It's All About the Journey

 I went to two shows for the same band in three days, told they put on a fun show by someone I would have called a friend. Motherfucker was right. Damn him. Saturday night in Atlanta is one of the better shows in my recent memory. I'll always be able to tell about music. When nothing else moves me to words, someone else's set to music can bring me back up. BJ Barnum writes a song that's sad enough to be relatable, but not so sad that your drunk ass cries in public. Probably why the motherfucker loves the band. I sure as hell screamed along to "I Hope He Breaks Your Heart" and "Burn. Flicker. Die." It would be a sad thing for me not to lend my voice to a song that starts "Dollar bill prescriptions in the bathroom stall. Red-headed women and alcohol. Say it ain't so, say it ain't last call. Whiskey on the rocks and Adderall." Is it a little too on the nose, absolutely. But that's part of the beauty in this writing, you can feel it on ...

Some nights are like this in Suwanee, Georgia. Ottoman situation: normal. I haven't even been able to write in days. I just feel heavy. Today was heavy. I suppose that the mess I've made was prone to drag me down. I guess this is the part where I just keep my head up and let the rapids take me where they will, hoping not to get crushed to pulp on the rocks. Some of the weight isn't mine to put down, so let me just skip that part. I feel it on my heart and I cannot help it. That helpless feeling tears me apart like nothing else really can. I was born into a world where my greatest hope was to be helpmate to something I was taught was better than myself. I've tried to put down the feeling of being less, but I still carry in me that need to be helpful. It's funny the things you had pressed into you so hard they become you. How hard it is to untangle them from your blood vessels and ligaments and draw them out of your bones. Feels like I might be hitting that wall now....

Some nights are like this back at home in Suwanee, Georgia. I was out so late tonight. I went to see a band that washed in from a tide pool. And I am so glad that I did. Leave the tide pools, take what they bring. What a show. What a...okay...woman. Six feet or more in a red jumpsuit and these so very trendy '60s glasses. I was stood up. By a man. He was not six feet or more. She's slender, North Italian if I have a guess. I could write pages of prose to her nose. The way her hands move. The way she stands like a model, like a goddess. When she said she prefers the company of women after an introduction from a mutual, I think I must have sighed. There's a photo of us together. Me looking up at her starstruck. I have no self-control. I should have learned that by my age. The show always leaves me feeling brave and stupid and feral and half lovestruck. And what a show. My whole heart is right there on the rail. If you want to love me, if you want me to love you, I'll see ...

Some nights are like this. I don't think it's just where I am or where you are or any specific place. I think some nights are like this everywhere. Tomorrow is going to be hard. The man whose wife I'll no longer be can't see this. And it isn't that I intend to say anything harmful. I just know that at some point, you have to stop granting access to your feelings. Even if there was a time not so long ago that you let him drive your car and you screamed the lyrics to a song you both know on your way somewhere you really wanted to be. That you still wish you could be going. One unhealthy habit can't take the place of another, even if it can sort of be a crutch for a while. Lesson learned. Trauma bond broken. Like this damn finger, I suspect. Learning how to be alone. I crushed my finger in a drawer on the way to take my medication. I don't sleep. I never did do much of it, but now it's clinical. My left middle finger. Hurts to type. Unironic in so many ways...

Some nights are like this in Teloga, Georgia. There is no ottoman. I am at home. Gabe is watching television with his head against my thigh. I’m sitting with my legs pulled up, knees to my chest. Nanny is making a hat. Mom is fiddling with her phone and my cousin’s daughter is yawning and giggling on the sofa beside me. My belly is full. My heart is full. There is no internet for miles. It’s just a fact of life this far out. And that’s okay. I’ll post this later. It’s so dark outside with no moon that I have tripped over all manner of stuff in my own yard. Out here on a clear night, you can see the whole milky way, a luminescing streak poured out over the sky. It’s something you never forget seeing. It’s something you miss when you grew up without the orange glow of light pollution and your neighbor’s motion lights and street lamps, where you can only see the brightest stars and a few planets on occasion. You never see a plane at night out here. Out here under the bright stars, I can b...

I thought I was fine. I've been ready for this day for a long time. I sorted through the feelings, I did the work and the support group and the therapy preparing for this. I'm ready to have my father's name back. I cannot believe to this day that I gave it up. I can't wait to change that status on Facebook and change my name back. All of those people who also could not believe it. I never gave so much of who I am and I don't think anyone I ever gave a damn thing to ever saw it less.  Funny how divorce and death feel the same. I never expected that. Grief is grief. What am I grieving, precisely? I'm not sure this time. His mother said to me that the night he proposed, he looked at me like people are supposed to look at Jesus. It was mutual. It was that way since a week in. I loved him so hard and so powerfully. You can't wear  that as armor no matter how much you want to. Love won't save you and you can't use it to save anyone else. I thought this one...

Every once in a while, I get a question that prompts a whole story, sometimes a whole flood of them. Standing outside after the show Saturday, with the wind cutting through my favorite old green canvas jacket, I was asked "What does Possum mean to you?" I've been so struck lately by the way different people ask questions and the thoughtful, caring, curious questions people ask. I'm uncertain if there is anything in me that has changed the nature of the questions or if for the first time, I'm just finally seeing the beauty in them. I can't remember any of this first part, so forgive my second hand telling. My father was a tall man, 6'3" or 6'4", I think. He was rangy and kind of had this rolling gait occasionally punctuated by a near limp if the weather was wrong or he'd been standing on concrete too long. He had long legs, especially from hip to knee, a trait he passed to his youngest and tallest daughter.  When I was born, I was automat...

Some nights are like this in Suwanee, Georgia. I suppose the ottoman schtick is losing its novelty. But my feet aren't up tonight. I have them curled beneath me in my chair in the usual position for anyone who knows me in any intimate fashion. I've got my tomato soup and my signature amped up grilled cheese on the end table. By the grace of dog, Blanche hasn't shown any interest. I'm home alone. And that's okay tonight. I like my own company pretty well. I never struggle with a way to entertain myself. The whole world has all of these things I haven't tried. Novelty is the flavor of the week. I've left my current novel at my sister's house. She texted earlier. Let me text her back. She's suffering tonight. And I cannot stop that suffering. And it kills me. My own body is letting me down today. Even after a good night's sleep-better put that watch on the charger-I am exhausted. I might be getting sick, or my body may have just decided that we'...

Some nights are like this in Suwanee, Georgia. I'm back in the house where I pay bills, with my feet up on my usual not-my-ottoman, my second Tropicalia half full on the end table. That's the last of them for the night. This week's triggers have renewed my interest in keeping a good handle on that. The girl cat is curled up in her usual location at my shoulder and the orange idiot is on the heated mat a couple feet to my left. The familiar is soothing to me just now.   I am dead tired. That feels really lovely at the moment. You can't wallow if all you can do is keep your eyes open. Seems to be a Friday night pattern at this rate. That shoulder is stiff, but it's better than it was around 16:00 today. Ice pack and Aleve for the win. I'd sell what's left of my soul for an extra pair of hands on that. I've managed to bash the back of my left hand on something, I frankly have no memory of it, but the bruise has bloomed across half my hand in rosy shade of p...

Upstairs, I can hear my only child and his lady every now and then. They wake up for food and to go to work and school. Sometimes together. They both work so hard. I like her. She's lovely and has these sharp little eyes. She's sweet and she loves him. I know the look of love and she has it. I woke up this morning so much before the alarm that I think I really must be turning into my father, with my hands shaking so hard that I could barely hold my coffee cup. I don't think it's that kind of shake. But it's enough to make myself wonder. Strung out from last night and the tide brought back in, crashing down on me all night and finally washing back out today, I think. Always ocean water. Hopefully not like that riptide. Let it be more gentle this time around. I keep telling myself to just stand up. It's a tide pool. I'm only drowning because I laid down in this. All of it. Not the quiet, glorious solitude I love so much. Not that at all. "Like a crop fire...

Let me just start with I’m not a danger to myself or others. My mind is not my friend today. Not gonna lie, folks, I think I've let my anxiety and depression get the best of me. It’s rare for me to feel this terribly. I think it was last year about this time last it happened. I'm not sleeping, I'm not really eating. My shoulder is killing me. I think it’s rotator cuff by the way it hurts when I try to sleep. I think I'm living on caffeine, alcohol, the gym, and a stack of books. Books have saved me. They have done so many times. I’m headed to my sister’s house tonight. I dread it and I feel guilty for dreading it. She needs me. The kids need me. My sister is living in this unimaginable to me level of pain and it hurts me to watch. I’m just exhausted. And it will be at least two more days of 5am-9pm balls to the wall. My patience gets short. And I hate myself for that. I just can’t stretch the spoons. My niece likes art. They did landscapes last week. I'm going to pa...

 I have to get this one out before a blink of it fades in my memory. It did take me a while to decide if I even could write it. It's bad. It was vivid and traumatic enough that I woke up and immediately began crying and shaking and kind of stayed that way for a couple hours. Then off and on for the rest of the day. I hiked eight miles trying to burn it off. I fell on the trail for the first time in my life after hundreds of trail miles, including a trail half marathon and a trail half marathon with obstacles plus all the running to train for them on trails. I understand what it's about and why I dreamed it, but I mindfucked myself. Because I did. I absolutely did this to myself. This is the worst nightmare I have ever had. Worse than the grizzly bear. Worse than the riptide. At least both of those killed me and I did all I could to save myself. Now it's just drowning in a tide pool and I can't even seem to stand up to save myself. TRIGGER WARNING This is a huge trigger ...

 I've been meaning to tell the story for a week now. Let's just say it's been a busy week. I may miss details because I am wrecked. Last Friday, a whole passel of us went to the Orion Amphitheater  in Huntsville to see what we've informally dubbed "Shoalsfest Lite" with Billy Allen and the Pollies, Margo Price, and Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. We all met well before the show to grab food at the food trucks and socialize. I gotta say, a brisket taco is a thing of beauty. I sampled what I think was a beignet with almond extract in the batter. Don't quote me on that. I had a couple drinks and talked about losing 200 pounds. Most folks got the joke. I had my usual spot on the rail, Sadler-side. It was the perfect spot. I could see everything. Billy Allen never fails to blow me away. And people who didn't know him before walked away shaking their heads and adding him to their playlists. Just a voice you cannot believe. And an energy. And something I just ...

 He was so rarely still. And even in the still, there was not much silence. But his activity never seemed like cribbing. Mine feels like cribbing entirely too often. Anxiety all coming out in chewed gates. He worked so hard. Six days a week for most of the year. He never had much money to show for it. I don't really think that was the point. I think he was probably cribbing, you just couldn't tell. Keeping his hands full kept them off the bottle. I remember the way he held a paintbrush. I guess if you do anything enough times it starts to look natural. The pendulum bend in his wrist at the end of every stroke on the turnaround. My wrists are his. My hands. I wonder if people see me paint and think it looks natural. I wonder how much of me is him and I don't know and no one knows. He barely stopped to eat most days. Probably why he always looked a little bit like a scarecrow if you didn't know how to look. Impossibly narrow through the hips. That illusion because his leg...

 I know, three in a single day. But what? You feel inspired, so you write. It took my sister less than two weeks to call me drunk and accuse me of abandoning her. I think she was actively drinking on the phone with me. She seemed okay at first, just asking for advice and being sisters. It devolved fast. She never understood boundaries. I kept placing them and she kept stepping all over them. She scared her child yelling at me. That was the moment that I realized I could not possibly keep doing that to my family and to myself. I never stopped loving her and I never abandoned her. She left me, I'm just the one who stopped answering the phone. That was also the night my friend texted me back. Angry with me for two weeks. And every right to be and I don't blame him. I was such a mess trying to be supportive and kind for my sister while also establishing boundaries that I missed the text that night. She called back after we'd hung up. I didn't answer. And that hurt. That was...