I hate my fucking birthday.
It's not because I had a bad one this year - it was quite nice, as birthdays go (despite my distinct non-winning of the lottery). I happily began tidying my sewing room and started the big freezer defrosting, and went out for dinner to a local hot dog joint that has the best chili-cheese fries for clogging one's arteries on the planet.
No, I hate my fucking birthday because of ghosts and shades of birthdays past.
When I was quite young, I'm sure there were cakes and parties. I vaguely remember one birthday spent at Burger Chef, my favorite dining establishment as a child. See a pattern, here?
But somewhere around the time I hit double digits, birthdays became something of a...meh.
I saw other kids having parties, but I didn't have them. Other kids had family and friends to celebrate with them...I usually spent the day alone, perhaps the recipient of a half-hearted wish for a happy birthday from someone who felt obliged if I happened to mention it was my natal day. I started thinking I didn't like my fucking birthday.
I got tired of begging people to notice or care, so I was quick to quit mentioning it. I was almost certain I didn't care for my fucking birthday.
I watched other kids get gifts and phone calls and visits from family when I was in boarding school, but again, I spent most of my so-called "special day" largely unnoticed, although my mother did try to make sure she called and sent a gift, and that meant a lot to me...but at that age (early teens), one wished one's peers might give a damn. I didn't even harbor a tiny hope that my father would make an appearance of any sort. Or my grandmother would orchestrate a birthday fiasco that was basically a bribe to the other kids to be nice to me for a day so they'd get dinner out and cake.
I firmed up my notion that I hate my fucking birthday.
I spent my high school years without so much as a ruffle on the "happy birthday" waters, and that was fine. I couldn't be bothered to care that I was alive, why the Hell should anyone else.
In my early twenties, I was part of a large social group that sometimes made a fuss over birthdays and sometimes didn't...but I always felt loved. Still...I hated my fucking birthday out of habit.
Mid-twenties, my birthday became a death day, too - a beloved friend and member of my social group died on that day and I was once again firmly entrenched in the idea that my birthday fucking sucks, and I hate it.
Now in my...never mind what age...I'm still not convinced that it's worth the bother. Oh, don't get me wrong...there are people who love me very much who make sure to tell me so (and not JUST on my birthday) and who make an effort to let me know that they're glad I was born. I know I'm loved.
But I'm still that kid who kept getting the message that she didn't matter to anyone, wasn't worth the effort, time, or care. As an adult, I can't shake that old hurt. I also, in recent years, can't help but think I've wasted my life, that I'm wandering through the years in a daze doing nothing of worth...and that maybe it's to late.
So I still hate my fucking birthday and am just as happy to get past it and on with the next downhill slide to aging gracelessly.
Showing posts with label Past Present Future. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Past Present Future. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
The Sweetest Ache
Six days.
Even with doubt coloring a few hours, even with fear and uncertainty making an undercurrent here, there, coloring a few moments before subsiding, it was six incredible days of...what? What did we do, really, that was so remarkable?
Ah.
We met.
We loved.
We gave and received, freely, of ourselves.
That is remarkable. Each moment was an honest moment, without secrets, without lies, without shame.
Even the quiet minutes when I was writing while he spoke on the phone, when he tapped away at the computer while I read or stretched or simply watched him until he turned, saw me, and smiled, even these simple things were rich and deep.
Leaving may have been the most difficult thing I've done in a long while. I missed my son, of course...what mother wouldn't?..and wanted to come home to him, but I missed, too, Someone, even before leaving him behind to journey home.
Someone whose touch quieted the voice in my head, so angry, so derogatory, so bitter. Someone whose laugh lifted...lifts...my heart and sets it soaring. Someone with beautiful, tender, smiling, intense eyes and gentle, loving hands that caress so sweetly they make me shiver.
I have often told my son that there is an invisible line from his heart to mine, one that will never break, one that connects us no matter where we are or what we are doing. I tell him that I am always loving him.
I feel much the same about Someone. Driving away yesterday morning, leaving him behind, was painful. I ached. I felt a soreness in my heart where he is so newly rooted as the connection between us began to stretch.
Mile after mile, I felt it pulling me back, back to where I'd been, even as I was drawn forward, home to my son.
I wondered...if I kept driving, would this new connection accommodate? Or would it, so new and fragile, so tenuous, snap?
It's there, yet. It thrums. I feel him, Someone, there, rooting deeper, establishing himself, creating his space. My home isn't quite home, any more...it's missing something...Someone...
It is the sweetest ache, this absence, this presence, this want, this need...this Love...
Even with doubt coloring a few hours, even with fear and uncertainty making an undercurrent here, there, coloring a few moments before subsiding, it was six incredible days of...what? What did we do, really, that was so remarkable?
Ah.
We met.
We loved.
We gave and received, freely, of ourselves.
That is remarkable. Each moment was an honest moment, without secrets, without lies, without shame.
Even the quiet minutes when I was writing while he spoke on the phone, when he tapped away at the computer while I read or stretched or simply watched him until he turned, saw me, and smiled, even these simple things were rich and deep.
Leaving may have been the most difficult thing I've done in a long while. I missed my son, of course...what mother wouldn't?..and wanted to come home to him, but I missed, too, Someone, even before leaving him behind to journey home.
Someone whose touch quieted the voice in my head, so angry, so derogatory, so bitter. Someone whose laugh lifted...lifts...my heart and sets it soaring. Someone with beautiful, tender, smiling, intense eyes and gentle, loving hands that caress so sweetly they make me shiver.
I have often told my son that there is an invisible line from his heart to mine, one that will never break, one that connects us no matter where we are or what we are doing. I tell him that I am always loving him.
I feel much the same about Someone. Driving away yesterday morning, leaving him behind, was painful. I ached. I felt a soreness in my heart where he is so newly rooted as the connection between us began to stretch.
Mile after mile, I felt it pulling me back, back to where I'd been, even as I was drawn forward, home to my son.
I wondered...if I kept driving, would this new connection accommodate? Or would it, so new and fragile, so tenuous, snap?
It's there, yet. It thrums. I feel him, Someone, there, rooting deeper, establishing himself, creating his space. My home isn't quite home, any more...it's missing something...Someone...
It is the sweetest ache, this absence, this presence, this want, this need...this Love...
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Over the Pit
Today I told my husband that I could no longer be his wife.
Here we hang, the pair of us, over our own deep pits, wondering what comes next.
I told him I had spent the week thinking about, peeling away, all the doubts, the anger, the blame, the self-recriminations, the despair...all of it...and was left with this: I need to be free to love whom I will...to love freely, joyfully, and fearlessly.
He is leaving, because if I cannot love him, and him alone, then...then nothing.
So here we hang, the pair of us, over our own deep pits, wondering what comes next.
I feel sick.
Here we hang, the pair of us, over our own deep pits, wondering what comes next.
I told him I had spent the week thinking about, peeling away, all the doubts, the anger, the blame, the self-recriminations, the despair...all of it...and was left with this: I need to be free to love whom I will...to love freely, joyfully, and fearlessly.
He is leaving, because if I cannot love him, and him alone, then...then nothing.
So here we hang, the pair of us, over our own deep pits, wondering what comes next.
I feel sick.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Trembling
I woke trembling this morning, a sort of all-over quake.
It was the dream that did it.
I dreamed I was Kate again, back in her time (whenever it was - I cannot say, there is never a calendar and she doesn't answer when I ask, perhaps because I am a ghost to her, or the faint whisper of a dream she doesn't understand) and in her place (I know this one - Ireland, although not as we know it today).
It was dusk, and she stood with a number of other young women in a circle, surrounded by another circle, men. They were laughing, smiling, the women turning deosil, the men widdershins. In the center, beside the balefire, the High Priest and High Priestess watched, waited, listened to the inner call.
With an unspoken accord, Priest and Priestess made their choices, selected a woman, a man, and led them away into the fields. The two circles slowed, stilled, and each woman faced a man. They joined hands and wandered into the fields, newly furrowed for spring planting.
Odd, how in dreams one may know things the waking mind cannot, will not, does not want to know.
Kate was exuberant, joyful, a sexual woman who was not ashamed of her wantonness, of the pleasure she took from men or the pleasure they took from her. Not taken. Freely given.
I watched, the moon above smiling down on these children of the earth who were performing a ritual as old as agriculture - showing the land how to go, encouraging fertility, feeling their blood run as the sap in the trees, fiery, hot, rushing and roaring to bring forth new life.
I watched, but I also experienced, because I was, after all, once Kate. At least - I think I was. I believe I was. Can't prove it, though. I guess it doesn't matter, because a delusion, to the deluded, is a real as anything.
Dark earth below, loamy, soft, richly perfumed. Moonlit sky above, scattered stars providing soprano counterpoint to the moon's soft alto crooning. Lovers tender, wild, consumed and consuming, caught up in Spring's symphony, chorus of night creatures creating a tapestry of song punctuated by lover's cries. Beautiful.
I woke with the dream's dawn, feeling Kate's release shivering through me, a shadow of her elation still with me, an invisible robe of satiation wrapped around me.
Sometimes I envy Kate - she was so easy in her skin, so content to be who she was, so fearless and unabashed about her sexuality. If she wasn't, isn't, real, I don't care - she's a part of me, a reminder of what I could be, could have, if only I can learn to let go.
Whether from memory or wanting, I cannot say, but some part of me resonates with that dream, the unthinking, the passionate part. All these hours later, I am still shaking, fine tremors in my hand forcing me to retype, correct spelling errors, clean up spilled water, catch dropped things.
I am reminded that I have neglected a part of my life, of my psyche, for too long. I hope it goes away...and I hope it remains.
It was the dream that did it.
I dreamed I was Kate again, back in her time (whenever it was - I cannot say, there is never a calendar and she doesn't answer when I ask, perhaps because I am a ghost to her, or the faint whisper of a dream she doesn't understand) and in her place (I know this one - Ireland, although not as we know it today).
It was dusk, and she stood with a number of other young women in a circle, surrounded by another circle, men. They were laughing, smiling, the women turning deosil, the men widdershins. In the center, beside the balefire, the High Priest and High Priestess watched, waited, listened to the inner call.
With an unspoken accord, Priest and Priestess made their choices, selected a woman, a man, and led them away into the fields. The two circles slowed, stilled, and each woman faced a man. They joined hands and wandered into the fields, newly furrowed for spring planting.
Odd, how in dreams one may know things the waking mind cannot, will not, does not want to know.
Kate was exuberant, joyful, a sexual woman who was not ashamed of her wantonness, of the pleasure she took from men or the pleasure they took from her. Not taken. Freely given.
I watched, the moon above smiling down on these children of the earth who were performing a ritual as old as agriculture - showing the land how to go, encouraging fertility, feeling their blood run as the sap in the trees, fiery, hot, rushing and roaring to bring forth new life.
I watched, but I also experienced, because I was, after all, once Kate. At least - I think I was. I believe I was. Can't prove it, though. I guess it doesn't matter, because a delusion, to the deluded, is a real as anything.
Dark earth below, loamy, soft, richly perfumed. Moonlit sky above, scattered stars providing soprano counterpoint to the moon's soft alto crooning. Lovers tender, wild, consumed and consuming, caught up in Spring's symphony, chorus of night creatures creating a tapestry of song punctuated by lover's cries. Beautiful.
I woke with the dream's dawn, feeling Kate's release shivering through me, a shadow of her elation still with me, an invisible robe of satiation wrapped around me.
Sometimes I envy Kate - she was so easy in her skin, so content to be who she was, so fearless and unabashed about her sexuality. If she wasn't, isn't, real, I don't care - she's a part of me, a reminder of what I could be, could have, if only I can learn to let go.
Whether from memory or wanting, I cannot say, but some part of me resonates with that dream, the unthinking, the passionate part. All these hours later, I am still shaking, fine tremors in my hand forcing me to retype, correct spelling errors, clean up spilled water, catch dropped things.
I am reminded that I have neglected a part of my life, of my psyche, for too long. I hope it goes away...and I hope it remains.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Pulse
I used to stare, with a kind of hunger, at the place in my wrist where the vein is close to the surface, a slight trace of blue, just raised enough to provide a texture to the topography of the anatomy there.
I remember when I was a little girl, I would trace the veins on my mother's hands, push them down only to see them spring right back up again. I saw lettering in their lines, would turn her hand over, and over again, to trace them with my small finger. I wanted to know why they were blue, why they were placed as they were, what they were for.
And then, when I was older, darker, I would stare at the veins in my wrist. I knew exactly what they were for. I would place my fingers just so, like nurses do, and feel my own heart, steady, certain, unfaltering.
Sometimes, I wished I felt as steady as my heart, as sure of each beat, of each step. I wondered, if I ran that cold, fine steel along their length, could I be certain of what followed?
Can one be a vampire of one's own self? Curious, seeking sustenance from one's own veins? The stories tell of an ecstasy that is coupled with the act of exsanguination - they make it sound so sexy, so sensual.
I think they have no idea what the sting, the sharp bite, the slow drain, the lassitude, the burn and numbness, the eventual fade into darkness is like. I think the hunger that one may feel for one's own blood isn't the same as that storybook hunger - it's deeper, more urgent, more visceral and less quantifiable. It's old, older than the tales of creatures creeping in the shadows, feeding on their fellow humans, bathing in their blood, committing horrific acts of starvation and survival.
I used to place two fingers gently on my neck, feel the blood rushing just below the surface, primal, powerful, the very essence of life. I'd count, one, two, three, four, constant, a living metronome, steadier than my spiritual self, internal self, felt. I was shaky, clinging to the semblance of normalcy, desperate for someone, something, to reach out, gather me up, place me back on firm, more realistic ground that the fantastic landscape my own mind had painted over reality, but my heart...my heart had it's own agenda and kept beating, steady, reassuring, even in my wildest moments.
My son traces the veins in my hands. He turns them over, and over again, finding patterns, touch light as a butterfly's kiss. He knows what they are for, why they are there, why they are blue, and what it means when we press our fingers just so and feel that concurrent rhythm, his and mine.
I remember when I was a little girl, I would trace the veins on my mother's hands, push them down only to see them spring right back up again. I saw lettering in their lines, would turn her hand over, and over again, to trace them with my small finger. I wanted to know why they were blue, why they were placed as they were, what they were for.
And then, when I was older, darker, I would stare at the veins in my wrist. I knew exactly what they were for. I would place my fingers just so, like nurses do, and feel my own heart, steady, certain, unfaltering.
Sometimes, I wished I felt as steady as my heart, as sure of each beat, of each step. I wondered, if I ran that cold, fine steel along their length, could I be certain of what followed?
Can one be a vampire of one's own self? Curious, seeking sustenance from one's own veins? The stories tell of an ecstasy that is coupled with the act of exsanguination - they make it sound so sexy, so sensual.
I think they have no idea what the sting, the sharp bite, the slow drain, the lassitude, the burn and numbness, the eventual fade into darkness is like. I think the hunger that one may feel for one's own blood isn't the same as that storybook hunger - it's deeper, more urgent, more visceral and less quantifiable. It's old, older than the tales of creatures creeping in the shadows, feeding on their fellow humans, bathing in their blood, committing horrific acts of starvation and survival.
I used to place two fingers gently on my neck, feel the blood rushing just below the surface, primal, powerful, the very essence of life. I'd count, one, two, three, four, constant, a living metronome, steadier than my spiritual self, internal self, felt. I was shaky, clinging to the semblance of normalcy, desperate for someone, something, to reach out, gather me up, place me back on firm, more realistic ground that the fantastic landscape my own mind had painted over reality, but my heart...my heart had it's own agenda and kept beating, steady, reassuring, even in my wildest moments.
My son traces the veins in my hands. He turns them over, and over again, finding patterns, touch light as a butterfly's kiss. He knows what they are for, why they are there, why they are blue, and what it means when we press our fingers just so and feel that concurrent rhythm, his and mine.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Fantasies I Could Do Without
Warning - mature content, graphic and sensitive words, stories, thoughts, and/or issues ahead. Continue at your own risk.
When I was a child, I was sexually molested, first by a trusted friend and neighbor, then in later years by a family member. I never spoke of these events with anyone until I was an adult, talking to the first shrink I'd found who I trusted implicitly. As an aside, he ruined me for other shrinks - I haven't even bothered looking for one since I moved some twelve years ago, because no on else will be him. It sucks losing a really good doctor!
Anyway.
In addition to the molestation, I was raped when I was in my teens.
These things had a fair bit of impact on how I viewed myself, the world, and people in general. I believe, and research backs me in this, that my weight ballooned as it did as a defense mechanism - after all, everyone knows that fat girls are ugly and no one wants to have The Sex with them.
The above is history for the following. Hopefully you'll see the connection.
I think it's perfectly healthy to have a fantasy life, to mentally act out scenarios while having sex or masturbating (you have no idea how hard...er...difficult it was for me to type that!). I mean, what are you going to think about, the laundry? Hmm...come to think of it...I have thought about laundry, dishes, chores, or scheduling while doing the nasty before. Sad.
One of my recurring fantasies is a rape fantasy. Yes, you read that right - and if it weren't for the utter anonymity of this blog, I wouldn't admit it. Hell, I don't even like thinking about it. It's true, though - I have several scenarios that run through my mind when I'm....well, you know.
Sometimes it's a priest, on an altar or in the confessional, or as I kneel and pray (from behind). I would like to note that I'm not even Catholic, and never have been.
Sometimes it's a cop, against the back of his cruiser.
Sometimes it's a whole gang, taking turns.
There are others...but honestly, I can't bring myself to type them all. Always it's violent, messy, dehumanizing, and I'm an unwilling participant...in the fantasy, anyway.
I don't know why I have them. You'd think I wouldn't, considering my history. You'd think I would shy away from such thoughts, be disgusted by them. You'd think.
I don't know...maybe I'm trying to take back control...to turn those moments of pain and powerlessness into triumphs - a way to thumb my nose at what was, change what is, empower what will be.
Maybe I'm just sick in the head.
I don't feel proud of these thoughts...I don't feel good about them, after. I wish I could cleanse them from my mind, erase them from my slate. They are dark thoughts, feeding other dark thoughts, and I am shamed by them.
Why write about them? Because I need to put them somewhere...somewhere they can fade, turn to dust, or maybe be explained by someone who gets it. Gods know, I sure don't.
When I was a child, I was sexually molested, first by a trusted friend and neighbor, then in later years by a family member. I never spoke of these events with anyone until I was an adult, talking to the first shrink I'd found who I trusted implicitly. As an aside, he ruined me for other shrinks - I haven't even bothered looking for one since I moved some twelve years ago, because no on else will be him. It sucks losing a really good doctor!
Anyway.
In addition to the molestation, I was raped when I was in my teens.
These things had a fair bit of impact on how I viewed myself, the world, and people in general. I believe, and research backs me in this, that my weight ballooned as it did as a defense mechanism - after all, everyone knows that fat girls are ugly and no one wants to have The Sex with them.
The above is history for the following. Hopefully you'll see the connection.
I think it's perfectly healthy to have a fantasy life, to mentally act out scenarios while having sex or masturbating (you have no idea how hard...er...difficult it was for me to type that!). I mean, what are you going to think about, the laundry? Hmm...come to think of it...I have thought about laundry, dishes, chores, or scheduling while doing the nasty before. Sad.
One of my recurring fantasies is a rape fantasy. Yes, you read that right - and if it weren't for the utter anonymity of this blog, I wouldn't admit it. Hell, I don't even like thinking about it. It's true, though - I have several scenarios that run through my mind when I'm....well, you know.
Sometimes it's a priest, on an altar or in the confessional, or as I kneel and pray (from behind). I would like to note that I'm not even Catholic, and never have been.
Sometimes it's a cop, against the back of his cruiser.
Sometimes it's a whole gang, taking turns.
There are others...but honestly, I can't bring myself to type them all. Always it's violent, messy, dehumanizing, and I'm an unwilling participant...in the fantasy, anyway.
I don't know why I have them. You'd think I wouldn't, considering my history. You'd think I would shy away from such thoughts, be disgusted by them. You'd think.
I don't know...maybe I'm trying to take back control...to turn those moments of pain and powerlessness into triumphs - a way to thumb my nose at what was, change what is, empower what will be.
Maybe I'm just sick in the head.
I don't feel proud of these thoughts...I don't feel good about them, after. I wish I could cleanse them from my mind, erase them from my slate. They are dark thoughts, feeding other dark thoughts, and I am shamed by them.
Why write about them? Because I need to put them somewhere...somewhere they can fade, turn to dust, or maybe be explained by someone who gets it. Gods know, I sure don't.
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