The last couple of weeks have been really difficult on me. I was left stunned and completely speechless when I read her message and then as the day went on and she never returned, my anxiety started to build. I must have been in some sort of denial telling me that she would come back and at least read my messages – but she still has not.
Everything she has said to me over the last three years or really the entire eight and a half years doesn’t just go away. I can’t forget the incredible things that she said nor can I shake the moments that were on the more tragic point in life.
When I woke up in the beginning of August, I knew that it was just a matter of time before she took a phone break for his birthday – now I am left hoping that it only lasts a month or even a year this time.
I am not sure what I was supposed to think or do. What did walking away even mean? Why did she say she wanted to live with me? Why oh why do I let this hurt so damn bad.
Last night I went to Austin, trying to go out with my sister. Things didn’t go as planned. I ended up crying in a gas station parking lot when my car didn’t start right away and almost drove off without taking the gas pump out of my car. A guy saw and ran over and stopped me – I was still crying at that point. I drove home from south Austin crying and not knowing what to do. That’s what I kept thinking about why he would be extra mad when he found out it was me and not the other way around. I thought about how I betrayed him – because I was so excited to know her – and now, I am not even allowed to know her.
I have been screaming every pop song that’s been speaking to me – and crying a lot. I am not cut out for war.
I haven’t talked to my mom in ten days and I can only hope so hard that I will it into existent that she is doing what she needs to do to finally be able to support herself, again – not that she had ever done it well for long. That’s why she has so many last names. There was a time in my life that I was embarrassed that my mom had 4 kids but as I get older, I realize that I am sure that it wasn’t an easy decision to make. She grew up Catholic but I can’t imagine that ever affected her future decisions – but it could be why I have 3 siblings.
Now that there are three of us left and I pretty much take care of my brother (though many people have strong opinions about that) and my sister’s husband thing would never allow her to come stay with them, she still has no one to help her. My dad would if he could because he is one of the most giving people I know – but he has tried many times and he is too old to take the mental and physical abuse that she puts him though.
He hasn’t spoken to her since I sent her to GA with a one way plane ticket to live with a childhood friend that agreed to take her in after whatever abuse story she told him. There was a point my dad was worried that one of my mom’s drunk friends would believe her and come to retaliate. I am sure that he has PTSD from all that she has put him through. I am the only one of us that she has never physically assaulted but the one time she came close it absolutely terrified my dad.
We were in the kitchen that I grew up in. It was just over 20 years ago right after my grandfather passed away on June 30. She was in town for some child support hearing. I had ran out of gas coming from somewhere. My dad showed up to help me and she was with him. I know at that point I was extremely standoffish but there is no telling what out dynamic was. That was when my siblings were in foster-care and I was too young and far away to do a thing about it. They were in MO. My brother and I were allowed to call them once in a while. I feel like I just talked about that.
I really held a grudge and I didn’t know what had really happened or why they went. In the end, some people say that my sister came out to a psychiatrist saying that she lied about mom pushing her down the stairs. It was a steep wooden staircase to a basement, I can’t imagine that professionals couldn’t tell the damn difference. My sister says that she aged out of the system and that she threw a fit until my brother who was 12 months younger was allowed to go with her.
Back to the original point, the time I nearly fought my mom may have been the day after they put gas in my car. I was still living at home – was about to start my freshman year in high school. It was about the time that I started to get a little taller than my mom and though she was a gymnast that nearly went to the Olympics – I was in much better shape than per alcoholic 35 year old self. I was making waffles or something at the toaster and she said something that she knew would piss me off about my grandmother and everyone in the room knew exactly how I felt about that. It was the only time I had seriously bucked up to someone and I was about her fight her right there in the kitchen. My dad quickly begged me to ignore her with fear in her voice somehow reminding me that I was better than that.
I walked away and went to my room but I never forgot the day that I nearly beat my mom’s ass and I think my dad knew it. No one else in my family will hit her back and you bet she has physically abused every one of them. Brian only after her was an adult because my dad protected us well.
It’s true what they say about support systems. Though I often feel like an outsider as an adult – mainly because I think they judge Brian and I for my mom’s mental illness. They would probably rather our last name vanish with our generation than either of us pass on our last name – but who cares – not me. There is a lesbianesque story in there somewhere but I am not ready to tell it and I know better than to say such a think to such a person but yesterday I was having a conversation and I so badly wanted to say things that I found myself looking at myself in the proverbial mirror thinking what in the actual fuck.
Now for some music because I have lost my train of thought. Some really great things happened today and I almost wanted to tell her about the pizza that I was afraid someone threw away out of the freeze. I will tell one last story before I move on to songs that I listen too way too often.
Chronologically It’s some year long ago. I am sure there is arecord of the event but until then – it was around 2014 or 15 or some year. I call up the local pizza place where I happen to admire a pizza artist manager. She answers the phone to take my order and she may be away of such admiring so she doesn’t ask my name, possibly because I had invented a code pizza since I too am forever 14.
I go to pick it up and she doesn’t let me pay for it so as I float on cloud nine for a few days or however long. The uneaten pieces of my birthday pizza (I forgot that important part of the story it was on my birthday) stayed in my bachelor-like fridge for way too long. A friend of mine – who was too aware of the whole pizza love – was cleaning out the friend and told me to just put a piece in the freezer – so I did.
It stayed there for years to come until I had to move. I really didn’t want to move and I tried everything to find a way to stay but one by one every reason disappeared and I gave in. There was one big reason that I didn’t want to leave and the pizza in the fridge wasn’t it at all but it symbolized something to me that I thought a slice of pizza in the fridge that could contain biological warfare at this point would do something about. Eventually I moved that pizza into a deep freezer in the garage of the house I was staying in. No idea when, how I did such a thing without anyone noticing because if I have ever been called a hoarder – this one was not going to slide by anyone. I have now confessed to said pizza because I thought it was missing and promptly asked everyone about it not thinking about having to explain my question.
What I think makes the story worth mentioning is that sometime last year this classic pizza shop ended up closing its doors abruptly, so I do not think that many people had the chance to get their final slice. It is not edible by any means and my dad laughed and no one actually asked – probably because anyone that knows me know exactly why I have the last piece of Valentino’s pizza in my freezer.
Now for some music that tugs at my soul.
Fuel
This was the first song that I loved off the album but never understood it the way I do now.
As Is
I really appreciate the passion the live version.
Two Little Girls
Loom
Pixie
I don’t think war is noble And I don’t like to think love is like war But I got a big hot cherry bomb And I want to slip it through the mail slot Of your front door You can’t leave me here I got your back now You’d better have mine ‘Cause you say the coast is clear But you say that all the time So many sheep I quit counting Sleepless and embarrassed About the way that I feel Trying to make mole hills out of mountains Building base camp at the bottom Of a really big deal
Ani DiFranco – Independence Day off Little Plastic Castle released in 1998
Independence Day
You can’t leave me here I got your back now You’d better have mine ‘Cause you say the coast is clear But you say that all the time
I could never vocalize how this song makes me feel.
I don’t want to be afraid.
Photos from Bella Concert Hall in Calgary by Josh Platt
