Tag Archives: betrayal

May 13, 2013

Visitation Concluded

By t.dot

So…

I went to go see my Mom yesterday, as she commanded. It was on odd visit to say the least. It seems all she wanted to know, in a nutshell, is if I still wanted to be part of her family…

Really???

I understand that she is 87, recognizing her mortality and basically just wanting and waiting to die, (her words, not mine) but her memories of our life together have definitely been eroded by the cottony softness of age and fluffed up convenient, fresh ideas on ideal motherhood. She is now assuming to know what is best for children, has wise and sacred knowledge to pass on to my sister about how she should raise her son, as if my mother herself were the epitome of perfect parenting! I am BAFFLED to say the least. Perplexed. Outraged. Insulted. And yes, a little pissed at her presumptuousness.

When my Mom called, demanding to know when I was coming to visit her next, she was very no-nonsense about it all. Abrupt. Curt. And a little intimidating. For a whole week I felt like a kid who was waiting for Dad to come home and give me the strap for stealing change from my teachers purse to buy candy. (Yes, true story. I was a sugar thief! ) And the anxiety was acute, I assure you. I ditched and dodged and faked my way out of going too deep into the feeling, but the waiting was agonizing. You know when a lover calls you and leaves that cryptic message “We need to talk.” and then makes you stew in that information all day till you see them? Well, this was akin to that. The endless thoughts of possibility bombarded my brain and ricocheted with dizzying frequency.

Did she want to change her will? Did she want to come live with me? Was she going to tell me that in no uncertain terms was I or my siblings to enter her into a seniors home? Was she going to ask that I assist in her dying? Did she not understand that I am gay and wanted clarification? Did she want me to take a more active role in her recovery and demise? Did she want to come live with me? (Yes, that was a concern.)

When I called her back to confirm that I was indeed coming for a visit, on Mother’s Day no less, she poo-pooed the significance with sarcasm, but seemed in a lighter mood, so I asked her what the nature of this seemed emergency was. She simply said that every time I had come to visit her since she’d had her fall, I was with someone, so we hadn’t really had any private time together. Again I was floored. Private time? Me and my Mother??? What on earth would we do with private time? And the idea of being alone with her was more then a bit daunting,  especially since I had no idea what she wanted to talk to me about.

I told her that I would be arranging a ride because it was just easier then taking the Greyhound and relying on St Catharine’s transit and told her that if she needed to talk with me privately, I would ask my ride to wait for me in the car or keep themselves otherwise occupied. She then asked how my eX was and I told her he was fine. She always asks about him. She likes him a lot. Probably more then she likes me. When she told me that she wouldn’t mind if he were present and that she would love to see him, the gavel slammed down in my mind. Done! I called my eX and asked him (told him actually!) to take me.  He agreed. There is nothing he doesn’t know about me, nothing my Mother could say to shock, offend or make him uncomfortable. Turns out I was wrong (sorry M). In her usual lack-of-diplomacy-and-say-whatever-comes-into-her-head kind of way, she offended him within the first 2 minutes of seeing him.  The first thing she said to my eX was that he had changed and had gained weight.

What is it with people over 70 feeling the need to comment incessantly on people’s weight whether its the gaining or losing of it. My eX’s parents do the same! It must be a generational thing! Sooooo inappropriate and completely insensitive, but they just don’t see it that way!!! Amazing. I could tell he was properly offended as he sucked in his wine-beer-cheese-salami-loving and not-very-large-at-all belly and said that he has gained and lost and gained and lost over the past 10 years. Touche!

After giving her the beautiful, plump dozen of yellow roses, which my eX had paid for lol, I left the kitchen to pee, and was gone less then a minute. That’s all it took for my Mom to ensconce him in living room, pin him in a corner and begin her interrogation. I heard her ask him why he and I weren’t together anymore just as I entered the room and he laughed softly, looked up at me, gestured with an outstretched arm and said, “Why don’t you ask her?” If it had been anyone else I would have been mortified, but my eX knew what he was in for before arriving, so our eyes locked with mutual understanding. My mother, on the other-hand, looked like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar! It was quite humorous actually. I have rarely seen her looking uncomfortable or guilty. She is always so righteous about everything.

Anyhow, the conversation quickly, albeit a little awkwardly, turned to confirmation that my eX and I are the best of friends, that we are closer now then we have ever been and that he still, in his way, takes care of me – which made my Mother happy and she told him she loved him for that. And it struck me fresh again, that she has never told me she loves me. Ever. I know that was her way of saying she loved him for taking care of someone she cared about, but sometimes you  just want to hear the words, ya know?

Shortly afterward, I asked her what was so important  that she needed to see me. Her face kinda crunched up in mild agitation, eyebrows furrowed, shoulders tensed and she rubbed her palms along her thighs before throwing them out in well-remembered exasperation. “I just want to know if you still want to be part of my family!”

Asking me if I still wanted to be a part of her family was the last thing I had expected. The emphasis on her family kind of hurt, as if it were already a forgone conclusion that I had never been a part of her family. She could have said “the” or “this” family…just sayin.

I sat there on the floor barefoot and Yoga-Buddha style, momentarily stunned. My pause was perceptible but minoot. “Of course I do.” I answered incredulously. “Why would you even ask me that?”

She visibly relaxed into the couch and said, “Well, I just thought you might have some issues around it.”

Jesus! Issues??? Old woman, if you only  knew!!!

My mind raced, frantic for a moment , like a deer in the headlights I didn’t quite know how to respond! Here was my chance! I could say anything right now and justify it because it had been invited. I could tell her that she had been a terrible mother, that I never felt that she loved me, that she never showed me any kind of real affection, that I had spent my entire association with her seeking her approval, desperately wanting validation that I had worth and merit in her eyes, that I wished she hadn’t made me feel like such a disappointment. A loser. A failure. As if nothing better was or had ever been expected of me since I was after-all,  just the poor, ignorant, uneducated, adopted colored child and not of her superior academia genes.

Issues!!! Noooo Mom, I don’t have any issues. (Yes, that was sarcasm!)

So many thoughts and questions screamed for release from the shadows of black memories that have never been able to turn to light. I wanted to cry and stamp my feet like a petulant child and ask her why she even bothered to adopt me if she wasn’t capable of loving me and making me feel wanted. Why subject a child to that kind of cruel punishment? I might have been better off in the orphanage…unadopted yes, but also living without the false hope of being made whole again by a mothers love.

The conversation twisted and wound around and around. My eX’s presence kept it light for the most part but my Mom did tell me that when I first came to live with them, I was such a cold child. That I was incapable of showing or excepting emotion. She told me that when she used to come in and tuck us in to bed and kiss us goodnight, I would just lie there cold and unresponsive. I had a harder time imagining her coming into tuck us in and kiss us goodnight then I did believing I was an emotionally unresponsive 6 year old. I have absolutely no memory of her ever kissing me goodnight. More of the cottony softness of age memories, perhaps?

Anyhow, I told her that when I was 15 I had actually met the case worker involved with me when I first went into the Children’s Aid at the ripe old age of 2, and that prior to being adopted I had been in 27 different foster homes. I wondered if she had even been aware of that. It just surprised me that she could recount how “cold” I was as a child and never once attribute it to anything in her retelling of the story. Children are not born “cold”, Mother. She didn’t really bat an eyelash at that, but immediately went into attack mode of my biological mother – whom she couldn’t stand ( and to her credit, with reason) and said that I had to forgive my biological mother because she had never been given the tools to raise a child or be a responsible parent. That she was a damaged individual. That I couldn’t blame her and that she probably did her best with the limited tools she was given.

It was the perfect segue…

I told my Mom that I had called my biological mother a few years back, and that in that conversation I had hoped for some answers and some closure. My biological mother was an alcoholic, mentally unstable and a lesbian. But more importantly, she tried to kill me. Literally. And, if not for the intervention of one of her lovers and the grace of the almighty, she would have succeeded. I never understood, and still don’t understand how a Mother could ever hate her child so much that she would actually want to kill her with her own bare hands. Still sends chills deep inside.

That conversation had been a bust. When I tried to ask her the questions I desperately needed answers to, she simply cried foul. Asked me what I wanted from her, cried and sobbed and told me couldn’t handle the conversation. She ended up hanging up on me, but just before she did, I realized that I was never going to get the closure I was looking for. None of the answers. No earth-shattering revelation that would heal my wounds and suffering. Nope. In that moment I realized “This is as good as it’s ever going to get.“ I sighed. I released. I let go. Two years later my sister called to tell me she was dead. I mourned her passing, with deep sadness for what never had been…for about an hour. And then I sighed again. I released. And I let go. For good.

My Mother listened to my story and really didn’t have much to say. She told me the one mistake she thinks she made with me was going back to work so soon after I was adopted. She thinks now that she should have stayed home longer with me because she knew I had never been in a “family” before and needed time to get used to the situation. She told me that she had asked me set the table shortly after I had joined the family (in the hopes of us bonding in some way) and when she had asked me to set out serving spoons as well, I didn’t know what serving spoons were.  Strange, the things that stick in her memory. Apparently, I was a cold, unresponsive child who didn’t know what a serving spoon was. Great.

Then I finally asked the BIG question. The one I have wanted to ask most of my life actually. The one for whatever reason, until now I hadn’t found the courage to ask.

“So Mom, why did you choose to adopt me specifically?”

She promptly replied with a shrug of her thin shoulders, “You were available.”

Aaah, there it is. That warm and tender sensitivity we all know and love. I felt winded by the brutal dismissive. How the fuck do you argue with that? What more can one say? It was such a simple, blanket statement that really required no further explanation. But it was so…cold.

She went  on to tell me that my sister had wanted a sister, and my Mother being 38 at the time was not about to get pregnant again, so they decided to adopt. They called the Children’s Aid and the worker they spoke to on the phone, told them if they were in rush, a six year old colored girl was available. My Dad, sister and brother came to meet and take me out for a visit to Upper Canada Village, which I remember quite vividly. I’ve always wondered why I don’t have any memory of my Mother on that day and now I know it was because she didn’t come. Odd. Why wouldn’t you come to meet your perspective daughter??? I can hear her now. She was fond of calling us “you people”. She probably sent the family off,  minus one Mother figure, (thankful for some time to herself no doubt) and told them, “If you people like her then bring her home”. As if I were a puppy, or a kitten or a new couch.

There was no romance in my being adopted into a white middle-class family in the 60′s. I was simply….available.

Lucky me. Right?

So, the realization gleaned from my short and bittersweet visitation?

“This is as good as it’s ever going to get.”

My mothers are/were flawed and damaged human beings who did the best they could with the tools they were given to raise their daughters. But, the reality is, they are/were simply human and I have finally learned to accept that truth for what it is and put the pain of  feeling forsaken in a pretty blue box and stick it on my shelf of forgetting.

I sat on the floor, barefoot and Yoga-Buddha style, looking at this frail, fragile, white haired woman, once a formidable, larger then life, indomitable figure who dominated my childhood and realized that whether she has ever loved me or not, I love her. She is the only woman who willingly took on the role of my Mother, good or bad, fuzzy love or not, and through a quirky kind of osmosis, has instilled the steel in my blood that has allowed me to survive all that I have endured. And now she is old and tired and ready and wanting to die, as she told both my eX and I repeatedly, without morbidity and with complete candor, from the moment we stepped across her threshold – right after she told him he was fat :)

So, when my Mom told me she thought I might have some issues with being in her family, I smiled and looked her straight in the eye.

“No, Mom.” I said, “No issues. I’m good.”

And I meant it.

15 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Mommy Nearest

March 16, 2013

Shifting

By t.dot

To say that these past few weeks have been spent in self-reflection, denial and a deep depression would only be a kernel of the truth of the present state of my existence. Epiphanies have been abundant, but fleeting in their grasp of my happiness and life has seemed weak and helplessly unable to contain the magnitude of realization and emotion ripping through my consciousness.

Lost and alone in a darkness I’ve been told is of my own making by an unsympathetic and impatient observer, I have had no lightness of being, no reprieve from this internal misery, and my hope has been fading each day. My very reason for being has come into question. Repeatedly. The moral compass that keeps me in touch with me is spinning out of control and I don’t know how to stop it. Or talk to it again and slow it down. I have locked myself inside myself and forgot to leave a note as to the whereabouts of the key.

Words, which have usually been my solace, my guide and at times, my only friend, have melted in the heat of my thoughts leaving a sticky, gooey substance too thick for comprehension, self awareness of self-compassion to penetrate. There has been no light touching the understanding usually present in my mind. It is there. I feel it. Always on the cusp of the horizon. But my feet, my hands and my heart is bound in this sludge and I have been a prisoner of its suction. Pulling me deeper and deeper into the darkness…

And then, just moments ago, I found this link, which had been sent to a sister blogger in need, whom I adore, from another sister blogger who I also adore.

And I had a moment where I felt the sludge give way, ever so slightly…

http://www.osorhan.com/bigo/

(Ann, you know I love you right?)

18 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Random Me

February 20, 2013

Safe: A Four Letter Word

By t.dot

I had another talk with V yesterday, the 26 year old baby dyke at my local grocery store, and she said something which is still clinging to me like an embarrassing piece of toilet paper on the bottom of my shoe. She’s a very perceptive and astute young woman who has told me (bragged about actually!) that she can size up a person in just a few minutes of conversation. Lol I think she may have my number. Crap. But, then again, I’m an open book. Literally.

During our conversation the number of relationships we’ve had in our lives came up. You would think me being almost twice her age would mean that I’ve had just that much more experience. Lol nope. Not the case. When I told her that I’ve only had about half a dozen lovers (not including my limited  ‘encounters’ with women ;) and that I’m one of those people who meets and falls in love with and then stays forever in a relationship, she told me – while asking my forgiveness for the assumption – that she thinks I’ve played it safe.

Instantly, I wanted to pounce on that shit like a feral cat on a wily street mouse. Squash that silly, annoying, taunting contagion before it could spread any of its nasty truth. In fact, I did deny it! Vehemently. Me? Playing it safe? Hell nooo!!! I challenge and stretch myself in areas I would never have dreamed possible prior to! I hang off cliffs – metaphorically speaking – all the time! I boldly go where people just don’t go! I push myself into un-comfort zones ALL the time! I am NOT a coward! I have been brave enough to live this life!!! Damn it.

Ego jumped in and boasted about how I was so done with monogamy and wanted to try the poly-amorous take on relationships.  After all, this “love” thing hasn’t been working out so well for me, ya know? Told V I was totally down with having more then one lover. That I would prefer and welcome the opportunity to meet, feel an attraction for and ultimately sleep with women simply for the pure sexual experience of it. And to be honest, I really don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

Part of me has always been envious of the sexual freedom experienced by those who can and do sleep with whoever the hell they please. (safely, protection, all up front, yeah yeah ;) I am a sexual deviant. I admit it lol. My sexual life has been pretty vanilla till now. Limited. Unexplored. Not of my choosing. But because I’ve only been with one partner ever, who really wanted to play. I have always had a strong sexual appetite. And it hasn’t fully been satisfied. I’m not sure one person can fulfill all my fantasy anymore. My hunger has grown to ferocious, peaking now and in a most interesting and often times, confusing manner.

I was cut to the quick by near remorse for my proclaimed propensity for bed-hopping when V told me, with unquestionable certainty, ‘she could never do that‘. That she has to take time to know someone before she sleeps with them. That she is looking for someone special. Something special. Something very few people seem to have, she said, but once she sees it she will know it. Violins were playing in the background, two lovers running across an open meadow, songbirds mating in perfect harmony and the air was filled with the scent of lavender and tulips… Then, just when I was starting to feel like a slut for saying I wanted multiple lovers, she vindicated her baby dyke/lesbian membership card by telling me about “this woman” she had just met and how they had crazy-ass sex the other night!

Screech! Ping ping ping!! Violin strings snapped, the lovers collided, the songbirds fell from the tree and the musky scent of sex filled the air as a base, tribal drum began beating in the distance. Uh huh. I smirked. Who’s the slut now bitch? Lol. I’ve said it before and I will say it again! Time is not the same with lesbians. It’s like dog years and humans lol!

So, V proceeded to tell me about her sexcapade with a 40 something woman (she’s into older women. who knew! lol). Apparently this woman had made the assumption – and vocalized it! – that V wasn’t as experienced sexually. That she was gonna “school” the baby dyke. Yeah. Right. If you knew V like I know V…um. BIG mistake! This baby dyke is not someone to back down from a challenge! So, as V so eloquently put it, she ‘armored up’ and corrected that shit straight up! I will just say the retelling of their bondage-slave-I’ll-show-you-who’s-in-charge night made me squirm a little and cross my legs ;)  As for the time it took to go from “hello” to “fuck me”, my overall impression is that it didn’t take very long in dog years!

When I teased her about age sometimes benefiting sexual expertise, V said she likes taking away a strong woman’s sexual power. Her narrative about them wrestling for who was going to be on top had me in stitches…But, it also scared the crap out of me. There’s are whole breeds of lesbians out there I know nothing about!

And that brings me back to the ‘safe’ factor.

V is not the first person to tell me that I ‘play it safe’. Maybe that’s why it irked me so much. P has accused me of the same thing in reference to my eX. She told me that I chose him because he was ‘safe’. She made it sound like a dirty word. Or maybe conceptually “safe” sounds like ‘coward’ to me? Maybe it was simply because there was a truth in her accusation that I wanted to deny? A truth about me that I wasn’t prepared to face?

The irony here of course, is that people are now telling me that perhaps I have stayed with P this long because she is ‘safe’. As in, she is known, familiar, comfortable…a safe person for me. I know her. I know her ways, her likes, her dislikes, her habits, her quirks, her selfishness, her generosity, her gentleness, her hardness, her kisses, her sex, her smell, her love… Even with all her crazy. She’s a ‘safe’ crazy.

So, last night, that voice kicked in. You know the one I mean. That niggly one you want to kick out of your head the second you hear its voice? “Aah, but what about love girl?” it taunted mercilessly. “Are you brave in love or do you play it safe?” ” “What kinda of partners do you pick?” “What kind of people do you choose to stay with?” And why?

Hmm. Niggle niggle. Damn it. Thanks V. The germ has been planted.

Shit.

This self realization stuff sucks.

14 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Random Me

February 11, 2013

Irreparable Damage

By t.dot

An unsent text to P…

Your snide comment last night about me not “getting it” at all was unappreciated and incorrect. I do get it. I get it because it’s not that complicated. You’re not that complicated. Your needs and wants are fairly basic and simple. Like you.

The problem is now, and has always been, your behavior when those needs and wants aren’t being satisfied. We are currently in a situation that has escalated to this point due to an example of that bad behavior. You seem to think that because you’ve apologized and promised it won’t happen again, that I should readily and easily be willing to forget the damage caused and move back into a position of safety and trust with you. And when I’m unable to do so within the time frame you’ve allowed, you get angry, paranoid, frustrated, accusing and insensitive.

It took a long time for me to get here P – to this place of distrust and total confusion about you. The constantly picking at me and the essence of who I am, the put-downs that made me feel small and inadequate, blaming me for your unhappiness and worst of all the disparaging constant reminders that I’m not like any other person you’ve been with and that no relationship you’ve ever been in has been as full of turmoil, drama and frustration.

Somehow, I must admit, I do find that hard to believe.

You tell me now that you’re unhappy, that you walk around on pins and needles. That you don’t know what I’m going to do from one minute to the next. That I have some kind of power over your life and treat your emotions as if this relationship were a game to me. That I’m just “playing” with you.

Really?

Wow.

I think that may be the cruelest things you’ve said to me yet.

I have always tried to treat you with patience, acceptance, understanding and love even when you hurt me so deeply I didn’t think I could get back up again. Sure I have been scared and angry and said some unkind things out of that fear and anger but I have never ever not taken your feelings seriously or treated them with the respect they deserve.

The thing you don’t seem to “get” is that you began this dance of emotional insanity between us with that ferocious need of yours to be paid attention too, to be loved, to be consumed and to be put before and above anyone else. When you felt that was being given to you, you became the loving, compassionate, giving and generous partner I’ve always wanted…but when those needs weren’t being met you became mean and selfish and demanding.

The irony is that you’ve now created an insecure, confused and unsympathetic partner for yourself out of a woman who was once strong and confident and empathetic to all your scars and tragedy. And you want her back. The one you met 4 1/2 years ago. The one with the laughing eyes, the easy smile, the fun, the wit, the humor, the sex… Who would have given you the moon and the stars if she were able, who did make you the center of her universe and who did put you before others, at times even before her own daughter – a fact I’m ashamed to admit – who would have played into all of your sexual and domestics fantasies and who would have shared your sense of adventure.

And yet you’ve done every possible thing to destroy her!

Why???? Is that how ultimate your need for control is? Ruin, breakdown and then rebuild in your own image?

You tell me that I don’t talk to you. That I don’t tell you how I feel. But I remember a time when I used to talk to you non-stop. So much and so fast in fact, that you couldn’t keep up! I used to tell you exactly how I felt. I used to share my dreams with you and talk about the future. But, apparently, you were never listening. Not really. And the day I realized the truth of that statement, is the day I stopped talking.

You probably never even noticed because, as always, you still had so much more to say.

But now…

Now there is nothing left of her but a hollow shell with a ghost of a smile filled with a useless sadness. And yes, a growing, simmering deep rooted anger that this has never been what it should have been…could have been. So beautiful. So perfect in loves wonderful imperfection and would have been if you had understood from the beginning that “we” was not simply about you. That “we” had an “us” and in that “us” there was me! An equally valid member of this relationship. One whose needs were voiced but never fully acknowledged – but I suppose I have only myself to blame for that. I didn’t scream loud enough to be heard over you.

I have heard you, listened to you, hurt for you and wrapped you in my love a thousand fathoms deep, a thousand times over to try and show you that you were cherished and loved. By me. Fully, completely and honestly. And in return you have snarled, hissed and even bitten me in my efforts to soothe your disquieted soul. And over time my love has weakened from the continual battering of its walls, it has cracked openly from the brutal attacks that rip at its mortar, and now it is truly in danger of crumbling into a broken, dusty pile of fractured rubble that will never be rebuilt again.

You say you are unhappy. You say you don’t know how to “be”, what to say, what not to say… You sound just like me now. But you have always mirrored me. Perhaps, its that fluid Pisces things you do? You say you’re afraid to be yourself? Well, to that I can only respond with the deepest regret, “welcome to my side of the relationship”.

I wish you weren’t here with me. Hell, I wish I weren’t here. But I have been living in this barren, cold and unfulfilled wasteland for quite some time…catching glimpses of beautifully inviting  mirages and oasis’ of  misty lush havens. I touch the cool grass, I drink the fresh water, I rejuvenate and begin to feel comforted by their pleasing affects and then “poof” it’s all gone. And I am alone again in the scorching wilderness of your virtual abandonment filled with curious, questioning scorpions always ready to attack if I move the wrong way. Because once again, you’re needs aren’t being met by some inadequacy in me.

So my love…

I think we should say goodbye.

I think we have to.

There is nowhere else for us to go.

As much as I know a piece of me will die without you, an even bigger piece of me is dying with you. I can no longer see the silver lining of our emotional cloud. It’s dark and gloomy and depressing and the rain just never let’s up. And I’m too beat up, too tired and too emotionally drained to fight for this anymore. I don’t even remember what it is I’m fighting for now. Whatever sweetness we used to share has turned sour from discontent. Whatever compassion we had for each other has turned to contempt. Whatever we once had the potential of becoming is far removed from the reality of what we have become. This is not how the story was meant to be written.

I have loved you deeper then I have ever loved a partner before.

I held on for as long as I could.

I wanted your sweetness more then life itself.

But you weren’t able to give it long enough for me to grab hold of and feel its stability.

I wish I could have been who you needed me to be.

But I’m not.

I wish your love had never hurt me.

But it has.

And sadly…

Irreparable damage is not negotiable.

13 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Random Me

January 10, 2013

Foot Soldier

By t.dot

I am a foot soldier of life.

A nameless. A thankless. A dispensable.

Engaged in this bloody crusade to teach you a better way of human being.

But, make no mistake. This path was not my choice…

I am a weary combatant enmeshed in the dark, polluted battles that thrive in the blackest pits of humanity so that you can have your life, explore your fantasies, realize your dreams and live in the light.

I am the warrior who, with my battle scarred body, allows you to be who you are even though I can never be who I am.

I am the one who allows the rape so that you can remain pure and unscathed.

I am the one who gives so that you can take.

I am the reason you are happy.

I am the reason you have memories of times when things were simple and easy and filled with laughter.

I am your peace of mind.

I am the facilitator of harmony.

I am the all-knowing aunt who calms the family squabbles and reminds you all how much you truly love each other.

I am the friend who reminds your partner that you have never been unfaithful and aren’t about to become so now.

I am the stranger who smiles sweetly at your “not so cute” baby and validates your role/identity as mother.

I am the woman who holds the door for you, a man, and gives you that knowing, playful smile as you pass close enough to smell my womanhood.

I am the balance you need to blanket your sorrow as if it never existed at all.

I am the one who commiserates when you’ve had a bad day and takes your abuse when you’ve lost patience with the world.

And I am the one that reminds you, when you feel small and helpless and insignificant, that you mean the world to someone.

I am the voice inside that corrects your bad behavior and the remorse that you feel when you don’t.

I am the one desperately holding on to the shining hope in that thinning, single stranded, damaged tapestry that weaves your life together.

I am the one watching its glow diminish and fade into an ashen ember of what once was being replaced by what now is.

Your pride and ignorance, your brutality and greed, your selfish lust and perverse desire, your reckless pursuits and foolish abandonment, your powerful manipulation that oppresses, your bullying and victimizing, your prejudice and blasphemy, your angry spite and jealous rage is twisting your truest colors into psychedelic spirals of brilliant malice.

And still I can see the beauty in you.

I am an angel in her most perfectly failed form.

But I am your undeniable, imperfect salvation.

I am a foot soldier of life with blistered feet and battered soul, wearing only the markings you have carved in my skin.

Yet each day I rise and take up the battle again.

So that you can have your life, explore your fantasies, realize your dreams and live in the light, all with the assurance that you are deeply, forever, unconditionally loved.

(Aaaahhh. Frustration be thy name. I just needed to write something!!!)

11 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Random Me

January 3, 2013

Homeless in Toronto

By t.dot

Don’t even ask. Explanation will follow.

But, one thing I have learned already in this new year is this:

If the tears smudge the ink, it’s too soon to write.

Sigh…

Still trying to come back here but circumstances being as they are, I will have no access to the internet until this coming weekend. I do, however, have access to a laptop just waiting for me to burn my fingers on its keys…so perhaps, if I can, I will write now and post later.

In the meantime, I do wish you all a belated Merry Christmas and all the very very best for 2013!

Oh… And when you lose your new gloves in 15 below, retrace your steps and find them!

Namaste  xo

3 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Random Me

November 13, 2012

Burst & Apologize: The “Prettier” Abuse

By t.dot

” a·buse: defined as the systematic pattern of behaviors in a relationship that are used to gain and/or maintain power and control over another. When one defines domestic violence only in terms of physical abuse they do not fully understand the dynamics that keep these relationships together. Emotional and verbal abuse, which consist of swearing, bullying, attacks on self-esteem, blaming, criticizing thoughts and feelings, damages a person on a psychological level and alters their reality often leaving them with a strong sense of hopelessness and no means of escape…“

Hmm…

Yup, you’re probably correct in your assumption. Took me a four years, 3 months and a gazillion verbal onslaughts before I finally accepted and connected the dots. I am in an abusive relationship. And ironically, it was my emotionally and verbally abusive eX husband who pointed out the frightening yet undeniable similarities between himself and P. What a fucking light-bulb moment that was, let me tell you. Sigh. I think this is going to be a long post, split in two…maybe three. Crap, it might never end.

Where to begin? It’s been weeks since my last confession. I’m a little out of practice, but here goes…and yes…this will be  a rambling, incohesive rant.

Late one night, about two weeks ago, I came to the shockingly stark realization that I am in another abusive relationship, when I found myself literally tip-toeing around my ‘home’ in a near anxious, fear panicked state that I might inadvertently wake P from her sleep and have to deal with the wrath of her big, loud, intensely frightening anger. And in the midst of my creeping and shsh-ing all inanimate objects and external noises like the fridge, the cupboards, the toilet and my freaking breath, my eX texted to see how a school project I’d been working on was turning out. I texted back that it was going well. P and I had argued before she had gone to sleep and I was upset and needed to talk. I started to text him some of my anxieties. About 2 minutes in he asked if he could call. I said yes. And the conversation that took place over the next 15 minutes – of which I mostly listened – literally changed my entire perspective on my relationship with P and brought home a truth I could no  longer deny. In his words, “You left me for another version of me but with a vagina.”  Fuck. Seriously?

He reminded me – not that he really needed too! – of his wickedly nasty temper, how he could fly off in any given moment without much provocation and explode with cruel insensitivity. And then literally, moments later, would apologize most sincerely, often times in tears he felt so wretched. And I would forgive him every time. I would accept his apology. But one day I finally told him that every time he did that to me, it took a piece of me away from him. And it did. I told P the same thing. He told me he saw how much he had hurt me, saw it in my eyes at the moment and that he tried so hard to stop it from happening, over and over again. P has said the same thing, over and over again. With my eX it continued for many years. 15 to be exact. He’s learned to manage his anger over the years, but he still has a wicked temper and it still makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable when I feel it coming on. And so does P’s. Difference being that I don’t have another 15 years in me to defuse someone else’s anger issues and tip-toe around my life in fear…and even if I did, I wouldn’t!

He called this explosion of angry temperament “burst and apologize”. And told me P does the exact same thing. That it’s never really personal. That the anger is really self-directed. That they are both just angry people. Great. I’m not sure I will ever be able to interpret that in a healthy enough way for me to able to unpack the damage it inflicts on me. The fact that it might not be personal and the anger is directed inwards doesn’t really help the victim who has to ward of the verbal punches. It didn’t help me with him, and it doesn’t help me with P. But I must point out one huge difference in their attacks. My eX never made it personal. I know how odd that must sound but his anger was usually circumstantial, situational or environmental and directed at something other then me. He was actually rarely every angry at me, I was just unfortunate enough to be in the path of his storm. I never once felt like he deliberately abused his place of privilege in my heart and in my life – which is probably why we are still so close. I am in no way excusing his behavior or denying that I suffered continual emotional abuse at his hands, but he never, ever attacked the core of who I am.

P does. She has always fought dirty. Learned behavior? Maybe. Detrimental. Definitely. Excusable. No.

In my ignorance, I allowed certain behaviors in the belief that because this was my first lesbian relationship there were subtleties, nuances and language that I was unfamiliar with and my inexperience of how to deal with these unexpected behaviors were the cause of the dysfunction. In short, I blamed myself. For a long time. My self esteem plummeted and I questioned everything about who I was. Prior to meeting her I was a pretty confident person, full of optimism and light. And in my ignorance, as I have said before, I thought that love between two women would be kinder, gentler, sweeter and more understanding then between a woman and a man. But, lemme tell you, a woman can be just as much, if not more, emotionally abusive then a man could ever be. Women know where the deep shit is buried, they know how to hurt and will go for the jugular every fucking time when they’re needs aren’t being met. Grrr…so another post!!!

So, after that deeply honest, vulnerable – (on the part of my eX who cried while confessing his remorse and the fact that he is finally in therapy to deal with his anger issues…btw so is P now) – and emotionally touching and completely revealing conversation with  my eX, I sat on the couch dumbfounded. All the memories of past abuses, and there have been many, flooded in and I was awash with a feeling of certainty. I was ‘there’ again. And I started to cry. Heart wrenching, chest racking body shaking sobs…placing my hand over my mouth so that I wouldn’t make any noise. Ya, I know. Messed right?

Truth is I have always known the truth, have whispered it in the dark recesses of my mind on several occasions, but chose to observe and contemplate from the sidelines till now, always finding excuses for her behavior and rationalizing with explanations that she herself had given me, all the while trying to come to terms with the damaging blows on my psyche.

I was in denial.

Red flags be damned.

I didn’t want to believe that I had stupidly walked blindly into another manipulative, controlling debilitating mind fuck of a relationship.

Things had already gone from bad to worse, but after that conversation they just continued slipping on a downward slope. The arguments, meanness and bullshit escalated cuz now I was really in the fight too. I don’t take to being a victim very easily, I’ve had enough!!! And I was pissed off enough to fight back.  If she thought she could continue to abuse me emotionally, fuck her! Yes, I got mad and called her on everything. I became the nazi nag bitch she had called me just 2 1/2 months ago. Funny how if you hear negative things often enough you start to believe them, become them, and allow them to alter your perception of who you are. And after a final culmination of grueling confrontation we both hit the wall. She came home a week ago last Saturday after working out at the gym and after another bitch session, said she had had enough. That she wanted a break.

For me that signaled the end. Once and for all. I am done. I am not going to dangle on that string of hope again. It’s demeaning and humiliating. I deserve better.

A year ago P had left me alone, in a depression of the blackest kind. I was unemployed, our relationship was as rocky as it had every been and I fell into a deep depression. Not surprising I guess. But she told me then, that she needed a break. That she couldn’t deal with “my life”. I can not even begin to tell you how devastated her words left me. I felt as if a lifeline, her lifeline connected to me, as tenuous as it was, had been yanked out of my hand and I was completely bereft and alone. She left me to fend for myself and find my way out of it. It was the scariest time for me that I can remember in a very, very long time and thoughts of suicide danced with my demons on many a moonlit rise. Her abandonment told me she only wanted the light and happy Trish, that the dark and confused Trish was too much, even if P herself was at the root of much of my unhappiness… And sadly, it told me that she would never truly be there for me when my chips were down. That was a hurt whose wound has never healed.

When I eventually fought  my way to the surface from those black waters, she wanted me again. Again, messed. And fool that I am, I was grateful. But, I told her if she ever did that to me again, I was never coming back.

You do some fucked up shit when you’re in love and as twisted as ours might be…love is love. And even though I am angry, disillusioned and hurt beyond repair, I am still in love with that abusive bitch and I have to believe there’s a sane reason why. But be that as it may, I have to be done. I can’t do this anymore. But god, it would be so much easier to deal with this if I actually hated her. When things are good between us, there is no place on earth I would rather be. I have clung to that dream for so long…it’s hard to let go. I mean, how do you stop loving someone just because they are incapable of giving you what you need?

But ya…she did it again…I did it again…and here we are. Living together now as room-mates, all pretense of having a normal, healthy, loving relationship has spiraled down the drain like dirty murky bathwater. Since moving in together we have lived in the anxiety ridden, perpetual state of being “one minute away’ – a term I affectionately coined as meaning we can slip into a fight at the drop of a dime. And how did we ever get here? What started this mad roller-coaster we have been on for four years now? P has a mean, hot temper and in that heat she has bullied me and verbally and emotionally abused me. She knows it and I know it. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.

But I didn’t fight back.

Maybe I should have?  Maybe I have enabled her somehow? And now that I am fighting back, she calls me mean and nag and nazi bitch. No fucking irony there, huh? And ya, I know there is a reason why she is the way she is, but should that be a blanket excuse for bad behavior???

Her quick, hot volatile temper bubbles up like a boiling pot of water, but subsides quickly once you take it off the burner. Her mother had a quick temper. Her father had a quick temper. Her brother still has a quick temper. The entire family must have resided in angry demonstration of verbal abuse from day one of her existence. It’s no wonder that this type of behavior has become second nature to her or that she sees absolutely nothing wrong with ‘bursting’ and then ‘apologizing’ , as if somehow the apology negates the damage done and the continual acceptance of hurled abuses should be a given. I’m sure her therapist will have a field day with the inner workings of her mind and the psychology behind her behavior. Might be fun to analyze, but try living with it.

My question to her therapist? Does that type of socialization make the burst and apology syndrome acceptable? Is it a justifiable excuse to continue the abuse outside of its origin?

I don’t come from that place. Not one of the myriad of families I lived with growing up yelled and screamed at each other the way P has told me her family did. But that’s not to say that I haven’t experienced abuse. I have come to discover that there are many forms of abuse and that they aren’t always as obvious as a punch in the face, though at times the effects are just as devastating, if not more so. A broken face can heal. A broken spirit may not.

My question to myself? Am I so broken, so damaged by my beginnings that somewhere deep inside lies the belief that I don’t deserve better then to be abused by people who say they love me? That shit started really early and the possibility exists and scares the hell out of me. Am I really that person?

Sigh…to be continued

18 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Random Me

September 19, 2012

Red Flag

By t.dot

Today I just vent… not eloquent with edit. I’m too rattled and have no energy for it. Being a full time student again has zapped my time for creativity.  Time management will cure that inconvenience and I’m beyond thrilled by this new adventure, but this post is not about my wonderful new path as a Community Worker. That will come on a happier day…when I wake up next to enlightenment instead of disillusionment. Better be soon, damn it!

So…

P has accused me of being afraid of domesticity. She thinks that I think it will kill our relationship. She thinks my lack of enthusiasm for it, prior to moving in together, was because at the end of my 16 year live-in relationship with my eX I had grown bored and complacent. At least, that’s her interpretation of my circumstance.

Truth is, there had never been any real passion between my eX and I. We fornicated, but we never really made love. We hugged and kissed, but there was no “zing”. We touched each other, but there was no sensual exploration of the senses. It was a mutually satisfying arrangement that worked for many years, and in many real ways we were very happy, but it wasn’t my idea of a passionate relationship.

Sex was simply sex and a means of orgasmic release. It was perfunctory. It seemed to be all that was necessary. For him. No offense guys, but you really are much simpler and easier to please. Don’t get me wrong. I love my eX madly. He has been my savior in more ways then I can count, my best friend in times of desperate need and in so many ways, my hero. But, he has never truly been my lover.

And I wanted…still want, a lover.

Domesticity didn’t kill our relationship, boredom did. For me anyhow. Lack of spontaneity and sense of sexual adventure. We got bogged down by the ebb and flow of responsibility. Raising a daughter. Paying the bills. Making sure there was enough for life. The continual compromising to co-exist, to meet the ‘norms’ of his family, to compete with the Joneses. He was and still is, a socially competitive man who wants all the trinkets and toys of success. I’m a lot less materialistic. I’m more the spiritual, tree-hugging-hippy-kinda-chick who gets off on sensual exploration and kisses that melt my bones, not the number of zeros on my bank statement.

I value money by recognizing its importance, but I don’t govern my life by its influence. So, yes, we were different. And ultimately, those differences became more then our similarities – (although I am happy to report he connects more and more with his spiritual side and has improved mental health because of it and he seems happier for it. smile) But, we drifted apart emotionally. Sexually. Or at least, I drifted.

I needed more then the white picket fence and 2.5 children. It’s for many. Just not for me. I get it. But, I always thought, that even with all that, (monetary success) you should still be able to find balance, find joy, find pleasure in each other and to my way of thinking, there is no reason why you can’t still have hot, steamy, sweaty sex more often then not. Once I realized that was not going to be the case, I allowed other filters to unblock – hence my ‘coming out’  – and out of fairness to both of us, I chose to leave. I wanted to leave while he and I were still friends. I saw the red flags and cared enough to not overstay my welcome.

When I met P, sexually I thought I had found ‘my lover”. And in many ways I had. She was a woman whose priorities were all about pleasure and spontaneity. In short, a true lesbian. And I was in heaven. Passion was high high high on her list. She excited me from morning till nite with her innuendo, her blatant, sometimes shocking, open sexuality. I was never in doubt that she wanted me. Ever. It was in that knowledge, my own sexual confidence grew and I started understanding the true power of my sexuality.

The sexual energy between us was insane. So intense. She made love to my mind long before she made love to my body and I was hooked. The wanting palpable. The need beyond hunger. I had never known such panty-wetting, melting desire before and I was consumed by her. I woke thinking of her. I fell asleep wanting her. I was obsessed and I didn’t care. I fell deeply, madly, irrevocably in love.  In lust. She was everything to me. I would have done anything for her, and often did. My entire universe revolved around her.  The P experience was everything I had imagined…and so much more.

Almost.

I saw them, but chose to ignore them. Those  fucking red flags! It’s true what they say about love being blind. Passion making you weak. I was floating so far above reality, I didn’t think I would ever come down. Who wants to be bothered by “Warning Will Robinson” alerts when you’re in the throes of the most exquisite orgasms of your life? I sure as hell didn’t!

But, fall I did. With a crash. Painfully, brutally and without cushion. And the disappointment soon took the place of those exquisite orgasms. And much too quickly, at least much to soon for my liking, my sexy, passionate lover became a mean, verbally abusive, complaining woman never satisfied with anything or anyone in her life. Especially me. And I bore the brunt of her anger and frustration. It hurt. A lot. And I shriveled up inside.  The bubble no longer glistened, the dream began to crack and break into sharp, tiny fragments I could no longer piece together with my tears. Our ‘honeymoon” was a short, beautiful powerful burst of fireworks. And then, just like fireworks, ‘poof’ it was gone.

And, for four years I have been holding on, am still holding on, to the tattered remnants of that beautiful dream…

P says you can’t maintain that kind of intensity. Another lesbian recently told me the same thing. It confuses me. I say, why the fuck put it out there in the first place then? Do they have any idea what a devastating blow that loss is physically, mentally and emotionally? How difficult it is to adjust to a fishbowl when the full richness of the ocean was your learning playground?

When did it become ‘okay’ to give the gift of sensuality, sexual awareness and enfold another in the heat of passionate consumption and then abruptly take it away? Leaving them naked, alone and shivering in the cold to figure out just what the fuck happened to them? Why burn that flame so bright that it consumes your entire being, if you know it’s going to burn out in such a short time? Wouldn’t it make sense to try and tame it a little, control it just enough to ensure that it lasts longer then the common cold? Longevity seems to be an “L” word foreign to lesbians.

Ouch.

Perhaps, I am just bitter now and that was an unfair generalization. But, I am bitter. I feel cheated. I was lured in by the invitation, a promise made to my body, given satisfaction to my curious and restless mind, stimulated into believing there was truth in the lust and brought to heights of physical and sexual awareness I never dreamed possible. I fought, then lost the battle for protectiveness of me and embraced the woman bearing all these extraordinary gifts.

I trusted her intensity. Her passion. Her conviction. Her desire for me paled all prior passions to white. Her smile set butterflies in my belly a flutter. Her deep, knowing laugh – which still affects me to this day – sparked a heightened sexual awareness in me otherwise unknown. The ‘accidental’ touching. The soft, sweet, breathy kisses.  The smutty, deliciously obscene sexting. The thrill of anticipation. The chase and eventual capture. She’s very good at the game of sexual pursuit. It’s where she lives. Exhilarating. Breath taking. More please. More.

I want to be wanted forever. Desired with the same intensity with which it began. And I want to want my lover in the same way. Is that really too much to ask? Or do people just give up too easily? Because it’s too hard? When did paying the bills, making grocery lists, food shopping, cleaning the house and doing the dishes right after dinner become prioritized over sexually intimacy? And don’t give me that crap about “love changes”, “passion cools and sex becomes less important as the relationship deepens!” Anyone who ascribes to those notions is a fool. Or simply satisfied with complacency. Which to me, is one in the same!

Relationships that endure are made up of the same stuff that grew them in the first place. If lust, passion and romance is how you won your  partner, then you need to keep them alive to keep your partner. Removing even one of those vital components leads to expectations being miserably failed and unhappiness replacing bliss. Why else are divorce rates so high and affairs a “norm” in our society? It’s not rocket science.

What happens to passion? Why does desire have to wan?

Do we just get too tired and busy with life? Or do we just get lazy?

After the conquest, is it not a priority anymore?

Jesus, when did we cross that line?

For crying out loud! Write the grocery list on my ass! Dot the i’s with your tongue! Sneak me grapes in the shopping aisle! Spin “Let’s Get It On” and chase me around the house with the duster! Ignore the fucking dishes for once and drag me into the bedroom after dinner! Rip off my clothes and remember me. Remember us!

Change your bloody priorities back to a time when the living of life mattered. When there was passion in every touch, every movement, every smile. Passion with conviction. Feeling with soul. Need with heart. Be alive to the wanting to live. To love.

Be engaged, damn it!

Don’t let the mundane take over. That is a fucking red flag of monumental proportion!

That’s what kills relationships.

Not domesticity.

I was never afraid of living with P.

I was afraid that she would forget that I still needed her passion.

And she has.

She’s forgotten how to make love to my mind.

Red flag! Red flag! Red flag!

20 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Random Me

September 11, 2012

The Line

By t.dot

Recently, as in this past Sunday, I had a very real and almost sickeningly brutal awakening and was forced to once again ask the ever unanswered question; “When is enough enough?”

When does empathy border on masochism?

When does tolerance become a soul destroying kindness?

What makes a loving, careful and relatively sane person blink into murdering?

How do  you know when you’ve crossed ‘the line’?

Years ago, when I was the precious, vulnerable and impressionable age of 19, I fell into a destructive, violently abusive relationship. Life altering changes had my world literally crumbling around me and I lost everything of value to me. I was scarred, ashamed and completely bereft of any sense of self worth. A  predator found and then slithered in beside me, his  lascivious smile and forked tongue sweet with an exacting venom. A skilled abuser practiced in the art of seduction and manipulation. A terrorist in the truest sense of the word.

I was naive to the awareness of such cruel beings. I’m not sure that I have ever fully recovered from that sting, the cruelty of that person or those events which, often times, still have me waking up in cold terror. But, somehow, my guardian angel (oh yes, I have one!) led me into the arms of a friend who wrapped me in love and generosity, away from the blood and the beatings and the battle for domination and breathed new life into a mind intent on suicide and a body abused by men.

It was an unspeakable time.

Painful, chaotic, hazed in a cloud of cocaine and bankrupt of any compassion, humanity or understanding. Filled with greed, ridicule, violence and degradation. A place I swore never to find myself in again. Ever. My revisiting that place is almost always provoked and I am never, ever grateful to the provoker.

My mother made me revisit that place two weeks ago.

Her acrid tongue brought back my shame.

P made me visit that place this past Sunday.

Her physicality brought back my abuse.

Simple, selfish acts that have given rise to grotesque, monstrous memories and a kaleidoscope of fractured, dangerous feelings curling in my belly like a pit of snakes awakening, biting and piercing my flesh. Their insidious slippery bodies sliding under my skin, filling my veins, their venom paralyzing my heart. Killing my empathy for the bastard deeds of the insensitive and the selfish.

I can not forgive endlessly.

I can not bear the cutting edge stoically.

My flesh is human, my heart of my essence.

The line is visible.

And I want to cross it.

22 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Random Me

August 11, 2012

Mommy Nearest – Day 5 Ago

By t.dot

I realized my mother was no longer in love with my father when I was about 10 years old. I never questioned why my parents didn’t ‘kiss and stuff’. I just figured my dad was always in the dog house, like the rest of us. And hey, didn’t all parents sleep in separate single beds?

My mother never seemed anymore pleased with my father, at any given time, then she was with us kids. I think that’s why I felt such an instant kinship with him. He was constantly trying to win her affection too. She always seemed annoyed with us. Spit out the term “you people”  – (as she so affectionately referred to us) – as if we were a scourge. Scum of the earth. The very bane of her existence. And muttered incessantly under her breath about how we didn’t appreciate anything she did for us. And why did she even bother.

Her frustration grew louder over the years, and so did her muttering.

I had no perception of how parents were supposed to love each other. How it looked. How it felt. How it tasted. How it smelled. How it sounded. All of my senses were ignorant of such knowledge. I certainly had no idea what it was like to be immersed in it. Enjoy it. Aspire to it.  I had no basis for comparison. But even so, when I saw my mother openly rebuff my father, as if repulsed by his very touch, I knew I had witnessed something dreadfully dreadfully wrong.

It was a private moment. Not meant to be seen by anyone, of that I am certain. And I happened to stumble into it quite innocently. Just making my way from dining room to kitchen through the connecting swinging door, lost in my own little world of imaginings and adventure, heading outside to play. You know. Just another summer day. Cruising along in kid control. Blissfully unaware of the tensions that weighed heavily between the two adults I had come to appreciate as my parents.

I pushed the swinging door open, one foot landing softly on the lanolium flooring and came to a sudden stop. There they were. My mother at the sink, hands in soapy dishwater and my father standing intimately behind her, his hands on her shoulders. He leaned in to kiss the back of her neck and in that split second before his lips touched her skin, I felt such a sweet joy.

I can’t explain it fully. It was as if  I knew I was about to witness love in action, an event I had never observed before. Adult love. My parents love for one another. A love that, up until then, had not been revealed to me. And I was deeply affected by the beauty of the moment. Even then. With no real understanding of any of it, I was open to the endless possibility of what it could mean. My heart leaned through the doorway, championing, embracing, wanting…for something.

And then she moved. Away. Her entire body reacted with revulsion. Bitter, open rejection. Palpable. Heated. Ugly. And cruel. I know this because I felt it.

She turned her head, tilted her neck from his warm breath, arched her shoulders back,  and pressed her hips deep into the kitchen counter. Pushing herself as far away from him as possible. Her intent was clear. Her rejection obvious. The pain in the stain of the red in his cheeks, that she hadn’t seen and I alone had witnessed, was fleeting but, indelible as ink. She had scarred him. Deeply. Or perhaps, it was just another in a long line of many.

The sight deflated my sweet, building hope. My heart retracted with a dull thud. And I felt so incredibly, indescribably sad.

For them.

For me.

For all of us.

I had been on the brink of some new and incredulous discovery only to have it snatched from my reach before I fully understood what it was. I can only imagine how my father must have felt.

It was all so fleeting. Had happened so very fast, yet every time I replay it in my memory I see every nuance. Every line of their bodies. Vividly etched in my minds eye. His wanting to give and hers simply taking away. No loud voices. No arguing. No noise at all.  Just the quiet, undeniable death of love.

That I wish I had never, ever seen.

8 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Mommy Nearest

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 241 other followers