Clink, Clink

I want to get drunk.

Seriously ripped.

Not tipsy or even a little snockered; I want to get black out, lose consciousness, can't think straight or even at all, drunk.

I want to drink so much that the voice in my head has slurred speech, or can't talk at all.

I want to wipe my short term memory clean, drown it all in alcohol. 

I want to render my thought process nil.

Oh, oblivion.

Maybe if I drink enough, I won't feel this lonely ache or hear the soft whisper of failure winding through my thoughts.

I kmow drinking isn't the answer.  It's not even a question.  I can't.  Won't.  But I want to.

There Is No Arizona

Most fairy tails begin with "Once upon a time..." and end with "...happily ever after."

They have trials and tribulations and daring rescues by dashing princes.

When I was a little girl, I was taught that if I styled my hair, wore makeup, wore the right clothes, the right shoes, the right perfume, then the handsome prince would come rescue me from...what?...myself?

He would ride in on his white horse, sweep me up, and carry me away into our blissful forever.

The thing is, I never learned how to be a girl.  Hair?  Makeup?  Style?  Hopeless.  Complete failure, really.  I can barely manage a ponytail, most cosmetics and perfumes make me itch, and my clothing is best described as "comfortable" and "hand-me-down", machine washable and dryable.

And if there's a prince out there, he's not looking at me.  He's looking at some princess far more comely and appealing on her worst day than I can manage on my best, and who can blame him?

After all this time, I've had to learn to rescue myself.  I suppose that's fine, better than waiting around for the myth that never comes.  There's no prince for me.  Hell, what prince wants a dull, middle-aged damsel with tiny, sagging tits, a flabby belly, flabby arms, flabby legs, sagging ass, and precious little sex appeal?

Experience hath shewn that I'm not worth any effort, but since it takes an effort to love me...or really, have anything to do with me...well...you can see where at least part of the trouble lies.

There is no happily ever after in my story - There's just this grey sort of existence where I am constantly reminded just how little worth I have by the very people who claim to value me even as their actions show otherwise.

I wish I could rid myself of the lingering longing for that long ago promised prince.  I might not be any happier than I am now, but maybe I wouldn't ache so much over how lonely and unwanted I feel in these wee small hours when I am weary and worn and in no mood or condition to battle the darkness, the emptiness, that close in on me like hungry dragons with no princely rescuer in sight.

Care

I'm feeling lonely.

And feeling sorry for myself.

I've caught some minor plague from my daughter and it has me tired, and tired isn't a good idea when I'm already feeling sad.  Depressed.

One year is ending, one beginning, and I don't care.  It's just time, sliding away, sliding past, slippery and ungripable, both dragging me with it and leaving me behind.  I feel lost in it, swirling in its eddies then yanked into the rushing currents, and always breathless with the awareness of it all and wishing I could stop, or pause, and rest in stiller waters for a while.

I cannot recall the last time I felt the warmth of being taken care of.

This is what I'm feeling sorry for myself over.

I don't feel like I have been taken care of in a very long time.  Not that I need much of it, but sometimes, when my throat is sore and my nose stuffy, and I'm tired and feeling low...yeah...sometimes it'd be nice if someone made me soup.  Or sat next to me and stroked my hair and soothed me a little.

The last time I was sick, really sick, good and sick, I wound up in the hospital.  My mother was watching my children with the help of a friend, but my partner...well...he wasn't doing much.  When he finally came to visit, it was a very short visit, and I could tell he wanted to be elsewhere.  My less forgiving self thinks there was beer waiting for him, and he wanted that more than anything else in the world.

I spent three days in the ICU, largely alone.  Probably for the best, because I slept...but wouldn't it have been nice to fall asleep, to wake up, with someone there beside me, just a caring, loving presence?

I suppose.  Wouldn't know, though.  My dearest friend drove much farther to see me, and even claimed the clothing I'd worn into the ER to take home and wash for me.  That was amazing.  That left me feeling loved.

I've never had a partner who took up the slack when I was ill.  After that stay in the hospital, when I got home, I was supposed to rest.  That couldn't happen, not with two kids, some cats, a house, a partner, to take care of.  There's never rest, not here, not for me, and there's never that gentle warmth that comes from knowing that my partner, my lover, is there for me to lean on, to take care of me when I get where I can't do it and need help for a minute.

And I did say I am feeling sorry for myself.

I did some thinking, and I think it was more than 20 years ago that I was looked after - I was good and sick that time, fever hovering around 104 for days, no money for doctors or medicines, just me in my bed sleeping for hours on end. My mother came down from her place and watched over me for a couple of days.  She went shopping and made me hot toddies, and the fever broke and when I was well enough to get up and fend for myself she hugged me, kissed me, and went on home, her job well done.  No, wait...she drove me to the ER years later, when my appendix burst.  Sat there with me while the doctors tried to figure out what was wrong, waited until they surgery was done and I was awake, eventually went home, but came back the next day to sit with me and help me with some personal grooming that I couldn't manage on my own.  When I got home from that, it was life as usual...no resting, as ordered, because laundry and cooking and cleaning don't so themselves, and apparently I don't choose partners who think to do them when I'm laid up, and now I'm bitter as well as feeling sorry for myself,

Most of the time, I don't want to be taken care of.  Loved?  Yes, please!  Helped with chores, as an equal?  You bet!!!  I don't want to be kept or coddled, truly.  Just...I don't know...maybe it's that I still don't much feel cherished, worthy of the effort of paying attention.  Fuck, I don't feel worthy of a bowl of damned soup!

In the end, I will just have to keep taking care of myself.  Doesn't matter how sorry I feel for myself; a glass of water, a bite to eat, these things don't just up and get themselves for me.  As with many other instances in life, I will just plow through, carry on, and do for myself what the tiny voice in the back of my head wishes someone else would do for me, just this once.

Mirror, Mirror

I don't often look in the mirror.  Mirrors are not kind to people like me, people who don't see themselves truly but rather through ugly filters, through lenses smirched with years of grime, accumulated unhappiness and unfortunate experience.

I don't look in the mirror when I comb my hair, when I brush my teeth, when I apply lip balm.

I don't like what I see.

I see wrinkles and hairs that escaped the scrunchie and loose skin from weight loss and spots and age.  I see thin lips not suitable for kissing and dark circles under dull eyes.  If my gaze strays to my body, I see sagging, flab, loose and wrinkly skin, things that show weight loss but make for horrors under my clothes.

I was never young.

Rare are the occasions I gaze intentionally into a reflective surface.

Rarer still are the times when I don't wince at what I see, or perhaps even think it's not so bad.

Sometimes there's a brightness to my eyes.  Sometimes I think my cheekbones are pretty good.  My lips will never be accused of being kissable, certainly never pouty or plump, but when I smile I have a dimple...didn't people used to like dimples?..and if the crinkles around my eyes are a bit deep, well...at least I can finally say I have smile lines.  Also, my ears don't stick out, and I seem to recall that not-sticking-out ears are a plus.  Also, also, they are pretty evenly hung on my head, so there's that.

Tonight I was laughing at my daughter's antics in the tub and happened to catch my reflection in the bathroom mirror.  I stopped and looked.  It was...uncomfortable...

I wonder if I will ever see myself as others do, hopefully with kinder eyes and gentler thoughts...

Effort

It's late...or early...depending upon your perspective.  I can't sleep.  I want to.  I just can't.

I've been lying awake, wondering...

My parents divorced before I could form a memory of a father.  Until my teens he wasn't much of a presence in my life.  Hell, I didn't realize that one was supposed to have a father until I was just about through my first decade.

I can understand why he wouldn't want much to do with me now that I'm grown...after all, I've certainly been one huge disappointment after another to him, given him no reason to be bothered with me...but what did baby me do that made it so easy for him to walk away and not look back?  Why wasn't his daughter, the child, I mean, worth even a little effort on his part?

Then there's my now-ex-husband.  He made it pretty damned plain that our marriage wasn't worth the effort.  He'll protest...he'll swear, even now, that he loved me, still does, and the words were nice...but when push came to shove, when it came down to showing love through actions, well...I wasn't worth the effort, was I?

I've been attracted to others over the years, and most of them weren't interested, or clearly stated that I wasn't worth whatever effort it would take on their part to have anything more than a mild flirtation.  Twenty some odd years down the line, still barely worth the smile and a few hastily spoken words, maybe a few minutes of playful chat, but nothing more.

My current partner, the person I though I might finally have found a lifetime in?  Yeah, well...he's terrified of losing me, he says...of losing our family...of me leaving him...but as it turns out, I'm not worth any actual effort on that score either.  The alcohol, the pot, the meth, are more important, enough so that he is once again in jail because drinking twelve beers less than a day after he was out for the last probation violation meant more to him than being with his family for the holidays.

Not.  Worth.  The.  Effort.

Loud and clear and coming at me from seemingly every damned direction. Not worth answering the phone for.  Not worth reading.  Not worth writing.  Not worth calling.  Not worth it.

Here in the small hours, alone, cold, tired, worn and weary and wishing I had the simplest touch, just a hand to hold or a shoulder to lean on, I am painfully aware of how not worth the effort I am, and there's no getting around it.  If I was worth it I wouldn't spend these hours feeling so fucking lonely because I'd be resting snug against someone who finds lying next to me more important than twelve beers, or whatever the distraction is that leaves me struggling to breathe in dark, cloying silence rereading old, sweet words and wondering if they ever meant anything at all, and if they did, what happened to make them moot, to render me no longer worthy of whatever it took to write or say them?

How the fuck am I supposed to believe anyone who says I matter when behavior tells me so clearly that I don't, that in the end all I can count on is this feeling that the reassurances are hollow and won't be suited to action?

It's awfully bleak, this feeling that when it comes to actual effort and not simply glib words, any expenditure of effort is too much.

I'd like to believe, really I would, but I just can't.

It's not worth the effort.

Aware

I am having trouble sleeping.  On an ordinary day, I'm rather clueless, oblivious, of my place in this old world.  On a tired day, it takes blaring trumpets, fireworks, announcements...hell, written notices...to get my attention.

I'm not unaware of the people or world around me...more that I can't seem to sort out my connection to it all.

So I was eating watermelon while driving to an appointment, keeping an eye on traffic and whatnot but not on the other drivers.  Honestly, I'm used to people being oblivious to the world outside their vehicles - we're ensconced in our own little worlds while we flit from place to place.  No one notices that they're not being noticed.

So, yeah, I was eating watermelon that I'd cut into chunks.  I never much thought about how I eat anything, except to enjoy it because otherwise why bother?

Sitting at a traffic light, enjoying my lovely, ripe, cool watermelon, I chanced to look over to my left and noticed that I was, in fact, being noticed.  My first thought, first instinct, was to hide...I don't like it when people see me eating.  I am self conscious about it.  The ugly voice in my head tells me that people are judging me, thinking "No wonder she's fat, look at that heifer eat!"

I don't think that's what that man in the truck's passenger seat was thinking.  He was staring at me, at the piece of melon that was still clasped in my fingers, waiting to be devoured.  His eyes met mine, he closed his mouth and swallowed.  I popped the remainder of the melon into my mouth and his eyes widened and he turned crimson and turned away, then cut his eyes back to me again.  Umm.  'Kay.

I reached for more.  Looked over to the right.  Another truck.  Another man.  Watching me eat another piece of watermelon as if his life depended on seeing it through to the end.  Staring.  Mouth open.  Licked his lips when I swallowed.

That's a first.  Pretty sure.

So, yeah, that happened.  And for a moment, one tiny little moment, I felt powerfully sexual.  For one tiny little moment I wasn't a (somewhat less) fat, (almost) middle aged woman, I was a goddess inspiring concupiscent thoughts in unsuspecting men, reveling in my power.  One tiny moment.  I have to admit, I kinda liked it.

Probably won't eat watermelon in public again, though...unless I can make sure I'm not going to chance looking anyone in the eye.

If watermelon damn near gave 'em heart failure,I wonder what a banana would have done...

Damp Linens

I know I'm not the only woman who cries in silence, tears soaking her pillow, curled around herself as she tries to contain the aching emptiness that threatens to consume her.

I know I'm not alone in wondering why I should be so lonely.

But dear Goddess, right now in this moment I feel so isolated, so lost in the shadows, and I can't convince myself that there's any way out of it or that there's anyone or anything that can (or wants to) throw me a line, however tenuous, to help me pull myself into a better place.

Back to dreams, back to the ephemeral, illusory comfort of he-who-never-was because my psyche doesn't want to accept that maybe this is all we get - an empty bed, empty arms, and a heart full of thick, smothering aloneness that leaves me fighting to breathe and wondering where I went so terribly wrong.

Sleepless

I rolled around in my bed last night, tossed and turned and thrashed, covered and uncovered, sweat and shivered, muttered imprecations at the gods of sleep and sleeplessness.

Insomnia snuck up on me a few nights ago and clamped me in its jaws and now it's shaking me like a terrier with a rat in its teeth.

There are two things that can help me sleep when I'm like this, and I'm without both.

Sex and pot.

The former is no guarantee, but it's fun to see if it'll work.  The latter does work, but it's not possible at this place in my life.

In the dark, while I am not sleeping, my mind scrabbles in its confinement, turns endless circles, hums snatches of tuneless tunes, quotes fragments from books and movies, la, la, la, la, la.

Things are falling apart here, but I can't say it's a bad thing.  Uncomfortable, painful even, but life does that and I can handle it even if I don't want to.

Hunger

Has it been too long, my shadows?  Have I been trapped in amber and lost you?  Are you ragged and tattered, cobwebs and wisps, keening in the darkest deeps of the Lament, moaning your anguish at being abandoned?

No.

No, I think not, my beloved shades.

You know I cannot leave you for very long.  You're too much part of me.

I have been distracted, but you're still here with me.

Are you hungry?  Shall I feed you?  I didn't realize how starved we were, all of you and me too, until lately.

We're prowling, now, aware of the emptiness and wondering how to fill  it.  Beware.  Beware!  So very hungry...

I felt full.  Didn't I?  Wasn't I?  But it takes more than one meal, even a feast, to keep one from feeling those pangs.  It takes regular meals of filling stuffs, a constant diet of healthy things.  It hasn't been healthy, has it?  No.  We have supped on fairy floss and empty promises, illusions and words devoid of action and therefor meaning, and we didn't notice that we were rotting.

We.

Me.

Empty and rotting.

How have I not noticed that I was starving?

Something happened.  A word, one word, showed me.

Cunt.

Hard, sharp, reminiscent of unpleasant things and ugliness, cunt.

Something died.  I don't know if it can be revived.  There is only so much.  I have limits.  They are far, far past "normal", but I do have them.  Apparently "cunt" is one of them.  Something died.

Something died and I looked around and felt sad and pained and lonely, and hungry.

And there you were, my poor dark places, forlorn and waiting.

Waiting for me to come back and give myself over to you, let you gnaw on my bones.  Go on then, darklings.  Go on.  Eventually I may find my footing, find what will fill...fulfill...and you will have to wait and see if I return regularly or leave you again to your own devices.

Hello Again

There are darker places to be than where I've been for the last year, for the last more than a year.

Darker, worser, angrier, hate-ier,unhappier places.

I am sure of it.

I can't name any off hand right now, but I can't believe I've found the deepest, darkest holes to crawl into.

I'm feeling like I don't exist, like I don't have substance, that I'm just kind of here in a corner kind of waiting and not much mattering, until the door opens and I can step through to the other side and be done with all this mess.

I am tired, my friends...exhausted...worn slap out, squeezed dry, used up, done.

I don't honestly know that I will bounce back.  Probably.  I mean, I always have.  But I think...it will be...a much more difficult bounce.

Ain't It Grand?

Motherhood.

I love my kids.

Most of the time, we're fine.

Sometimes, though, I wonder how much happier I'd be if I didn't have kids.  Sometimes I wonder what it's like not to have other people entirely dependent on me every moment of every day.  Sometimes I wonder what it feels like to run an errand, read a book, type a blog post, or even get a drink of water without having a little shadow following behind pestering with questions about what I am doing, or why, as if I haven't done it  a million times before and answered those same damned questions a million times, too.

Sometimes...not all the time, not even often, but sometimes...sometimes, I wish I didn't have my kids.  I always love them, let's get that straight, but once in a while I really do think I'd be happier NOT being Mama, Mommy, the woman responsible for every damned aspect of their lives.

I can't eat, drink, sleep, or go to the bathroom in peace.  I can't cook, clean, do laundry, or carry out the trash without being interrupted a dozen times with questions or requests for food, or something to drink, or a toy or book or to watch TV, all things they are capable of without my help for the most part.  I tell them to get their own water, banana, turn on the TV themselves, and they look at me like I'm speaking Esperanto.

If my kids were taken away today I would be devastated.  I would cry, be a hot mess, possibly have a little breakdown.  But then?

I'd adjust.

Yeah, yeah, I'm a horrible person.  Well...I know myself well enough to know I would hurt, but then I would get up and get on with life because that's what I do.  I can be miserable and still do the dishes, because I am a mad multi-tasker, yo.

Hell, it's what my own mother did - abandoned us with our grandparents, knowing full well how terribly abusive my grandmother was and how indifferent my grandfather was, she handed us over to them and never looked back.  Four years.  She spent four years "getting her head together"...and I understand, I do - being a single mother of two kids?  Is exhausting.  Having a few minutes to just not be mom, relentlessly, endlessly, grindingly, mom...oh, how marvelous.  She had four years.  In that four years, in the moment, it didn't seem like she missed us even a little.  She had a life, went on dates, worked, went to school, sometimes called us or wrote, even visited a few times, but we weren't anything NEAR the focal point of her life, SHE was.

Honestly, I couldn't tell you what it's like to be able to just take care of myself.  Honestly, I don't know if I would even begin to know how.  Honestly, I don't know if I've EVER known how,

My mother got rid of her kids and she was just fine.  I'm so very like her...I bet I'd be fine, too...we adapt, in my family, roll with the punches, chug along, keep keeping on...and in my little daydreams about finding somewhere to put my kids (certainly NOT with abusive grandparents!), I would always get them back after a little while, be a better mother for having rested and gotten rid of so much of this anger (not towards them, no, but anger is anger and colors everything), and move on from there.

It'll never happen.  You'll get my left lung out of me before I'd give my kids over.  NO ONE can raise them, love them, appreciate them, like I can, and it would be a worse form of abuse to let them feel, even for a moment, that I didn't absolutely need them in my life, than it is to yell at them sometimes for making another mess, following me around whinging for cookies or ice cream or wanting to know if they really have to eat all those peas on their plate before they can have dessert.

Yup.  Motherhood - cleverly disguised as a combination of psychosis, nervous breakdown, exhaustion and exultation since the dawn of time.

It's Just Water, After All

I am crying.

I am crying because I am tired.  Because I have had a long week of exceedingly early mornings, late nights, and not much down time in between, and I have had my two kids with me almost the entire time with no break, no rest, no help.

I am crying because I am sexually frustrated, and because I feel unwanted unless he's aroused and desperate, and blamed when he's frustrated because I am exhausted and don't wake up when he climbs into bed after I've fallen asleep, and makes advances.

I am crying because while I was working all week a crockpot full of pot roast was rotting on the counter, even days after I asked him to please empty it, because while I was away last week he put it on to warm but then left it out, so it has been festering for 8 days.

I am crying because one of the cats has suddenly started peeing and pooping on the table, the kitchen counter, in the hallway, and on the clean laundry in the hamper that I haven't folded because I haven't had time.

I am crying because I am supposed to be sewing a quilt for a charity auction but I can't seem to get it done; every time I try someone or something else needs my attention, and so for the first time in my life I will break my word and be a worthless oathbreaker.

I am crying because the dryer vent hose keeps detaching from the wall vent, and he said he would fix it more than a week ago but hasn't, so I have had to squeeze into the tiny space between dryer and wall and try to fix it so I can do laundry.

I am crying because he gets angry at the mess I haven't cleaned up because I am trying to clean up the beer bottles, the bottles caps (which I usually find with my feet), the spilled booze, coffee, water, seasoning mix, vomit in the sink, shit on the toilet seat, and other assorted messes he leaves behind but swears he doesn't.

I am crying because I have pulled or done something to a muscle in my neck/shoulder area and it hurts, hurts, hurts and I can't do anything about it because there is so much I have to do around the house and holding the toddler makes it worse but she WILL be held or whine, whine, whine, cry, cry, cry and I will scream at her to shut the fuck up because I will break, have broken, and can't stand the fucking noise, noise, noise.

I am crying because he went somewhere to meet someone and got lost and called me to get directions to a place I have never been and don't know and then screamed at me and hung up on me and called me back and yelled at me because he told me three different places he was at and expected me to instantly find him on the map and give directions, and my phone died and he called the other phone and chastised me even more because I didn't answer when he hung up on me and then called back, then yelled at me again because I was trying to give him the directions he asked for and it was wrong because he wasn't at the place he said he was at, but somewhere else, and I don't know where that is and can't just instinctively find it on the map but actually have to look...and he has a mapping app on his phone that he could use but for some reason doesn't.

I am crying because I feel like I have nothing left to give, or at least nothing left that anyone wants.

I am crying because my life is inundated with the stench of shit, piss, rot, and filth.

I am crying because I am cold and don't dare turn up the heat, I am hungry but am weary of being the only one who cooks for the family and even if I have just fed the kids if I make anything for myself they want it and circle me like buzzards begging to share with me and I don't have it in me to deal with that right now.

I am crying because I feel awfully alone when it comes to dealing with these kids, unless there is criticism to be offered and then I have plenty of people, even strangers, happy to tell me how I am doing it wrong and ruining my beautiful children who love me despite my ineptitude, and how I should be raising them instead.

I am crying because in the beginning I thought he loved me, believed he loved me, and now I think he just resents me for what I cannot be or do and wishes he wasn't trapped in this festering life with me, could leave me behind and think of me only as that fat, nasty bitch who tried to ensnare him and didn't care and treated him so poorly and how lucky he is not to be stuck with HER any more.

I am crying because I want love but know, deep down, I don't deserve it and don't get to have it, but that doesn't stop me wanting it so much I ache constantly and sometimes try to believe I can have it but then find it's just an illusion and I don't deserve love, I deserve scorn and derision and abandonment and to be shown over and over that I am worthless, useless, not worth the effort.

I am crying because I am a curse, and anyone who is involved with me soon has cause to regret it because all I do is ruin lives.

I am crying because I have swept the floor three times this morning and it is messy again.

I am crying because I wonder if I will ever be able to just love and be loved without it turning to shit because it's me and that's what I am due...shit...

I am crying because even when I am away, I am responsible for what happens here, and there's no peace, no quiet, no rest at all and I worry about his drunkenness and anger and what is happening to the house, the animals, the children, worrying about the mess I will have to clean up when I get home despite having left a clean house before I left, because I am the only one who should be doing that sort of work, I am the woman and the mother and why should anyone else do it, and people are judging me and I am selfish and horrible for asking for a few days in a year, how dare I?

I am crying because there is no one here to see and feel burdened by it, because I don't get to cry or feel bad when there's a witness because that's an imposition and no one wants to suffer through that, it's too much to ask, really, and anyway I have no right to complain because I deserve this, I brought it on myself, and since everyone else is so much wiser and better than I am I should listen to them and live my life according to their advice and since I don't, I can just deal with it alone because I am too stupid to listen.

I am...crying...

It Must Be Nice

It must be nice to talk to someone on the phone and hear sweet words instead of anger and blame.

It must be nice to feel loved wanted instead of resented.

It must be nice to feel cherished.

It must be nice to be held.

It must be nice not to be yelled at all the time for things that aren't your fault.

It must be nice to know you can go somewhere without worrying about who is watching the kids, and how.

It must be nice not to have to struggle and beg and wrangle and plead to have a few precious minutes of peace.

It must be nice to be loved.

It must be nice.  I wouldn't know.

EnvyGrief

So.

A friend passed away a few months ago.  Her family held the memorial this past weekend.

For more than a month I have had to ask, cajole, remind, and worry about whether He would watch the kids so I could go.  He agreed to, but sometimes...a lot of times...he forgets things.  Alcohol and pot will do that to a body.  It worries and frustrates me, and I have to constantly take memory loss into account when making plans.

I went to the memorial, a trip that meant I was away from Friday night until Sunday afternoon.  I wanted to leave earlier on Friday, but it didn't work out.  The Boy's father picked him up on Friday, so He only had the girl to contend with.  I even arranged for a friend to come over and help out Friday night and Saturday morning.

At one point He was irritated because he had worked all week and now he wasn't getting to  have a weekend.  I bit my tongue.  When's the last time I had a weekend?  Hell, when's the last time I had an hour, or even fifteen minutes???

I went, came home.  He was somewhere else, but brought the Girl home.  Then he left again, went off to have some "quiet time" because he's had the Girl for all that time.

I don't get to have quiet time.

Then he was gone for hours - off playing at the lake with some friends, diving in the water, drinking, smoking pot, having a fine old time.

I didn't know where he was, and he did't let me know he'd be late.  I got dinner.  Got the Girl bathed, got both kids to bed, and wondered.

It isn't nice to feel lonely, superfluous, unwanted.  How on earth is one lonely when one has two kids, a man, four cats, and assorted other critters about?  I manage.

When He told me what he'd been up to, I thought it sounded nice.  And I was glad he'd had fun.  But...I had some unhappy thoughts, too.  Thoughts I couldn't voice because he would take them wrong, take them as a judgement, as offensive.

I wondered what would happen if I just...left...saying I was only going to be an hour but not coming home until midnight or after?  What would happen if I didn't call or text or let him know where I was or what I was doing, if I left him home with the two kids and went off and had my fun and never once thought about how he was?

I can't just take off for some peace or to hang out with friends.  I must bring the children with me or find someone to watch them, or else I have to ask and ask and be willing to endure the bitterness, the talk of inconvenience and how HE can't do what HE wants because I need an hour here and there, or because I would like to do something that cannot include the children.  I feel like I have to beg to simply run to the grocery store, and of course even that small thing is a big deal because it means he has to parent, and how dare I ask him to do that?  And when I DO manage to get a little time for me, it is broken up by phone calls, texts, questions about where's this or what's that or how the kids won't behave or he can't find something or something has gone wrong, angry voice, angry words, on and on.

The thing is...the Girl loves her father.  She adores spending time with him, is always excited when he comes home from work, delighted to have his attention and to share the world with him.  And he loves her.  He loves watching her play, loves playing with her...but only on his terms, when he feels like it...and if it gets in the way of anything else, he becomes bitter and angry.

I was thinking, last night, that it must be nice to be able to just take off without worrying if someone else is having to take up the slack or work around your absence.  I wonder what that's like...

Bitter Pill

"...the bitter pill I swallow is this love that's killing me..."

Last week, a person I do not know told me I was hot.  I asked him when he last had his eyes checked.

Last week, the same person told me that I need to believe I am worth loving.  I shrugged.

Last week, a different person told me I deserve better, I deserve a good partner who will treat me well, a partner who didn't constantly treat me with anger, derision, abuse.  I laughed and told her I don't get to have that.  I don't get to have kindness, compassion, and decency.  I get to have neglect, boredom, blame, anger, recrimination, and misery...or I can be alone.  The good ones?  Elsewhere interested, always.

I have this deep well of love that is constantly being drained but never refilled. I have this aching need for comfort and kindness that is never met, leaving me feeling alone and empty.  I would like to feel loved, accepted, cherished...but in reality all I feel is unacceptable and wrong.

I'd like just to be held close without feeling as if I am only being held so I will give a blowjob or have sex, and if I don't perform the sexual favors then I don't get to be held.

When even my words are useless because they cannot, will not, be heard, then I am useless...because my words are what define me, what make me, are my best and most powerful art and tool, and without them I am just a fat lump of flesh, a mass of excess protoplasm with nothing to offer except an example of what NOT to be.

Polyamorous.  What a laugh.  HE'S poly.  HE can take a partner whenever he wants, without so much as letting me know or giving me the tiniest bit of respect and asking me first...but I cannot even so much as speak to another man (even if I have no sexual interest and am just having a conversation) without there being rage...sometimes days of it...and accusations that I'm trying to replace him.  And when I point this out?  More rage and assertions that he is NOT jealous, that I should go find another man and fuck him and see how NOT jealous he is.

As if I could, or wanted to.

Worthy of love, me?  Hah!

It doesn't matter how much I say with my worthless words, doesn't matter what I do to show...he is convinced that I don't care and just want him gone, and the way he treats me and the kids and the cats and my friends the way he speaks and acts around everyone, as if we owe him something or are always secretly judging him or snickering at him...well...he's creating the very thing he has been accusing me of for years...not wanting to be around him.

God damn, but I'm tired of this morass of exhaustion and anger and accusation and hurt and blame and useless, pointless love...

The Woman Who Doesn't Care

This is how she thinks, the woman who doesn't care:
"There are only ten meatballs left.  Okay, well, if I only take two that will leave eight for him, which should be okay.  I don't really need them, any way."

And:
"Oh, how I would love some corn on the cob.  but he doesn't like corn on the cob.  I guess I'll cook green beans, instead."

And:
"I haven't roasted a chicken in a while, and I am craving it...but...he says he hates chicken...so...well...something else for dinner then.  Maybe I can make chicken when he's not here one night..."

And:
"I really want this book...haven't had a new one for years...but...if I buy this, then he will not have money for beer.  Oh, well...I can always try and find a book at the library if I can make it over there."

And:
"Oh, my shoes are worn so thin I can feel everything through the soles.  Thirty dollars for a new pair...whew...but then he won't have the new glass carboy he's been wanting...well, these shoes will last another year..."

And:
"I need clean clothes, but there's only a little bit of detergent left.  I guess I can wait...the kid need clean things and he needs to run a load of socks..."

And:
"I'd really like a little time for myself...but I am working this weekend and he'll have to watch the kids, so I can't ask him to watch them now because that wouldn't be fair, so I will just take them with me and give him a little respite before the weekend."

And:
"I'm so tired...and I got to bed later than him because there were all those dishes to do and I wanted to write a little and I can only do that when the kids are in bed, but he's asleep and the baby's up, so I'll get up with her and let him sleep a bit more, and maybe I can catch a nap with her later..."

But don't let what she thinks, says, or does fool you - he says she doesn't care so often, it must be true.

Dust

Every day, a little more chipped away
Little heaps of dust where I used to be
Waiting for the wind
To sweep them up
Worn down
And down
And down
I wonder how much remains
Simultaneously
I wonder how long before I am gone
Entirely
And know a little peace
Perhaps I will enjoy
Riding the wind

I Get It

I get it.  I'm not worth the effort.

I don't even deserve a polite response.

So sorry to have bothered you.  I'll try not to let it happen again.

Grind

I watched a grist mill, once.  Powered by water, stone wheels turning, building shaking, gears and posts rattling, tremendous noise as much felt as heard.  The miller poured corn, the wheels turned, and out came the meal ready to use.

Relentless grinding turned whole kernels into dust.

I know that feeling.

It's Silly Season, holiday time, the time of year when advertising and social pressure tell us we must give gifts or we are bad people.

Consume!  They tell us.  Consume and spend and don't think about the debt or the damage you're doing to yourself by being part of this environment, just consume!

And if you can't buy, buy, buy?  You're worthless, useless, you don't love your family or your country.

Bullshit.

I'm tired.  Tired of being a mother, tired of being a lover, tired of being the friend no one really wants around because she's always fucking broke and can't go out and play, so she either has to be carried or plans have to change to accommodate her broke ass.

I am tried of being a burden, and this time of year exacerbates the feelings, multiplies them one-hundred fold.

There will be no tree at my house this year, second year in a row.  I can claim it's for practical reasons - there's the toddler to worry about, pulling on branches, yanking ornaments off, climbing the tree, tearing into gifts and the like - but it's as much about affording one as anything.  I hate to admit it, but impractical as it is, I like having a tree in the window.  I like driving up after dark and seeing the lights.  It makes me smile.

Still, I can't pay the phone bill or even buy toilet paper, so how can I justify a tree?

Shit, I am sweating how I'm going to get gifts for the kids.  The toddler won't know any better, but The Boy?  He knows there are usually gifts and he will not understand that Mommy has no money...all he'll know is that while other kids are chortling with glee over their new toys and games, he'll be looking at a scarf and wondering where it all went wrong.

His father has money to spend on presents, so he'll get Christmas there.  I'm so far behind, so deep in the hole, that even if back child support and the next month's as well were paid, it wouldn't make much difference.

Sigh.

In the end, I have my family and we have a home and food, so I really shouldn't complain...and I know how lucky I am to have what I do, even as I will have to do without a bit.  It still wears me out, though.

Unlike the dusty meal at the mill, though, I can't just blow away - though I feel like I have nothing left of me to give, no more resources, no more endurance, well...on I go, slogging along the path towards the inevitable end...feeling the wheels as they grind.

The Wheel, She Turns

We are each, if our psyches are to be believed, biding our time until we can replace/be replaced.

Tossed away like so much rubbish throughout his life, he has no cause to believe in my love, my strength, my tenacity and determination.  He doubts my endurance, even as he seeks to wear me down to hasten his inevitable casting-away, so as not to prolong the pain, the waiting.  So much better if I simply throw him out now, is his twisted logic.

Unseen and unwanted throughout my life, walked past, overlooked, I have difficulty believing in or understanding his love.  I cannot trust it, trusting love having rendered more harm than happiness, brought me bankruptcy, loneliness, and sorrow.

Such a slippery and difficult to define creature, love.  When I am sorrowful and cynical (which, let's face it, is most of the time) I do not believe that anyone can live me, and I wonder what keeps him here, why he doesn't leave me for one of the women who would suit him better.  I think he goes through much the same process.

We do not trust ourselves, nor much love ourselves...how can we believe that others can?

And yet...I know I love him.  I don't want a life without him.  I trust him.  Not blindly, as I have given others in the past, but knowing he will be himself only, not some ideal of self that he or I has imposed upon him.  Eyes wide open, am I more the fool?

It does us no good knowing what we do about ourselves and each other.  We tumble around on the wheel, thrilling at the height, clinging to hope and memory at the lowest point, likely both wishing we could find the center and rest there with each other.