something - be it sexual or violent - I was overreacting. I was told I wasn't sound enough of mind to know what I wanted. (I'm broken, and he's not, so he must be right.)
On the subject of sound mind, I was frequently made to question my memory. I would be told something, then told something else later. An example: going to see family, I was told I was too loud and shouldn't talk so much, for I was dominating the conversation; I backed off, then later upon going home was told I didn't seem like I wanted to be there because I hardly interacted with people. I was told I was childish for wanting to leave a party to get to bed at a reasonable hour for work the next day. Then scolded for not being awake enough the next day to stay up late again. If I made plans to go somewhere, but had to cancel for whatever reason, I was "breaking my word", regardless of advanced notice. And if I remembered something differently, I was told I was wrong. Period. End of story. There was never an option for me to be the one that remembered it correctly. (I'm the one with the bad memory. He's always right. He's so much smarter than I am. He knows so much more than I do.) Which is funny, because I'm finding that everything I thought I knew, everything that he told me... if it's turned completely on its head, that's the actual right way of doing a thing. Especially when it comes to cooking.
Mentally unstable, away from my own family and most of my own personal friends, in an area that didn't suit me and was far too expensive for someone like me to support, I worked full time in whatever work I could find, only to come home and immediately do housework. I would work several hours a week to do so. The expectation was because I couldn't afford as much rent, so I made up for it in work. I did all of the housework. So much as rotating the laundry was considered asking him to do my job. I was punished once for feeding the cat one minute past seven, instead of AT seven. When I played or knit, I felt guilty because there was work to do. I completely lost my creative mojo. I seldom prayed, seldom made anything for myself. (It makes sense, though. I should be grown up about this. Grownups don't have time for leisure. I have responsibilities. He's helping me afford this unaffordable place, so I owe him. I could never live here, I can’t afford to pay rent, so he’s taking most of the financial burden and I do work.)
When we went places or had meals out, I was often surprised with the expectation of financial obligation. Things would be ordered without my consent, but then I was expected to pay for them. Things I couldn’t afford, especially trips, were expected. Otherwise I would stay home alone. It wasn’t a question if he was going, but he would pressure me to go even if I could not reasonably do so. If I did not go, he made sure I knew he was disappointed.
My god. The disappointment. That word was used like a weapon. I was constantly ashamed of myself, of my behavior, my choices. I was never good enough, smart enough, fast enough, wealthy enough, creative enough. My raid-leading skills were constantly in critique, asked-for or no. I was made to feel foolish and unobservant for missing the “blatant” clues he hid in his RPGs. I didn’t clean things thoroughly enough or often enough. I wasn’t as good a hostess as I should have been. My clothing choices were tsk’ed, my taste in music monotonous, my interests to banal or childish. I was never socially savvy enough, I didn’t know how to talk to people correctly, I was bad at parties. I made poor work decisions, I spent my money unwisely. I was even told I didn’t treat my pets well. Nothing I did seemed right, or good enough. I was always a failure.
Pretty soon I was told how to spend my money. How much on what and when. Instead of lowering the budget for things like his alcohol, I would have to cut back on things for myself to meet his expected budget. If I didn’t get what he put on the list - ALL of it - I had failed to do my job and was yelled at. Though he would maintain it wasn’t yelling, since he technically didn’t raise his voice, but the admonition and scolding were absolutely scathing. He was always being disappointed by me. That word will forever echo in my mind… “disappointed”.
Another word that rings in my head: “fair”. I would tell him a rule or action wasn’t fair, and he would roll his eyes, “I don’t believe in fair”. (Life isn’t fair. I should be used to it.)
Yet he would build me up, too. Telling me I was pretty, that I was smart and creative and worthy. He would build me up and talk sweetly to me, reassuring me that he loved me and that I meant everything to him. Right up until I forgot to do something or lost track of time and didn’t make the bed prior to him wanting to go to sleep. Then he would tear me down again. Endlessly, up and down, up and down, until my life became a constant walk on a path of eggshells, frightened of what I might do or say that would set off his temper. (He has a temper, that’s all. It’s not his fault. That’s just who he is. I should be more mindful.)
If I asked him to not read something until after I left, he would ignore my request and read it immediately. Whether it was for a surprise or not, he didn’t care. He threatened that he would kill me if I ever left him or cheated on him, not that I would have anyway. And if I so much as dared to compare him to his father, he threatened to leave me outside of a mall several miles from the house to walk home. I asked him once flat-out if he respected me in any capacity, and he stated flatly that he did not, nor did he trust me either. He did not ask for me to improve myself, he demanded it.
And more. So... so much more. I'm too tired to remember it all anymore. It isn't worth it. I've tried to let all of it go. The only thing I can't let go is when he put me into a wall.
It was one of our fights. Again. Where he'd threatened to leave me. Again. Fights past, he'd told me I'd driven him to drinking, and that he'd never come so close to hitting a woman before. He was physically bigger than me, more imposing, so of course I was afraid. Often, I'd shut up, shrink. Stay small. It was safer not to draw his attention or move too fast. Even now I still do that when a confrontation arises, even if it's not directed at me. That scar runs deep. But there I was, attempting to actually stand up for myself. Rare, but it did happen. I KNEW I remembered something correctly. KNEW it. And would not back down. And so he came up to me, striding across the room, grabbed both my shoulders, and slammed me against the wall.
My brain shut down. Went into crisis mode. And if you’ve ever seen me in a crisis - an actual, true crisis - I'm the one who does not hesitate, does not fear. I push my horse into a gallop to pull a child from an icy, fast moving river. I dive into swift-moving creeks to save kittens. I shoulder-check bullies into trees. And I, brave, or stupid, looked at his hands, looked into his eyes, and told him to take his fucking hands off me.
He did.
The next therapy session, I justified it. I went right back to being who he wanted me to be. His trophy. The quiet, obedient, passive girlfriend who was somehow paradoxically a jet-setter go-getter and kick-ass chick. The one he showed off to friends, bragging about my appearance and my interests, but seldom my accomplishments... unless they were also his interests. I looked the therapist in the eye, told her what happened, and told her it wasn't him. It was someone else. It was him, his body, his hands, but he wasn't doing it on purpose, he simply had no idea what he was doing. It wasn't him. (It wasn't him. He'd never do that to me.)
But he did do it. And I will never forget the look on his face when he finally realized what he was doing. Not ever.
So when a young woman, stranger to me, with no emotional
investment in her well-being, tells me this? I don't justify it. I don't tell
her how easy it is to say that it wasn't them, it was them forgetting who they
were. I tell her how big of a red flag it is. I tell her to run - don't walk -
away from that relationship like the house was on goddamn fire. I tell her I
have a bat and a couch, one will keep her safe while she sleeps on the other.
And through gentle coaxing, I can stop the cycle. Just one is a difference. I
can help one.
But can I help more?
I'm done being silent. You, my friends... many of you almost assuredly know who this is about. I have refrained from names because this isn't about blame or pointing fingers. I am not attempting slander or defamation of character. It isn't about ruining a reputation or trying to passively-aggressively "get my way" somehow. There is nothing I gain from this... save that maybe my story can save someone else. Because silence is wrong. It is absolutely abhorrent that someone gets abused and then feels they must stay quiet because it's "proper", "expected", or "socially appropriate". It wasn't appropriate for me to be treated the way I was. I won't stay silent if my words can help another human being crawl into the light again.
I have braced for flak from this. I will likely be called out, told this was unnecessary, that I'm being spiteful, hurtful, damaging. That I'm "talking shit" behind someone's back. That's not what any of this is about, and if that's what you believe, I cannot stop you. Be assured, I was no saint. But saint or sinner, no one deserves that. No one deserves to be made to believe their entire life is a series of unattainable goals in order to be respected, loved, or treated equally by a spouse. No one deserves to feel like their relationship hangs on the edge of a blade every time they fight, or that they aren't safe in their own home. And no one should ever be made to feel that they are completely broken and mentally inadequate by their significant other. It's wrong. So if what I'm doing offends you, I'm truly sorry.
This isn't about revenge, misguided justice, "getting back", nothing like that. My heart is sore, but at peace. My relationship now has done much to show me what love truly is, has healed many of the hurts, and patiently guides me toward things like not constantly apologizing for things that weren't my fault. I have no ill-will, no quarrel, no score to settle. But I will be damned if I sit by and just let this happen to someone else - even the POSSIBILITY of it happening to someone else - by staying quiet.
I hope you understand my intent.
And I pray that - now that you know the symptoms - maybe you will reach out to someone else who was just like me, give them my name, my email, whatever... and tell them they aren't alone. Maybe you can save someone too.
But can I help more?
I'm done being silent. You, my friends... many of you almost assuredly know who this is about. I have refrained from names because this isn't about blame or pointing fingers. I am not attempting slander or defamation of character. It isn't about ruining a reputation or trying to passively-aggressively "get my way" somehow. There is nothing I gain from this... save that maybe my story can save someone else. Because silence is wrong. It is absolutely abhorrent that someone gets abused and then feels they must stay quiet because it's "proper", "expected", or "socially appropriate". It wasn't appropriate for me to be treated the way I was. I won't stay silent if my words can help another human being crawl into the light again.
I have braced for flak from this. I will likely be called out, told this was unnecessary, that I'm being spiteful, hurtful, damaging. That I'm "talking shit" behind someone's back. That's not what any of this is about, and if that's what you believe, I cannot stop you. Be assured, I was no saint. But saint or sinner, no one deserves that. No one deserves to be made to believe their entire life is a series of unattainable goals in order to be respected, loved, or treated equally by a spouse. No one deserves to feel like their relationship hangs on the edge of a blade every time they fight, or that they aren't safe in their own home. And no one should ever be made to feel that they are completely broken and mentally inadequate by their significant other. It's wrong. So if what I'm doing offends you, I'm truly sorry.
This isn't about revenge, misguided justice, "getting back", nothing like that. My heart is sore, but at peace. My relationship now has done much to show me what love truly is, has healed many of the hurts, and patiently guides me toward things like not constantly apologizing for things that weren't my fault. I have no ill-will, no quarrel, no score to settle. But I will be damned if I sit by and just let this happen to someone else - even the POSSIBILITY of it happening to someone else - by staying quiet.
I hope you understand my intent.
And I pray that - now that you know the symptoms - maybe you will reach out to someone else who was just like me, give them my name, my email, whatever... and tell them they aren't alone. Maybe you can save someone too.
February 02, 2013
Clearing the Gravestones
I haven't really played World of Warcraft much in the past year.
I had played for around four years. I had gone from casual player to hardcore raider with an absurd number of achievement points under my belt and a two- to three-night-a-week raid schedule. I logged on almost daily. I ground hours of reputation (last count I was at 49 Exalted factions), I sought out insanely rare pets and mounts, I slogged through PvP arenas to obtain the most bizarre and useless trinkets for the bragging rights alone. I had thousands of gold. Hundreds of non-combat pets, mounts, and every single spell I could possibly learn. I knew every cooking recipe available, every alchemical transmutation, and capped my fishing skill. I was ranked third Feral Druid on my server. I was damn good at what I did, vying for top DPS nightly with a dedicated Rogue. I was elected Guild Leader of a Level 18 Horde Guild. I RP'ed with several different guilds on a regular basis. I was known on several channels, I helped newbies in my spare time, and I had explored every corner of the globe before flying was permitted.
And then in November of 2011, I stopped.
My ex-fiancé, who had RP'ed with me, intertwined his backstories with my own, had helped me co-found the guild, our reliable Off-Tank, left me. And suddenly, I just didn't have the heart to play anymore.
The Loque'nahak I had tamed. The collection of drakes I had earned. The powerful Purples (all gemmed and enchanted). The numbers I'd crunched. The achievements I'd earned. None of it mattered.
I gave it up.
Half my friends had had to stop playing. A new child, job demands, differing time zones, lack of interest... people had moved on. And when I stepped down as Guild Leader, the entire guild collapsed. I had no more reason to play.
Almost a year passed. A new expansion was announced, and I rolled my eyes. (Pandas? Really?)
But then two individuals came into my life who played. They nudged and encouraged me to get back into it. So... I did. I realized I'd kinda missed it. The problem was, they played Alliance. And I'm a Horde girl.
I rolled Alliance anyway. Nothing of my old game-life was really left. The entire reason I'd started playing the damn game in the first place was because I wanted to play with friends. If I played without friends, it was lonely. These two gave me a shot at playing with friends again, and I took them up on it. I chafed at being Alliance, but I got over it when I realized that both sides are full of assholes to pretty well the same extent, both PC and NPC alike. I tried to ignore the fact that my allies were now Gnomes and Dwarves and those damn Space Goats. But I did get to play as a Worgen, so I was at least at peace with my own character. I refused flat out to attack any Tauren, though. I have a limit.
Then the expansion hit. And somehow I just... kinda... I don't know. It felt like it was trying WAY too damn hard. And it was deflating to see all that hard work I'd done suddenly be relegated to "old content". I just couldn't bring myself to learn to battle my non-combat pets, or work toward any of the new achievements. It looked like... well, work. So my relationship to WoW even now is tenuous. But I still find myself looking back fondly at my old main, Alabachion, the White Tauren Feral Druid.
I'd written a lot of RP posts for her in our old forums. I loved RPing with her, even spontaneously. She was a deep, complex character with a long history and I'd loved developing her as new changes came to the world of Azeroth. I'd worked hard on her, and she eventually developed into kind of a secondary aspect of myself: the calm, fierce, powerful yet gentle female I always wanted to be. Feral, but civilized. Loyal, dedicated.
On a whim I decided to go back to the old forum - long dead after the collapse of the guild - to copy and paste all my old RP posts into a word file to save them. (It eventually totalled 35 pages of written work, the most I have ever written for anything, character or otherwise.)
But the forum had fallen into disrepair.
As any civilization that suddenly crumbles, so too did our dear old forum become the den of vipers, jackals, and worse - spammers. They had created literally thousands of dummy accounts and posted a myriad of useless advertisements. And somehow, somewhere, deep in the recesses of my heart, something stirred in anger.
How dare they disturb this sacred place.
I had not forgotten the old passwords. I tried to log in as Guild Leader, to no avail. But I would not give up so easily. I logged in as Admin, determined to clear away the creeping vines of spam and infestations of opportunistic bots. And I was successful. Immediately I set about tending this old dead place as a groundskeeper might tend a graveyard - trimming away the overgrowth, clearing away the debris, and keeping things tidy... even if those who once might have cared no longer would.
I banished the influx of registered but inactive accounts. I snipped off the useless and meaningless posts of the bots. I put up fences of permissions, preventing all newcomers from posting anything - no longer would interlopers find it so easy to spread their filth. And then I set about the arduous task of trimming the weeds... namely, the over 70,000 dummy accounts. Like so much overgrown grass I mow them down.
... perhaps it is a fool's errand. Something in me years to protect this place, digital though it may be, and to a bygone, silly era of my life.
But silly though it may have been, I loved it once. The camaraderie of the guild, the thrill of taking down a boss we had never defeated before, the pride in newly acquired gear, the drive to seek new things and reach new heights. The awe of watching the stories unfold, knowing we had driven them forward, the sorrow at watching favorite heroes fall to the might of the evil we faced, the exultation of wreaking vengeance upon those who had brought that evil. The fascination with the lore, the wonder at the new places we explored, delving deeper into the mysteries of the ever-expanding world.
And so it is, that a part of me isn't so unlike my old main.
It's what she'd do, if given the chance - tending to the old, forgotten gravestones of heroes lost but not forgotten, remembering their great deeds... for one must, or else they are indeed truly dead.
I had played for around four years. I had gone from casual player to hardcore raider with an absurd number of achievement points under my belt and a two- to three-night-a-week raid schedule. I logged on almost daily. I ground hours of reputation (last count I was at 49 Exalted factions), I sought out insanely rare pets and mounts, I slogged through PvP arenas to obtain the most bizarre and useless trinkets for the bragging rights alone. I had thousands of gold. Hundreds of non-combat pets, mounts, and every single spell I could possibly learn. I knew every cooking recipe available, every alchemical transmutation, and capped my fishing skill. I was ranked third Feral Druid on my server. I was damn good at what I did, vying for top DPS nightly with a dedicated Rogue. I was elected Guild Leader of a Level 18 Horde Guild. I RP'ed with several different guilds on a regular basis. I was known on several channels, I helped newbies in my spare time, and I had explored every corner of the globe before flying was permitted.
And then in November of 2011, I stopped.
My ex-fiancé, who had RP'ed with me, intertwined his backstories with my own, had helped me co-found the guild, our reliable Off-Tank, left me. And suddenly, I just didn't have the heart to play anymore.
The Loque'nahak I had tamed. The collection of drakes I had earned. The powerful Purples (all gemmed and enchanted). The numbers I'd crunched. The achievements I'd earned. None of it mattered.
I gave it up.
Half my friends had had to stop playing. A new child, job demands, differing time zones, lack of interest... people had moved on. And when I stepped down as Guild Leader, the entire guild collapsed. I had no more reason to play.
Almost a year passed. A new expansion was announced, and I rolled my eyes. (Pandas? Really?)
But then two individuals came into my life who played. They nudged and encouraged me to get back into it. So... I did. I realized I'd kinda missed it. The problem was, they played Alliance. And I'm a Horde girl.
I rolled Alliance anyway. Nothing of my old game-life was really left. The entire reason I'd started playing the damn game in the first place was because I wanted to play with friends. If I played without friends, it was lonely. These two gave me a shot at playing with friends again, and I took them up on it. I chafed at being Alliance, but I got over it when I realized that both sides are full of assholes to pretty well the same extent, both PC and NPC alike. I tried to ignore the fact that my allies were now Gnomes and Dwarves and those damn Space Goats. But I did get to play as a Worgen, so I was at least at peace with my own character. I refused flat out to attack any Tauren, though. I have a limit.
Then the expansion hit. And somehow I just... kinda... I don't know. It felt like it was trying WAY too damn hard. And it was deflating to see all that hard work I'd done suddenly be relegated to "old content". I just couldn't bring myself to learn to battle my non-combat pets, or work toward any of the new achievements. It looked like... well, work. So my relationship to WoW even now is tenuous. But I still find myself looking back fondly at my old main, Alabachion, the White Tauren Feral Druid.
I'd written a lot of RP posts for her in our old forums. I loved RPing with her, even spontaneously. She was a deep, complex character with a long history and I'd loved developing her as new changes came to the world of Azeroth. I'd worked hard on her, and she eventually developed into kind of a secondary aspect of myself: the calm, fierce, powerful yet gentle female I always wanted to be. Feral, but civilized. Loyal, dedicated.
On a whim I decided to go back to the old forum - long dead after the collapse of the guild - to copy and paste all my old RP posts into a word file to save them. (It eventually totalled 35 pages of written work, the most I have ever written for anything, character or otherwise.)
But the forum had fallen into disrepair.
As any civilization that suddenly crumbles, so too did our dear old forum become the den of vipers, jackals, and worse - spammers. They had created literally thousands of dummy accounts and posted a myriad of useless advertisements. And somehow, somewhere, deep in the recesses of my heart, something stirred in anger.
How dare they disturb this sacred place.
I had not forgotten the old passwords. I tried to log in as Guild Leader, to no avail. But I would not give up so easily. I logged in as Admin, determined to clear away the creeping vines of spam and infestations of opportunistic bots. And I was successful. Immediately I set about tending this old dead place as a groundskeeper might tend a graveyard - trimming away the overgrowth, clearing away the debris, and keeping things tidy... even if those who once might have cared no longer would.
I banished the influx of registered but inactive accounts. I snipped off the useless and meaningless posts of the bots. I put up fences of permissions, preventing all newcomers from posting anything - no longer would interlopers find it so easy to spread their filth. And then I set about the arduous task of trimming the weeds... namely, the over 70,000 dummy accounts. Like so much overgrown grass I mow them down.
... perhaps it is a fool's errand. Something in me years to protect this place, digital though it may be, and to a bygone, silly era of my life.
But silly though it may have been, I loved it once. The camaraderie of the guild, the thrill of taking down a boss we had never defeated before, the pride in newly acquired gear, the drive to seek new things and reach new heights. The awe of watching the stories unfold, knowing we had driven them forward, the sorrow at watching favorite heroes fall to the might of the evil we faced, the exultation of wreaking vengeance upon those who had brought that evil. The fascination with the lore, the wonder at the new places we explored, delving deeper into the mysteries of the ever-expanding world.
And so it is, that a part of me isn't so unlike my old main.
It's what she'd do, if given the chance - tending to the old, forgotten gravestones of heroes lost but not forgotten, remembering their great deeds... for one must, or else they are indeed truly dead.
November 17, 2012
Easterling
It's been about a month now since my epic journey Eastward.
What's that? WHAT journey Eastward, you ask?
My path laid itself out - not by itself, mind you, I made many decisions that set the road before me - and pointed toward the rising sun. Plans were set, arrangements made, reservations called in, and packing done. Oh, so much packing. I knew I didn't have very much, all things considered. (When I found myself suddenly homeless and single a year ago, I discovered I had pretty much no furniture at all.) But surprisingly, when I made the decision to take ALL my things with me, I discovered I had more than I remembered. I had received some wise advice to get the bigger size trailer, even if I thought I could make do with a smaller one... and thank goodness I had listened. The larger trailer was packed to the brim.
The plans had been laid out dependant on school acceptance. Then, when those narrowed down and pointed my feet to the lands beyond the mountains, they became refined based on seasons. I had originally planned on leaving around the New Year, to stay for the birth of my newest nephew, but the weather would almost certainly render travel over the mountains impossible with a trailer. After some consideration, a new date was set for mid-October.
I had compatriots, company to keep me sane on what would be no less than a 25-hour drive. drivers to switch me out and give me a shot at a mid-road nap. Distraction to keep me awake and lucid in the middle of the night. Shiko, for as well as she travels, isn't much of a conversationalist, and I was glad for the companionship.
It went a little like this.
A week prior to my departure date, I started training my replacement at work. I showed her everything I knew and hoped she would take good care of the business and its patients when I left. Still, even after a week of training, I felt a pang of guilt - I knew the system like the back of my hand. I had been there since the business opened. I was leaving it behind, and could only hope the new girl would take as much pride and care in her work as I did. Then, the morning of, I gassed up the car, picked up the trailer, and set to packing. I had help from some very experienced packers; my folks have moved so many times they're masters at Box-Tetris. Then, collecting the cat as the last step, I cast a tearful wave goodbye as I climbed the driveway one last time.
I had a long drive alone to Sacramento. It was largely uneventful, and I found the countryside strangely hospitable. It was a shock to see how much of Clearlake had been recently burned, and a strange pang hit me at how much of the town I recognized. Old memories, there. I made it past the mountians by nightfall, and wandered into Sacramento proper.
And came to hate the city with a fiery, burning passion.
You see, there's a Hwy 80, and then there's a Hwy 80 Business. But Hwy 80 Business is also Hwy 99, but they don't SAY that on the sign, and... well... I got horrendously lost. With a trailer. After nearly eight hours in a car. With an exhausted cat. I stopped to ask for directions to Hwy 80 Business from a gas station, and he had no clue how to get there. How the heck do you live in a city and not know how to get to the freeways? I shook my head, tried to follow the directions of the nice biker, wound up further lost, stopped at yet ANOTHER gas station, asked for directions there, and she had trouble figuring out where the heck to send me. Not because she didn't know the roads, but because the roads are damn confusing and she didn't want to send me to Reno by accident.
Eventually I found my way to where I was supposed to stay. I managed to scrape the top of the trailer on an underhang, and that was basically the last straw. I despise being lost, particularly when I'm already tired and cranky, and on top of that every extra mile was more gas money wasted on a tight budget. I was two steps away from screaming, and then I hit the underside of the building with the trailer, scratching it. I railed against my stupidity and raged ineffectually in the dark, before collecting myself finally and finding a place to park. After that, I honestly was not surprised by the urine-covered elevator floor, the hideously stained carpet, the enormous burn-stains in the bedcover. It was a place to sleep. It would have to be enough.
I woke the next morning and left quickly, stopping by the airport to pick up my travel companions. From there, ecstatic to finally see them and know I would no longer be alone, we struck out Eastward. (With a quick stop at In-N-Out, of course.)
The day was long, and the road varied. We had many mountains to cross, an we wound our way through the passes to the everlasting flatness of Nevada. We joked and laughed, debated and discussed, traded stories and caught up as we trekked across the endless expanse. Night fell and we crossed into Utah, and I was struck suddenly by the fact that I had never driven so far Eastward before. Flown, sure, but never driven. It looked like the day would pass uneventfully.
But, like the night before, the dark seemed to bring misfortune with it. Shortly before we reached Salt Lake City, my relief driver found himself needing to quickly sidestep a sizeable hunk of deer carcass. He avoided it neatly with expert timing... only to find himself faced with an impossible task of avoiding the other half of the deer. There was nowhere to go, no way of dodging it this time - not with a heavy trailer. With a sickening crunch-clunk, we straddled it as best we were able. By the time we reached the hotel afterwards,the shock had mostly worn off, but a quick cursory inspection showed us that the deer had left a reminder of the encounter,with blood and fur and worse splattered up the front of the trailer and the back of the car. Thankfully, this hotel was considerably better and we slept well enough to counter the day's excitement.
The morning came, and we headed out early to try for Colorado by nightfall. Utah came and went with little to note, and then Wyoming. I was unprepared for the enormous vastness of it all, the sheer expanse. The horizon just seemed to keep going in all directions, and I suddenly found myself thinking of the old Wild West and those who attempted to tame it. How lost they could become, and how easily. But soon it grew tedious, and I was all the more thankful for the presence of my compatriots.
Miles stretched ever onward, and I found myself quite restless by the time the sun sank to the horizon. It was just after sunset when we hit Colorado, and it was actually a reasonable time of night when we arrived at our destination. The relief was palpable. Exhausted, we left the unloading for the next day.
I've always fancied myself a child of the West. I've lived there all my life. No place I've ever called home was terribly far from the ocean. But now, perhaps, I know that I was a child of the New West. The West Coast was settled in the latter part of the movement West, and here in the sight of the Rockies... here is the Old West. Sure, I'm East of everything I've ever really known. But does that make me an Easterling? Or still one of the Men of the West?
I think it's the latter.
With that, I set about becoming a new resident of Denver.
What's that? WHAT journey Eastward, you ask?
My path laid itself out - not by itself, mind you, I made many decisions that set the road before me - and pointed toward the rising sun. Plans were set, arrangements made, reservations called in, and packing done. Oh, so much packing. I knew I didn't have very much, all things considered. (When I found myself suddenly homeless and single a year ago, I discovered I had pretty much no furniture at all.) But surprisingly, when I made the decision to take ALL my things with me, I discovered I had more than I remembered. I had received some wise advice to get the bigger size trailer, even if I thought I could make do with a smaller one... and thank goodness I had listened. The larger trailer was packed to the brim.
The plans had been laid out dependant on school acceptance. Then, when those narrowed down and pointed my feet to the lands beyond the mountains, they became refined based on seasons. I had originally planned on leaving around the New Year, to stay for the birth of my newest nephew, but the weather would almost certainly render travel over the mountains impossible with a trailer. After some consideration, a new date was set for mid-October.
I had compatriots, company to keep me sane on what would be no less than a 25-hour drive. drivers to switch me out and give me a shot at a mid-road nap. Distraction to keep me awake and lucid in the middle of the night. Shiko, for as well as she travels, isn't much of a conversationalist, and I was glad for the companionship.
It went a little like this.
A week prior to my departure date, I started training my replacement at work. I showed her everything I knew and hoped she would take good care of the business and its patients when I left. Still, even after a week of training, I felt a pang of guilt - I knew the system like the back of my hand. I had been there since the business opened. I was leaving it behind, and could only hope the new girl would take as much pride and care in her work as I did. Then, the morning of, I gassed up the car, picked up the trailer, and set to packing. I had help from some very experienced packers; my folks have moved so many times they're masters at Box-Tetris. Then, collecting the cat as the last step, I cast a tearful wave goodbye as I climbed the driveway one last time.
I had a long drive alone to Sacramento. It was largely uneventful, and I found the countryside strangely hospitable. It was a shock to see how much of Clearlake had been recently burned, and a strange pang hit me at how much of the town I recognized. Old memories, there. I made it past the mountians by nightfall, and wandered into Sacramento proper.
And came to hate the city with a fiery, burning passion.
You see, there's a Hwy 80, and then there's a Hwy 80 Business. But Hwy 80 Business is also Hwy 99, but they don't SAY that on the sign, and... well... I got horrendously lost. With a trailer. After nearly eight hours in a car. With an exhausted cat. I stopped to ask for directions to Hwy 80 Business from a gas station, and he had no clue how to get there. How the heck do you live in a city and not know how to get to the freeways? I shook my head, tried to follow the directions of the nice biker, wound up further lost, stopped at yet ANOTHER gas station, asked for directions there, and she had trouble figuring out where the heck to send me. Not because she didn't know the roads, but because the roads are damn confusing and she didn't want to send me to Reno by accident.
Eventually I found my way to where I was supposed to stay. I managed to scrape the top of the trailer on an underhang, and that was basically the last straw. I despise being lost, particularly when I'm already tired and cranky, and on top of that every extra mile was more gas money wasted on a tight budget. I was two steps away from screaming, and then I hit the underside of the building with the trailer, scratching it. I railed against my stupidity and raged ineffectually in the dark, before collecting myself finally and finding a place to park. After that, I honestly was not surprised by the urine-covered elevator floor, the hideously stained carpet, the enormous burn-stains in the bedcover. It was a place to sleep. It would have to be enough.
I woke the next morning and left quickly, stopping by the airport to pick up my travel companions. From there, ecstatic to finally see them and know I would no longer be alone, we struck out Eastward. (With a quick stop at In-N-Out, of course.)
The day was long, and the road varied. We had many mountains to cross, an we wound our way through the passes to the everlasting flatness of Nevada. We joked and laughed, debated and discussed, traded stories and caught up as we trekked across the endless expanse. Night fell and we crossed into Utah, and I was struck suddenly by the fact that I had never driven so far Eastward before. Flown, sure, but never driven. It looked like the day would pass uneventfully.
But, like the night before, the dark seemed to bring misfortune with it. Shortly before we reached Salt Lake City, my relief driver found himself needing to quickly sidestep a sizeable hunk of deer carcass. He avoided it neatly with expert timing... only to find himself faced with an impossible task of avoiding the other half of the deer. There was nowhere to go, no way of dodging it this time - not with a heavy trailer. With a sickening crunch-clunk, we straddled it as best we were able. By the time we reached the hotel afterwards,the shock had mostly worn off, but a quick cursory inspection showed us that the deer had left a reminder of the encounter,with blood and fur and worse splattered up the front of the trailer and the back of the car. Thankfully, this hotel was considerably better and we slept well enough to counter the day's excitement.
The morning came, and we headed out early to try for Colorado by nightfall. Utah came and went with little to note, and then Wyoming. I was unprepared for the enormous vastness of it all, the sheer expanse. The horizon just seemed to keep going in all directions, and I suddenly found myself thinking of the old Wild West and those who attempted to tame it. How lost they could become, and how easily. But soon it grew tedious, and I was all the more thankful for the presence of my compatriots.
Miles stretched ever onward, and I found myself quite restless by the time the sun sank to the horizon. It was just after sunset when we hit Colorado, and it was actually a reasonable time of night when we arrived at our destination. The relief was palpable. Exhausted, we left the unloading for the next day.
I've always fancied myself a child of the West. I've lived there all my life. No place I've ever called home was terribly far from the ocean. But now, perhaps, I know that I was a child of the New West. The West Coast was settled in the latter part of the movement West, and here in the sight of the Rockies... here is the Old West. Sure, I'm East of everything I've ever really known. But does that make me an Easterling? Or still one of the Men of the West?
I think it's the latter.
With that, I set about becoming a new resident of Denver.
September 22, 2012
Fragments
I live in a world of lyrics.
Conversations. People speak, and a word, a phrase, some key unlocks the memory in my mind, and the sentence finishes in my mind with the song. Thoughts are fleeting, touches of memory interlaced with present (or is it the other way 'round?).
... just follow your eyes... just follow your eyes...
They say I'm haunted. I say everyone is, I just don't bother hiding it. The voices in my head won't shut up. You have them too, I can see it in your eyes. They whisper to you in the darkness, your self doubts, your sins, your rage telling you to just... let... go...
I get into the car, iPod on, and hit random. Boys of Summer. Clear as crystal, the association ignites a fire of thought. (Your face is always there... [never forget...]) Immediately, I pass some unfortunate creature on the side of the road (this time it's a possum) and the scent of death hits my senses. It's sharp, but old. I know the scent of dead things. It's the blood that does it - a cadaver without blood is mostly dry and barely carries a scent at all. No, it's the blood. (... he had no blood left when I saw him... none of them did [they did that on purpose.])
The faces come unbidden, the words unwanted. The Litany remains in blood and tears, even though I tried to put it down. Bricks. So many bricks in a giant burlap sack that I carry like a cross down an old dusty road. But I hide it, see? Nobody wants to see what's in the bag. Everyone has a bag. Some big. Some small. Everyone hides it. If you don't, you're a "complainer" or "just looking for attention". Sure, some people wear their suffering on their sleeve like they're a martyr. But then the ones with legitimate pain can't come forward, for fear of being branded. Mine? Mine is survivor's guilt. I know it well. It's an old friend, like that neighbor that keeps borrowing your things and then never giving them back. I don't like it much, and it keeps reciting the Litany to me, but it's a part of my life. I put on a nice smile and deal with it. It's either that or fight it, and fighting it accomplished nothing.
What's the Litany?
... what if everything around you... isn't quite what it seems...
The names of the dead. The faces. The ages. How they died. The story. (... the story [a man is never truly dead...]) I heard once that a man is never truly dead until he is forgotten. I remember. I feel like I have to. Like someone must. That if I bear witness, they won't really be dead. Not really. Not gone. Not entirely. (These burdens aren't MINE! [stop fighting it, struggling makes it worse] It's not fair!) I tried to put it down. But it's a scar. You can't put scars down. They'll heal over, you can nurse them until they get better, but they never really go entirely away.
...what if all the world you think you know... is an elaborate dream...
I think the hardest job in the world has to be a military doctor. I used to think it was being an ER doc, dealing with the absolute worst of humanity in the most feral state of pain, bleeding, dying, pus and vomit and bile and insides on the outside. Bones poking through the skin. And at the same time, half the people are crazed, drugged, just insane - and may try to actually hurt you. The stories. The stories make my hair stand on end. THIS is humanity? Then I thought being a soldier was worse, being far from home and under fire, far from help, watching your friend die beside you from a gut shot. But what about the field docs? The ones handling both the screaming bloody death and the gunfire?
How do you survive that?
Ever stop to think about how difficult it is for a doctor to tell a mother her child's dead, or a husband his wife was DOA? And it's somehow their fault, for not trying hard enough to save them, for being incompetent, they get the blame... but they're human. They don't want the patient to die. They don't give up just because it's too hard. And then they get blamed. Can you imagine that? How do you wake up the next day and go into the same damn room the next damn day (all cleaned up, of course [the blood washes away, but not the memory]) with a new smiling patient with stomach cramps.... every day, you keep getting up and going back... over and over... and over... (to repeat the same steps [and expect different results] is madness...)
Madness is tempting.
... wish I was too dead to cry...
I've brushed it. Tasted it. The dance down that path is dark and close; it seems comforting enough at first (how hard could it really be? [it's so much easier to just let go... let go...])... easier, lighter. That's how it captures you. But too far and it becomes hell. You're no longer in control. What you're saying comes out differently than what you thought. Soon you question reality. Sleep and wakefulness blur, nightmares follow you into daylight. No. Madness is not easier. But once it sinks its claws in... (I want out! [stay with us, precious one... you cannot leave] LET ME OUT!)
...wish I was too dead to care... if indeed I cared at all...
But that is not here. Neither here nor there. Yet everywhere. They say I am haunted. My thoughts are fleeting and indistinct, more peripheral glimpses of sensory perception than actually fully-formed beings of their own right. I write, and they manifest. I float from one to the next.
I hit the treeline. A Forest, by The Cure. A particular mix. Instant recognition. Faces. Scents. I live in a world of senses, like I live in a world of lyrics. I taste the words, I feel the sounds. Sights invoke a scent. Criscrossed like so much wiring gone awry to make strangely beautiful music. The melody hums in my ears as I focus on harmony, I catch what others don't. The deer in the pasture. The hawk in the tree. The fish in the stream. "Good eye," they say. But it wasn't my faulty eyes that caught it. I heard the heartbeat through the ground. I smelled it before I saw it. Except motion. I'm all instinct then. Motion - just a flash from the corner of my eye - and I've caught a snake in my hands. (not terribly smart [just a racer snake]... what if it had been a rattler?) Emotions mix with music like water and wine and I'm near to tears. They've started to not ask why.
... mad world...
But you'll read this and think I'm crazy, or sad, or angry. Depressed, a danger to myself. None of these things are true.
Every day a thousand thoughts run in rapid succession through my distracted mind. Triggered by a thousand little associations, linked irrevocably to the faces of loved ones and times gone by, I cannot help it. A river is full of water it gains from a thousand little rivulets, as I am full of memories from a thousand little events. Each one carries with it the scents and emotions and thoughts and fears and melodies from a million seconds I can't recall with any clarity but come rushing back where the river meets the sea.
This world that I live in, the world of lyrics, the world of senses, the world where thoughts emotions collide as violently yet beautifully as galaxies crossing paths... they tell me no one else sees this world like I do. ("That's one of the reasons I like hanging out with you".) My perspective may be through a stain glass window, but sometimes the colors bleed together and become a mosaic of beauty where others only see the broken glass.
... I'd like to make myself believe that planet Earth turns slowly...
Perhaps you think I AM mad. But I know better. Only those who have gotten lost and found the path back know what it looks like. Sounds overproud, maybe? True. Some have travelled much further down the path, seen things I haven't, known horrors I can't even imagine. But they know I am not mad. Haunted, yes. But not mad. (The voices are real [you have them too] I'm not imagining this [you never were] but that's okay, they're my friends [with friends like that...]) And the inspiring thing is that someone ordinary, like myself, can GET lost, and MAKE it back alive, covered in thorns and burrs and scratches and dirt, but knowing the way out of the dark hole they fell into. Because now not only will they not fall in again, they can help others out of it, too.
... by the hallways in this dining-room, the echo there of me and you, the voices that are carrying this tune...
So when we speak, and my eyes skirt the edges of the room, if I mutter a strange phrase under my breath far removed from my normal way of speaking, if we're out in the sunlight and I stare at something overlong, if I talk to an inanimate object like an injured child or greet some strange little animal like a friend, it's not because I'm insane. It's because I'm dancing through the thoughts in my head, trying to see the world around the filters, hearing a constant stream of music accompanying me even as I try to listen to what you're saying. I'm trying to recall the memories without associating them with your face (the faces always come unbidden) and trying not to see the look of shock when I blurt out something I probably ought not to have said aloud.
... I want to exorcise the demons from your past...
I'll be okay, I promise. I've made it this far. A seed, planted in a crevasse, will be battered by the elements, starve for nutrients, yet manage to eke out enough to survive. My cliff wasn't as steep as some, my crevasse wider than some, the wind perhaps not as persistent. Yet challenges came, and I surmounted them, many and more and those coming I face down with teeth bared. The tree that takes root and survives becomes a bonsai, twisted by the elements into something other than its intended shape, but beautiful nonetheless, hardy, persistent in its own right. I am tenacious, capricious, and nothing if not absolutely resilient.
I live in a world that is not like yours. But yet I live in your world.
Be patient with me.
Nightmares come, but the morning always follows.
... it's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep, because my dreams are bursting at the seams.
(You think I'll cry? I won't cry. My heart will break before I cry...)
(... I will go MAD.)
... Tilt your head back, and howl.
Conversations. People speak, and a word, a phrase, some key unlocks the memory in my mind, and the sentence finishes in my mind with the song. Thoughts are fleeting, touches of memory interlaced with present (or is it the other way 'round?).
... just follow your eyes... just follow your eyes...
They say I'm haunted. I say everyone is, I just don't bother hiding it. The voices in my head won't shut up. You have them too, I can see it in your eyes. They whisper to you in the darkness, your self doubts, your sins, your rage telling you to just... let... go...
I get into the car, iPod on, and hit random. Boys of Summer. Clear as crystal, the association ignites a fire of thought. (Your face is always there... [never forget...]) Immediately, I pass some unfortunate creature on the side of the road (this time it's a possum) and the scent of death hits my senses. It's sharp, but old. I know the scent of dead things. It's the blood that does it - a cadaver without blood is mostly dry and barely carries a scent at all. No, it's the blood. (... he had no blood left when I saw him... none of them did [they did that on purpose.])
The faces come unbidden, the words unwanted. The Litany remains in blood and tears, even though I tried to put it down. Bricks. So many bricks in a giant burlap sack that I carry like a cross down an old dusty road. But I hide it, see? Nobody wants to see what's in the bag. Everyone has a bag. Some big. Some small. Everyone hides it. If you don't, you're a "complainer" or "just looking for attention". Sure, some people wear their suffering on their sleeve like they're a martyr. But then the ones with legitimate pain can't come forward, for fear of being branded. Mine? Mine is survivor's guilt. I know it well. It's an old friend, like that neighbor that keeps borrowing your things and then never giving them back. I don't like it much, and it keeps reciting the Litany to me, but it's a part of my life. I put on a nice smile and deal with it. It's either that or fight it, and fighting it accomplished nothing.
What's the Litany?
... what if everything around you... isn't quite what it seems...
The names of the dead. The faces. The ages. How they died. The story. (... the story [a man is never truly dead...]) I heard once that a man is never truly dead until he is forgotten. I remember. I feel like I have to. Like someone must. That if I bear witness, they won't really be dead. Not really. Not gone. Not entirely. (These burdens aren't MINE! [stop fighting it, struggling makes it worse] It's not fair!) I tried to put it down. But it's a scar. You can't put scars down. They'll heal over, you can nurse them until they get better, but they never really go entirely away.
...what if all the world you think you know... is an elaborate dream...
I think the hardest job in the world has to be a military doctor. I used to think it was being an ER doc, dealing with the absolute worst of humanity in the most feral state of pain, bleeding, dying, pus and vomit and bile and insides on the outside. Bones poking through the skin. And at the same time, half the people are crazed, drugged, just insane - and may try to actually hurt you. The stories. The stories make my hair stand on end. THIS is humanity? Then I thought being a soldier was worse, being far from home and under fire, far from help, watching your friend die beside you from a gut shot. But what about the field docs? The ones handling both the screaming bloody death and the gunfire?
How do you survive that?
Ever stop to think about how difficult it is for a doctor to tell a mother her child's dead, or a husband his wife was DOA? And it's somehow their fault, for not trying hard enough to save them, for being incompetent, they get the blame... but they're human. They don't want the patient to die. They don't give up just because it's too hard. And then they get blamed. Can you imagine that? How do you wake up the next day and go into the same damn room the next damn day (all cleaned up, of course [the blood washes away, but not the memory]) with a new smiling patient with stomach cramps.... every day, you keep getting up and going back... over and over... and over... (to repeat the same steps [and expect different results] is madness...)
Madness is tempting.
... wish I was too dead to cry...
I've brushed it. Tasted it. The dance down that path is dark and close; it seems comforting enough at first (how hard could it really be? [it's so much easier to just let go... let go...])... easier, lighter. That's how it captures you. But too far and it becomes hell. You're no longer in control. What you're saying comes out differently than what you thought. Soon you question reality. Sleep and wakefulness blur, nightmares follow you into daylight. No. Madness is not easier. But once it sinks its claws in... (I want out! [stay with us, precious one... you cannot leave] LET ME OUT!)
...wish I was too dead to care... if indeed I cared at all...
But that is not here. Neither here nor there. Yet everywhere. They say I am haunted. My thoughts are fleeting and indistinct, more peripheral glimpses of sensory perception than actually fully-formed beings of their own right. I write, and they manifest. I float from one to the next.
I hit the treeline. A Forest, by The Cure. A particular mix. Instant recognition. Faces. Scents. I live in a world of senses, like I live in a world of lyrics. I taste the words, I feel the sounds. Sights invoke a scent. Criscrossed like so much wiring gone awry to make strangely beautiful music. The melody hums in my ears as I focus on harmony, I catch what others don't. The deer in the pasture. The hawk in the tree. The fish in the stream. "Good eye," they say. But it wasn't my faulty eyes that caught it. I heard the heartbeat through the ground. I smelled it before I saw it. Except motion. I'm all instinct then. Motion - just a flash from the corner of my eye - and I've caught a snake in my hands. (not terribly smart [just a racer snake]... what if it had been a rattler?) Emotions mix with music like water and wine and I'm near to tears. They've started to not ask why.
... mad world...
But you'll read this and think I'm crazy, or sad, or angry. Depressed, a danger to myself. None of these things are true.
Every day a thousand thoughts run in rapid succession through my distracted mind. Triggered by a thousand little associations, linked irrevocably to the faces of loved ones and times gone by, I cannot help it. A river is full of water it gains from a thousand little rivulets, as I am full of memories from a thousand little events. Each one carries with it the scents and emotions and thoughts and fears and melodies from a million seconds I can't recall with any clarity but come rushing back where the river meets the sea.
This world that I live in, the world of lyrics, the world of senses, the world where thoughts emotions collide as violently yet beautifully as galaxies crossing paths... they tell me no one else sees this world like I do. ("That's one of the reasons I like hanging out with you".) My perspective may be through a stain glass window, but sometimes the colors bleed together and become a mosaic of beauty where others only see the broken glass.
... I'd like to make myself believe that planet Earth turns slowly...
Perhaps you think I AM mad. But I know better. Only those who have gotten lost and found the path back know what it looks like. Sounds overproud, maybe? True. Some have travelled much further down the path, seen things I haven't, known horrors I can't even imagine. But they know I am not mad. Haunted, yes. But not mad. (The voices are real [you have them too] I'm not imagining this [you never were] but that's okay, they're my friends [with friends like that...]) And the inspiring thing is that someone ordinary, like myself, can GET lost, and MAKE it back alive, covered in thorns and burrs and scratches and dirt, but knowing the way out of the dark hole they fell into. Because now not only will they not fall in again, they can help others out of it, too.
... by the hallways in this dining-room, the echo there of me and you, the voices that are carrying this tune...
So when we speak, and my eyes skirt the edges of the room, if I mutter a strange phrase under my breath far removed from my normal way of speaking, if we're out in the sunlight and I stare at something overlong, if I talk to an inanimate object like an injured child or greet some strange little animal like a friend, it's not because I'm insane. It's because I'm dancing through the thoughts in my head, trying to see the world around the filters, hearing a constant stream of music accompanying me even as I try to listen to what you're saying. I'm trying to recall the memories without associating them with your face (the faces always come unbidden) and trying not to see the look of shock when I blurt out something I probably ought not to have said aloud.
... I want to exorcise the demons from your past...
I'll be okay, I promise. I've made it this far. A seed, planted in a crevasse, will be battered by the elements, starve for nutrients, yet manage to eke out enough to survive. My cliff wasn't as steep as some, my crevasse wider than some, the wind perhaps not as persistent. Yet challenges came, and I surmounted them, many and more and those coming I face down with teeth bared. The tree that takes root and survives becomes a bonsai, twisted by the elements into something other than its intended shape, but beautiful nonetheless, hardy, persistent in its own right. I am tenacious, capricious, and nothing if not absolutely resilient.
I live in a world that is not like yours. But yet I live in your world.
Be patient with me.
Nightmares come, but the morning always follows.
... it's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep, because my dreams are bursting at the seams.
(You think I'll cry? I won't cry. My heart will break before I cry...)
(... I will go MAD.)
... Tilt your head back, and howl.
August 27, 2012
The Length of the Road
Sometimes, I wander.
Often as not, it's for no reason. I don't need one, usually. The redwoods are welcoming enough in their own right to not need a purpose. Sometimes the sunlight just beckons, whether or not there's a chill in the air, and sometimes the crashing surf is less like a pounding froth and more like a waving hand. Sometimes the hill looks just inviting enough to climb to the top, the curiosity strong enough to see... exactly what's over there, anyway?
But this time - as occasionally does happen - it was with a purpose.
I have worn many mantles; of late, I have found myself very comfortably wearing the moniker Vagabond like a well-worn coat. It keeps the weather out, though it may be shabby, and it certainly has a few stories to tell. This time, the Vagabond had a mission. No other sane person would undertake it - leastways, nobody I know - for surely there were better, more efficient ways of accomplishing what I had my mind set on. Truth is, I had plenty of reasons to do it the way I chose... but nobody else would understand.
So with plans that only reached so far - and got more than slightly tentative as the map reached its mark - at least two places to stay set as waypoints, and a fast-and-loose schedule, I packed my bags, emptied my trunk, and got enough money to get me there and back again, plus a little extra. Just in case.
A Vagabond ALWAYS plans for Just In Case. Hell, that's why I packed enough fluid and food to sustain me a week (not happily, nor nutritionally, but enough), as well as a warm blanket and a pillow. You never know. Point in fact, you come to count on it. The unexpected - while nebulous - is a certainty. Something inevitably comes up. Nothing ever goes perfectly to plan (if plans were ever perfect in the first place). A true Vagabond comes to count on it, almost rely on it. Countless unknowns and variables become just a matter of what's on today's menu, what kind of condition the road's in, who you meet in the supermarket. Pretty soon, roadwork, delays, traffic, the occasional attempted robbery, roadkill, flat tire, or random screaming guy down the block become as familiar as faces in a local supermarket. A trip isn't complete without a Wrong Turn, at least one Douchebag Driver, and a Forgotten Item. They become markers. Road signs. Little stones on the path.
I went about the start of it in a most peculiar manner. I had directions printed, a few contingencies planned, and an extra set of clothes. Just in case. But I bid goodbye to my cat that morning not as I hit the road, but rather as I left for work. I wouldn't depart 'till late afternoon, during what this town calls "rush hour". I always half-smile when I even think on it, because "rush hour" here is considered a smooth weekend where I had been living the past several years. But with several hours left of daylight to burn, I aimed to be out of the mountains by dark. Set my teeth, turned on my music... and the journey began as the wee sleepy town I call my residence slipped from view, and the 101 became my new home.
The familiarity of the drive was ever-present. Hills gave way to views of the bay, and those were swept aside by curtains of forest. Shades upon shades of greens and browns - pastures dotted with cattle, rickety houses standing lonesome by the stands of berry vines. Soon even the pasture land faded, and the Mountains began. I know the turns, I could do them in my sleep, but I dare not take them lightly. Especially as I passed Confusion Hill.
There are ghosts that never die. Echoes that never fade. One of those lives on the 101, near that place. It's a little slip of a curve, so slight you might not even notice it with the beauty of the river beside you. But you see, that's the terror of it. My brother and his wife were very nearly killed there. And whether or not I was there made no difference: that curve carries with it a gray image of high-impact twisted metal, screaming tires and wet asphalt and broken glass. Into the curve... and out of it. When one wanders, one must be prepared to face the ghosts of the places they wander through.
I still love the smell of the California Redwoods in the summer...
Even in the dead of winter, even in the rain, I roll down my windows through Richardson Grove to inhale the scent of the loamy earth, the damp redwood bark, the sweet leaves of the giant sequoias. Massive, imposing, sturdy guardians so close to the road you could reach out and touch them.
And then the deep, rocky descent of the Mountains. Into the region they call Wine Country. Vineyards as far as the eye can see, nestled in valleys and cresting hills, broken by stands of oak and dry golden grasses. Just outside of my first stop for gas and I catch a glimpse of Old Uncle Yellowsides. He and his harem are grazing in the same place as always. He's in no danger this out in the open... yet. Not 'till autumn. For now he gets fat on the rancher's lands. Perhaps in the fall his rack will adorn someone's hearth. But not this day.
Through cattle lands, and the cities are getting bigger, coming on faster, the traffic getting thicker. By Marin it becomes a race -
... packed like lemmings into shiney metal boxes...
- and I veer left to take the Richmond Bridge. MY thoughts wander off to my left, and I send out love to my family nearby. I cannot stop, not yet. Many miles to go before I sleep. Night is falling fast and hard. Through Oakland, past the blinding lights of the Stadium where the Raiders rule, and the blur of cities after. I've already broken into my granola bars, the Doritos, and a Poweraide besides. I have plenty to last me through the trip; I've no need to conserve too stingily. I drive through cities better at night.
I find that techno makes cities zip by, where only Alice in Chains makes the forests fly...
Familiar territory. Good thing, too, I'm about out of energy. I arrive at the first waypoint, check in with loved ones, and sleep. The next day brings a drive twice as long.
I wake early, and my host sends me off with breakfast. It is by the kindness of strangers and grace of friends that a Vagabond thrives. Rested enough, I snake my way through the morning drive, managing to somehow miraculously NOT be going the same direction as the commuter traffic.
I love mornings. I wish they weren't so early.
I know the way. The 85 to the 101 to the 152. Into the valley where the air is thick with the scent of garlic. Here, too, I roll down the windows to revel in the smell, and I salivate unashamed. But my enjoyment here does not last. Past the little city known as Gilroy, there is a terrifying road known to the old locals as Blood Alley.
It's still a good idea to drive carefully through Blood Alley.
Next stop: Casa de Fruta. Midmorning, I'm in no hurry. I'll be in the car all day anyway - why rush? Take a moment to savor the kitschy little novelty place, and cock my head at the echoes of memory, how the road that runs along side used to be the actual freeway until they decided entirely too many truckers were being killed trying to cross the road. With two bottles of wine, I ride on to meet the Pass, and weep at the shallow San Luis. Truly, never before have I seen it this bad. In all my time as a little girl, I would cheer the deep waters, hoping somehow it would fill more if I loved it. Perhaps, in my absence, the lack of love caused it to wither and dry up... for now there are stands of trees where even the shallowest water marks once were.
I reach the true beast of the expedition - I5. It's a cool day, only 84 degrees. But alas, I spoke too soon. By midday it's 98. The long, flat, bland expanse of the Valley shimmers in the heat, and I pass the time by singing constantly and counting the dead coyotes. So many. Raccoons, also, and skunks. But mostly Coyote's children. I guess their luck really is running out after all.
Hours bleed onward. A stop in Lost Hills, and I find that the old Arco I knew so well is gone. I shrug. Times change. Places change. Many things stay the same, but not everything. It can't. A little further, and the Grapevine swells into view. A last stop before I head up, and I casually mention my mission to the cashier. She's shocked. I smile. Nobody understands.
All fires heal with time. All snows melt.
The scars of old fires I once knew are faded and gone. The grass has regrown. There are no traces left. Up and over the wild race, and I descend into flatlands again. But here my hackles rise, for I'm approaching L.A., a place as much an antithesis to myself as ever a place could be. Here they maddened herd bumps and shoves and curses, falling upon itself like a rabid pack. But fortune favors me: I have hit the narrowest of windows and manage to miss both the lunch-rush and the afternoon traffic. By early afternoon, I catch my breath just south of San Onofre. I'm there before dark: a place I once called home.
... inside - you'll never hurt me...
My mission accomplished, mostly. It takes a bit of wrestling. Apparently I'm more of a packrat than I remember. But at last, all of my possessions are my own again.
... we're hidden by the moonlight - we shift between the shadows...
I KNOW THIS PLACE.
It's muggy, and overcast. I might as well be back at the house, for all the sky shines gray. But there at least I can step out of the shower and not feel sticky. It's awkward to be in a place where I'm no longer welcome, that so very obviously did not fit me, no matter how hard I tried to force it. I didn't belong in the first place. I feel like an interloper, a thief.
But I am a Vagabond. A wanderer that means no harm. I help a little old lady with her cell phone, and we chat about knitting. Strangers have the most interesting stories, even in the heart of a hot-tempered and cold-mannered city. I am tolerated at best, and sent on my way.
I like this city better at night. It hides the ugly parts...
Left in my rear-view mirror, with memories and gifts that cannot be measured nor bought, there is a tiny part of my that is sad to see it go, but the greater part of me rejoices that I am that much closer now to Home.
... I've been searching the planet to find Sacred Love...
The city melts and I am over the Grapevine before I know it. I have eaten all my pudding (hard to eat pudding in a moving car, while driving; applesauce too, for that matter), drank half my Poweraide, and three of my six pack of Coke. Most of the Doritos are gone, the granola too. But I still have plenty. I burst into the Valley, confident, bored, and wishing I was Home.
I can still tell how long something has been dead by the smell...
The slaughter is on. I can smell it passing Coalinga. The wet smell of warm raw meat, like hamburger left out too long. It isn't pleasant, it's too warm to be right. The roadkill, too. It's the blood, that makes the scent. Blood makes the cadavers smell.
I see the wing catch the air, and I'm pulling over before I'm even thinking. Part of me feels sick, like I'm wrong to do this. But part of me realizes I am right, for one cannot take pleasure in death. Even so, in death, a thing can be useful. I feel like I am in violation of respect, that I will be seen as grave-robber. I am repelled. But even so, what I am doing is for Sacred Work. It is Wakan. I wait until there are the fewest to see, and I apologize to the hawk as I harvest its wings. Would that I could give it a sky-burial, but that would likely set the Valley ablaze, as dry as it is. So I give the poor animal - headless from its demise, shamefully left on the scorching pavement, killed for no reason and left dead in vain - a proper respectful burial. I take no pleasure in the work, but it is not an Evil. Better for his wings to serve Wakan Tanka in death than to be left to dry shamefully on the asphalt, killed to no purpose or end.
I despise grave-robbing, but am apparently not above corpse mutilation.
The difference between the Valley and the Coast is immediate and drastic. Buffeted by the winds, I make my way back to the Bay, where the Mist Dragons still live on the ridgeline between the San Andreas fault and Half Moon Bay, and take my last repose before the last journey home. Grey follows me; the only sun I have seen has been in the sun-baked Valley. I wind my way up the gloomy coast over Devil's Slide, into the heart of the fog-laden city, but I still manage to catch my breath when the sun catches the Golden Gate. Over the bridge, through the tunnel, and I speed my way through Marin as quickly as possible.
... haunted... by the hallways in this dining room, the echo there of me and you - the voices that are carrying this tune...
I know California.
... pretty pretty please, don't you ever ever feel like you're less than fucking perfect...
And California knows me.
... what if everything around you isn't quite as is seems...
In Willits I helped a little old lady figure out how to put cash in the little gas-station kiosk. She blessed me for my troubles. I sharpened a pencil with my skinning knife and poured the last Poweraide into my water bottle. My supplies weren't even close to spent, but I wasn't hungry. My metabolism changes when I travel that much, and I find myself needing less food but more sleep. I'd written my thoughts with a broken pencil on the directions I'd printed out, the little things that changed, the unexpected obstacles, the delightful surprises, the strange and eerie moments. I couldn't help but lament that many were lost, despite my notations, and wished that I could have shared them more vividly.
That's where the true sadness comes from. Being a Vagabond has its perks, sure. Taken in as a wastrel, being high-fived by a gas-station attendant for declaring that nothing of my old life now remained to collect, the random conversations that lead me to believe someone had tried to rob my hotel room. But there is a deep abiding sadness, a loneliness that eats away in the quiet moments between songs -
... look closer and see... see into the trees - find the girl, while you can...
- and makes sleep seem uninviting.
The redwood curtain parted without much to say, no welcoming embrace from the land, no sigh of relief. But I am glad of the journey, and the things I learned, and the things I gave away, and the things I took. I would do it again if I had to.
Why?
You wouldn't understand.
Often as not, it's for no reason. I don't need one, usually. The redwoods are welcoming enough in their own right to not need a purpose. Sometimes the sunlight just beckons, whether or not there's a chill in the air, and sometimes the crashing surf is less like a pounding froth and more like a waving hand. Sometimes the hill looks just inviting enough to climb to the top, the curiosity strong enough to see... exactly what's over there, anyway?
But this time - as occasionally does happen - it was with a purpose.
I have worn many mantles; of late, I have found myself very comfortably wearing the moniker Vagabond like a well-worn coat. It keeps the weather out, though it may be shabby, and it certainly has a few stories to tell. This time, the Vagabond had a mission. No other sane person would undertake it - leastways, nobody I know - for surely there were better, more efficient ways of accomplishing what I had my mind set on. Truth is, I had plenty of reasons to do it the way I chose... but nobody else would understand.
So with plans that only reached so far - and got more than slightly tentative as the map reached its mark - at least two places to stay set as waypoints, and a fast-and-loose schedule, I packed my bags, emptied my trunk, and got enough money to get me there and back again, plus a little extra. Just in case.
A Vagabond ALWAYS plans for Just In Case. Hell, that's why I packed enough fluid and food to sustain me a week (not happily, nor nutritionally, but enough), as well as a warm blanket and a pillow. You never know. Point in fact, you come to count on it. The unexpected - while nebulous - is a certainty. Something inevitably comes up. Nothing ever goes perfectly to plan (if plans were ever perfect in the first place). A true Vagabond comes to count on it, almost rely on it. Countless unknowns and variables become just a matter of what's on today's menu, what kind of condition the road's in, who you meet in the supermarket. Pretty soon, roadwork, delays, traffic, the occasional attempted robbery, roadkill, flat tire, or random screaming guy down the block become as familiar as faces in a local supermarket. A trip isn't complete without a Wrong Turn, at least one Douchebag Driver, and a Forgotten Item. They become markers. Road signs. Little stones on the path.
I went about the start of it in a most peculiar manner. I had directions printed, a few contingencies planned, and an extra set of clothes. Just in case. But I bid goodbye to my cat that morning not as I hit the road, but rather as I left for work. I wouldn't depart 'till late afternoon, during what this town calls "rush hour". I always half-smile when I even think on it, because "rush hour" here is considered a smooth weekend where I had been living the past several years. But with several hours left of daylight to burn, I aimed to be out of the mountains by dark. Set my teeth, turned on my music... and the journey began as the wee sleepy town I call my residence slipped from view, and the 101 became my new home.
The familiarity of the drive was ever-present. Hills gave way to views of the bay, and those were swept aside by curtains of forest. Shades upon shades of greens and browns - pastures dotted with cattle, rickety houses standing lonesome by the stands of berry vines. Soon even the pasture land faded, and the Mountains began. I know the turns, I could do them in my sleep, but I dare not take them lightly. Especially as I passed Confusion Hill.
There are ghosts that never die. Echoes that never fade. One of those lives on the 101, near that place. It's a little slip of a curve, so slight you might not even notice it with the beauty of the river beside you. But you see, that's the terror of it. My brother and his wife were very nearly killed there. And whether or not I was there made no difference: that curve carries with it a gray image of high-impact twisted metal, screaming tires and wet asphalt and broken glass. Into the curve... and out of it. When one wanders, one must be prepared to face the ghosts of the places they wander through.
I still love the smell of the California Redwoods in the summer...
Even in the dead of winter, even in the rain, I roll down my windows through Richardson Grove to inhale the scent of the loamy earth, the damp redwood bark, the sweet leaves of the giant sequoias. Massive, imposing, sturdy guardians so close to the road you could reach out and touch them.
And then the deep, rocky descent of the Mountains. Into the region they call Wine Country. Vineyards as far as the eye can see, nestled in valleys and cresting hills, broken by stands of oak and dry golden grasses. Just outside of my first stop for gas and I catch a glimpse of Old Uncle Yellowsides. He and his harem are grazing in the same place as always. He's in no danger this out in the open... yet. Not 'till autumn. For now he gets fat on the rancher's lands. Perhaps in the fall his rack will adorn someone's hearth. But not this day.
Through cattle lands, and the cities are getting bigger, coming on faster, the traffic getting thicker. By Marin it becomes a race -
... packed like lemmings into shiney metal boxes...
- and I veer left to take the Richmond Bridge. MY thoughts wander off to my left, and I send out love to my family nearby. I cannot stop, not yet. Many miles to go before I sleep. Night is falling fast and hard. Through Oakland, past the blinding lights of the Stadium where the Raiders rule, and the blur of cities after. I've already broken into my granola bars, the Doritos, and a Poweraide besides. I have plenty to last me through the trip; I've no need to conserve too stingily. I drive through cities better at night.
I find that techno makes cities zip by, where only Alice in Chains makes the forests fly...
Familiar territory. Good thing, too, I'm about out of energy. I arrive at the first waypoint, check in with loved ones, and sleep. The next day brings a drive twice as long.
I wake early, and my host sends me off with breakfast. It is by the kindness of strangers and grace of friends that a Vagabond thrives. Rested enough, I snake my way through the morning drive, managing to somehow miraculously NOT be going the same direction as the commuter traffic.
I love mornings. I wish they weren't so early.
I know the way. The 85 to the 101 to the 152. Into the valley where the air is thick with the scent of garlic. Here, too, I roll down the windows to revel in the smell, and I salivate unashamed. But my enjoyment here does not last. Past the little city known as Gilroy, there is a terrifying road known to the old locals as Blood Alley.
It's still a good idea to drive carefully through Blood Alley.
Next stop: Casa de Fruta. Midmorning, I'm in no hurry. I'll be in the car all day anyway - why rush? Take a moment to savor the kitschy little novelty place, and cock my head at the echoes of memory, how the road that runs along side used to be the actual freeway until they decided entirely too many truckers were being killed trying to cross the road. With two bottles of wine, I ride on to meet the Pass, and weep at the shallow San Luis. Truly, never before have I seen it this bad. In all my time as a little girl, I would cheer the deep waters, hoping somehow it would fill more if I loved it. Perhaps, in my absence, the lack of love caused it to wither and dry up... for now there are stands of trees where even the shallowest water marks once were.
I reach the true beast of the expedition - I5. It's a cool day, only 84 degrees. But alas, I spoke too soon. By midday it's 98. The long, flat, bland expanse of the Valley shimmers in the heat, and I pass the time by singing constantly and counting the dead coyotes. So many. Raccoons, also, and skunks. But mostly Coyote's children. I guess their luck really is running out after all.
Hours bleed onward. A stop in Lost Hills, and I find that the old Arco I knew so well is gone. I shrug. Times change. Places change. Many things stay the same, but not everything. It can't. A little further, and the Grapevine swells into view. A last stop before I head up, and I casually mention my mission to the cashier. She's shocked. I smile. Nobody understands.
All fires heal with time. All snows melt.
The scars of old fires I once knew are faded and gone. The grass has regrown. There are no traces left. Up and over the wild race, and I descend into flatlands again. But here my hackles rise, for I'm approaching L.A., a place as much an antithesis to myself as ever a place could be. Here they maddened herd bumps and shoves and curses, falling upon itself like a rabid pack. But fortune favors me: I have hit the narrowest of windows and manage to miss both the lunch-rush and the afternoon traffic. By early afternoon, I catch my breath just south of San Onofre. I'm there before dark: a place I once called home.
... inside - you'll never hurt me...
My mission accomplished, mostly. It takes a bit of wrestling. Apparently I'm more of a packrat than I remember. But at last, all of my possessions are my own again.
... we're hidden by the moonlight - we shift between the shadows...
I KNOW THIS PLACE.
It's muggy, and overcast. I might as well be back at the house, for all the sky shines gray. But there at least I can step out of the shower and not feel sticky. It's awkward to be in a place where I'm no longer welcome, that so very obviously did not fit me, no matter how hard I tried to force it. I didn't belong in the first place. I feel like an interloper, a thief.
But I am a Vagabond. A wanderer that means no harm. I help a little old lady with her cell phone, and we chat about knitting. Strangers have the most interesting stories, even in the heart of a hot-tempered and cold-mannered city. I am tolerated at best, and sent on my way.
I like this city better at night. It hides the ugly parts...
Left in my rear-view mirror, with memories and gifts that cannot be measured nor bought, there is a tiny part of my that is sad to see it go, but the greater part of me rejoices that I am that much closer now to Home.
... I've been searching the planet to find Sacred Love...
The city melts and I am over the Grapevine before I know it. I have eaten all my pudding (hard to eat pudding in a moving car, while driving; applesauce too, for that matter), drank half my Poweraide, and three of my six pack of Coke. Most of the Doritos are gone, the granola too. But I still have plenty. I burst into the Valley, confident, bored, and wishing I was Home.
I can still tell how long something has been dead by the smell...
The slaughter is on. I can smell it passing Coalinga. The wet smell of warm raw meat, like hamburger left out too long. It isn't pleasant, it's too warm to be right. The roadkill, too. It's the blood, that makes the scent. Blood makes the cadavers smell.
I see the wing catch the air, and I'm pulling over before I'm even thinking. Part of me feels sick, like I'm wrong to do this. But part of me realizes I am right, for one cannot take pleasure in death. Even so, in death, a thing can be useful. I feel like I am in violation of respect, that I will be seen as grave-robber. I am repelled. But even so, what I am doing is for Sacred Work. It is Wakan. I wait until there are the fewest to see, and I apologize to the hawk as I harvest its wings. Would that I could give it a sky-burial, but that would likely set the Valley ablaze, as dry as it is. So I give the poor animal - headless from its demise, shamefully left on the scorching pavement, killed for no reason and left dead in vain - a proper respectful burial. I take no pleasure in the work, but it is not an Evil. Better for his wings to serve Wakan Tanka in death than to be left to dry shamefully on the asphalt, killed to no purpose or end.
I despise grave-robbing, but am apparently not above corpse mutilation.
The difference between the Valley and the Coast is immediate and drastic. Buffeted by the winds, I make my way back to the Bay, where the Mist Dragons still live on the ridgeline between the San Andreas fault and Half Moon Bay, and take my last repose before the last journey home. Grey follows me; the only sun I have seen has been in the sun-baked Valley. I wind my way up the gloomy coast over Devil's Slide, into the heart of the fog-laden city, but I still manage to catch my breath when the sun catches the Golden Gate. Over the bridge, through the tunnel, and I speed my way through Marin as quickly as possible.
... haunted... by the hallways in this dining room, the echo there of me and you - the voices that are carrying this tune...
I know California.
... pretty pretty please, don't you ever ever feel like you're less than fucking perfect...
And California knows me.
... what if everything around you isn't quite as is seems...
In Willits I helped a little old lady figure out how to put cash in the little gas-station kiosk. She blessed me for my troubles. I sharpened a pencil with my skinning knife and poured the last Poweraide into my water bottle. My supplies weren't even close to spent, but I wasn't hungry. My metabolism changes when I travel that much, and I find myself needing less food but more sleep. I'd written my thoughts with a broken pencil on the directions I'd printed out, the little things that changed, the unexpected obstacles, the delightful surprises, the strange and eerie moments. I couldn't help but lament that many were lost, despite my notations, and wished that I could have shared them more vividly.
That's where the true sadness comes from. Being a Vagabond has its perks, sure. Taken in as a wastrel, being high-fived by a gas-station attendant for declaring that nothing of my old life now remained to collect, the random conversations that lead me to believe someone had tried to rob my hotel room. But there is a deep abiding sadness, a loneliness that eats away in the quiet moments between songs -
... look closer and see... see into the trees - find the girl, while you can...
- and makes sleep seem uninviting.
The redwood curtain parted without much to say, no welcoming embrace from the land, no sigh of relief. But I am glad of the journey, and the things I learned, and the things I gave away, and the things I took. I would do it again if I had to.
Why?
You wouldn't understand.
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