April 20, 2012

Today is the 13th year anniversary of my mugging. I've come to some realizations since then. 

While we might remember other people's birthdays and deaths, no one is going to recall the day when death came knocking on your door and you survived. Not one person.

You'll have to remind them and by reminding them, it sounds like you're looking for something, some kind of gesture that shows they love you, that they value who you are, that you have value to them.

If I had died that day, I'd forever be remembered as sweet Grace, a woman who had been taken away too young. 

There are no celebrations for survivors, victims of abuse and tragedies. The world continues to turn in its usual way. Today, we'll shed a tear, maybe even tomorrow. But then, we are forgotten. It isn't intentional, it's just another day...about me and my loved ones...about you and yours.

Isn't that why it's so unnerving when a painter becomes famous after death? Your work isn't noticed while you're living and breathing...unless you've got some luck on your side and not because you're really good at what you do.

I am observing this glorious Easter Sunday, this one single moment at a time. I'll give myself all the love I never got. I'll take a moment to notice the trees and the sky and let myself be swept away by them. Love is always readily available to me, to you. Just look and soak as much of it as your body will allow. 

My mind resists. It wants to go to that place of self-pity because misery loves company. Why am I looking for some grand gesture? My family isn't capable of giving it. I'm not even sure I'd know what it looks like. What I do know is that I can feel so small to the point of invisibility as though I weren't really here.

What irony. Yes, it's true. We take eachother for granted. We're all to blame and yet, we're blameless, too. This space doesn't operate in a sphere of winners and losers. We all suffer in some way. We all experience grief. We all handle darkness in our own way.

Expectation is a killer of spirit. 

The heaviness that has persisted since the new year is slow to lift. Oh god, I pray for some light, some relief. I'm strong but not that strong. I've got my own ailments, my own angels and demons I'm wrestling with.

Maybe the light comes in the form of divine intervention at just the right moment. I shouldn't minimize the significance of these happenings just because the result isn't what I think it should be or look like.

April is full of joys and sorrows. I also celebrate my 20th anniversary as a clinic manager for the same employer. I tell myself that expectation is a killer because my anniversary came and went and my boss gave me nothing. That isn't to say that nothing is coming, only that it didn't come on the day it should have. 

It brings up too much for me. The idea that I devoted twenty years of my life to the same person and not get anything when it counted the most, while I'm also experiencing the loss of my father-in-law, the deterioration of my partner's health, is heartbreaking, just so utterly, fucking, soul-crushing. 

Some expectations are meant to be had, if only to show yourself what you're willing or unwilling to continue with, to put up with. When someone stays where they aren't valued the way they feel they ought to be, it's time to leave. I learned that when you stay it's because you don't feel you deserve better. I wish it hadn't taken me so long to see this. I can't turn back time. I am grateful for all of it despite what I might be sharing here to the contrary.

It's time to turn the page for fuck's sake. It's time. 

Deaths

You just disappeared. Where are you? Is your absence intentional? Is it all in my head? Is there a way of proving my hunch? Or will I not care to wonder three months from now?

Time makes everything turn to yellow. Time will make me forget that I even had such negative thoughts. Or, it'll make me laugh at myself for having put energy into a lost cause, maybe an undeserving one, too. 

Right now, I perceive you as cold, as someone who enjoys listening to themselves talk. I don't get why it should hurt this much. 

Life's fragile. We're so busy protecting ourselves and our things, our lot. You hurt me. I know you didn't mean to. It's my fault I gave you time that should have been reserved for someone and something special. Because time, I'm learning, is a precious commodity. Don't you think so?

I'm surprised you could do that to me. That you could just ignore me. That you could toss me away so easily. It's strange. I don't understand. Though I get there's nothing really to understand!

I'm mourning so many things. One chapter after another is coming to a close, a definitive end, and like everyone else, I can't stop these endings.

Grief brings me closer to that isolating place and sometimes, its grip feels suffocating and unrelenting. I used to think it was death thst took away. It isn't. Life does all the work. Life gives and it takes away. 

Those endings that are abrupt while a person is still alive, are heart breaking. Just as with physical death, you're never quite prepared. 

You brought sunshine. And now I'm back with the moon again. I've always belonged to the moon. You reminded me of that.

I bid you farewell. May this world bless you and yours.

1996

The quality of work out there has gone to shit. The things that come out of young people's mouths at work should be grounds for dismissal. The quality of listening is so poor too. They can't even get the part where I said, "For here", right. 

One of these guys reminds me of Adam. I can see now just how full of himself he was. Oh my. We were as young as these guys are here now. We thought we had the world in the palm of our hands. But he couldn't afford a coffee and only ever bought me a single herbal tea the entire two years I knew him. Oh, please. What a cheap ass mother fu*ker. I can't believe I combed his Robert Plant hair!!

Every sentence is a run on with the word 'like' occupying too much space! Or the word, 'sick' to denote that something is great. And now, "I smoked a wicked one last night." Please be quiet. And of course, they're all either actors or musicians who think they're god's gift to the world. People will say I'm just jealous. I am not. I am nothing like these guys are now nor like the guys of days gone by. I was decades past. And that's why I suffer. 

Whether they're mature or immature, whether they're on the left or the right - both equally messed up - they lack depth! They lack soul! They lack vision! 

Actors are the worst. I've been around them for such a long time. It's all recycled personality bullshit disguised to look like talent and meaning. 

Oh my god, the horror of the situation is staring at me in the face as the light from the turning ball above adds emphasis to an already frightening realization - that most of us are all dead inside. 

The Flutter

I know what goes through people's minds when they see you sitting, time after time, alone at a cafe. They assume you are alone and they equate this aloneness with loneliness. Let me set this straight.

This is exactly where I want to be...here alone with my cappuccino and lemon meringue pie, including the thoughts I see form on my plate or in the cinnamon in my cup.

I like where my mind goes sometimes. This kind of peace that finally enters wouldn't be even remotely possible by sitting together with another person. Not that I don't enjoy the company of others. It's just that I need this space I've carved out for myself to recharge and refuel. Otherwise, I can't be good to me and I won't have enough of anything to be good to the other.

I cherish this time alone. I notice the blue of the sky. I hear the chirps of birds. I sense the churning of soil, can feel the anticipation of warm rain. Do you think that would be possible otherwise? Not unless I tuned out the person talking. But that would be rude, wouldn't it?

I choose this. I don't need you. I don't need him. I don't need anything except for what's always right here. I just have to sit quietly and observe. I just need to settle into myself.

Oh baby, you're the guy who's going to wish he'd married someone like me. But you were too busy spreading your seed to notice, too busy being the kind of guy I never had any interest in. And I was busy being the girl you see right now, busy growing into the woman you thought didn't exist. That's your problem.

It's not your fault you were raised in the usual way. It's not flattering or sexy knowing how many women you've been with. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It only becomes gross when all the women you slept with are judged as "worse than guys." I can't stand the double standard.

I don't even know why I care to argue given I was never the kind of woman to throw myself at some guy just because he had money. I make my own money. Always have. And then I found a man with similar values as mine. I can't expect a stubborn man like you to understand. You can't understand. It's not in your nature.

Now I have to wait for this fluttering to stop, a fluttering that began when I thought I might need you. Boy, was I wrong. 

We all make our choices, don't we? We get exactly what we deserve, whether we like it or not.

I got what I deserve. I'm so lucky, baby. I love how Mary leads the way, how she helps me see. 

Birds & Lions

I got my back. I know you have yours too. What are we doing? What's happening? Where is this leading to? Oh yes, right here. Again. It's just me sitting in a cafe feeling the light on my face, listening to voices around me...and the ones in my head.

It's too dangerous to move down towards my heart. I'm afraid it's going to whisper a truth I don't want to hear. It'll just mean another thought in my head I'll have to face eventually. And just like that, here it is.

What am I to do with this? You come in like a lion and leave like a bird. Either way, you don't belong here. You're not good for me. How can you be when you wreak so much havoc? 

Yet, you're missed. I miss you now. I hate you for that. My aloneness becomes my loneliness. How dare you have that kind of power over me? In a world filled with capitalists whose values cannot be rooted in anything good, what am I to do with this extra and unnecessary darkness?

The cards tell me my name is also Strength. I've got a kind of influence a man can only dream of. It isn't in his nature to recognize this sort of thing within himself...because he doesn't have it. I have it. I can cultivate it. I can enhance it. I can work silently and quietly behind the scenes and you would never know it. You don't have the eyes to see or the ears to hear. 

I do.

I have overcome. Do you understand what that means to overcome? I've got control of that lion, my friend. I dictate how things go. Not you. I'll have you purring in the palm of my hand instead of roaring. You won't see it coming. How can you? When I'm sitting quietly and lady-like in the corner of the room. 

I go to no one. In this case, it's much better to be wanted than needed. I need myself...and I've got her back.

Trajectories

I miss those days. I hate how time does that, how it takes and takes until there's nothing left to take...and for us to give. It's all gone.

Today we're sitting in the living room overlooking Lake Simcoe. The sun is shining. The water is sparkling. The birds are chirping. My father in law is saying something no one can hear. And today is now yesterday, last week, last month, last year...15 to 20 years ago! What?! How?! 

When you thought you had time and a lot of it, it was kind of true. But our existence is just a mish mash of all of these moments and most of these moments are not even remembered. So then they literally become polaroids, snapshots in your mind. 

Oh God. Dear God. My God. Can you hear me? How can you hear me if I can't hear You? You must be in the sea and the air. In the fire and the earth. You must be the sea, the air, the fire and the earth. And be all things, both animate and be in all things, inanimate. I don't have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. I'm sorry.

I'm stuck here because I was stuck over there and who says time isn't linear? In my mind, there's a sequence I can't escape. This is the trajectory. My trajectory...and I know where it goes and how it ultimately ends....for you and for me.

I'm not sitting on the dock by Lake Simcoe anymore. Except in my memory. If I'm blessed with more days, I'll be creating more memories. What kind of memories will they be? What of me will have participated in their creation? Our memories are made up of who we were when we lived them. 

I wasn't all that much. 

The Good

No one looks you in the eye anymore. We've been watching too much Dateline and 48hrs. Everyone's a crook. He's out to get you. So is she. And on and on it goes. You're lucky if you get a smile. Seriously, you are one lucky fool. If you make yourself available to catch one...while you're busy telling yourself how much the world's gone to shit, how people are bad to the core, how you're not one of them.

But, you are. You are one of them. When you complain how there aren't any good people left, they'll be saying the same thing about you. We dislike in the other what we dislike in ourselves. But, it's too much work to be this aware. Maybe even a little disheartening. 

There is good in this world. There is. Sometimes, you don't have to dig too deep. You just have to look up at the sky, take more than a glance at a tree or a flower. Then you'll notice the beauty. Though this isn't the kind of good I'm talking about or what most people refer to...

Where are the good people? Those whose goals extend beyond their careers and jobs? 

Beyond the roles they play and the duties they fulfill. 

I want to believe in, "As above, so below." Then I realized it's not all good. You have to take it with the bad, too. Heaven on earth? Good luck, babe! Heaven is a place where there aren't any humans! As long as we're alive, we're prone to mischief, deceit and temptation. I don't mean temptation in the usual, religious sense. 

Temptation comes in many forms. There's a space where the truth enters and time feels like it's stopped. When you go against this truth, against your better judgment, you're bound to pay a price. 

If we weren't so weak, so needy, so greedy, so fearful of aloneness and death..we'd stop chasing the almighty dollar. There's no real security in that. It was only ever supposed to be a means to an end. Now, it's 'the' ultimate chase but you get nothing in the end. There is no you. We're just ashes. Ashes.

Blowing in the wind, returning to the earth...I want more than this. I wanted to feel things I don't think I ever will. It's sad. I don't want to question someone's motives. I want to believe there's sincerity and genuineness in the words people use. 

I hope you can prove me right. Or is it, wrong?