Don't Stop Believin'

I glanced at the calendar sitting on my desk, marveling at how empty it seemed. Up until recently, it was marked and highlighted with bills due and credit cards to pay. We've been able to breath the past couple months. As I was working on some inane project in my office, I started trying to calculate how much we used to have to pay for this and for that.
And then I thought, "How on earth did we ever survive????"
We are resilient because we never really know how bad something is until we are looking back upon it. That goes for the good as well--but mostly, not knowing the big picture of how bad things are is the only possible way we make it through
We, as a family, are going through a bad time right now. What stings the most is our awareness of it; how could we not be aware, watching a disease progress as we helplessly stare at the phone, waiting for the news, for someone else's death to be our saving grace for life.
I have learned the limits of love these past few months, finding myself contemplating the death of one to save another, my father. How I might consider killing someone else to save his life. It's all morbid conjecture, I know, and if faced with the possibility I couldn't ever really take someone from their family. But the fact that, in my mind, I might...it's chilling to say the least.
Up until yesterday, I hadn't considered anything other than the phone ringing, the surgery a success, my father returning to us a new man. But yesterday, I began to question my optimism, my hope, wondering if I was just being naive, or unfeeling or in denial--but then I was reminded by my very smart friend that I am often the only bright light in the darkness of our situation, the other side of the coin to the pessimists (or realists, as they say) that make up my family and my guilt evaporated, just like that.
Because if I can't get him a liver myself, the least I can do is to believe one will come.

Where Are You Going?

"We're almost there and no where near it; all that matters is we're going."

I have terrible recall, but for some reason I can always recite this quote from Gilmore Girls, my favorite show in the whole world. It's been kind of a mantra to me, a person who can't ever really sit still in her own head.
I woke up one day a few months back and decided that I was going to return to school. I didn't want to waste another moment feeling like a fraud as a self-proclaimed writer; or feeling directionless with a few unfinished novels under my belt. I need direction, motivation, criticism, a challenge in my life.
I love school. No, I LOVE school. Not so much the homework (but, as you can probably guess, I love writing papers!) or the mandatory attendance or the two intermediate french classes I have to take--no, I love the meeting of the minds that takes place in a very liberal college. I love the smell of the City as you walk out of General Classroom Building; the feeling of anticipation on the first day of school; syllabi's, I LOVE syllabi's'!!!
Okay, so a lot of this love is directed towards Georgia State specifically. Regardless, I'm excited to go back.
This decision has come with mixed reviews.
Anthony is always supportive, no matter what I decide to do. My parents on the other hand have been.......quiet.
Which translates into what I perceive to be as, "You're moving backwards, getting another bachelors degree. Have another baby!!"
There once was a time when their silence would have kept me up at night, caused me to rethink my decision. But honestly, there is nothing on this earth that would make me rethink my decision.
I am a decisive person. Once my mind is made, I can't bring myself to turn back. And I know a lot of people can't understand this, but I honestly feel that my decisiveness stems from a connection with the universe. When I am absolutely sure about a decision in my life, a sense of peace befalls me, the earth stops moving and when I close my eyes, my future lays before me, a perfectly lit path. I just know. And that is enough for me. I don't have to know where I'm going, I just know that I have to go.
I am on the cusp of a great adventure; the great unknown of my life. I am at the turning point of before and after. And I'm chomping at the bit to find out what changes lay in wait for me. A world of new possibility will blossom; and unlike before, when I was obtaining not one, but two degrees, I'm hungry to grab every opportunity presented to me.
So, I don't know if I'm going to end up with waaay more student loans than I intended just to teach at a university. I'm not going into this degree hoping to become a famous novelist. What I feel with certainty in my soul is that where ever this little endeavor takes me, I will find myself fulfilled.
So, as I held that acceptance letter in my hand, my mantra came to the forefront of my mind:
We're almost there and nowhere near it; all that matters is we're going.
I feel, for the first time in a long time, that everything in my life is starting to make sense.
I'm excited and I'm serene.

Life and Death and Pets.

2010 hasn’t been easy on me in terms of my pets. In April, I lost my beloved Boo Radley (beloved is an understatement, believe me) to a failing heart. And Friday night, we lost our cat, Tsunami Man. What makes his death heartbreakingly tragic is that he was killed by our dog, Bailey.
It all started with a tree that fell in our back yard, that broke open our fence and cluttered our back porch. We can’t leave the dogs out like we normally do, we have to ‘walk’ them. And when Anthony was out ‘walking’ the dogs, Tsunami Man bumbled onto the back porch.
Because of the tree, Tsunami Man was trapped, but at least Bailey was mercifully lethal. Anthony said it was over quick, within seconds.
I’ve found myself uncharacteristically darkened by this. Even more so because my dog took the life of our own in a violent, freak occurrence. I can’t really blame Bailey, who came to me with a natural aversion to the feline members of our pack. There is no one to blame.
It got me thinking yesterday about the purpose of animals in our lives. We love animals like they are our own, but, really, in a different way. Sure, I always loved Boo like my child, but really, I didn’t. I mourned him, I miss him, but it’s not the same as if I lost Oliver. Obviously not.
So maybe animals are here to prepare us for love and loss. Maybe not prepare us (because, really, can anything prepare us for the death of a loved one?), but acquaint us. We learn to love and we learn to lose our pets, who win our love and trust mush easier than humans, die much sooner than we do and who we as a people love with an intensity some cultures can’t comprehend.
I’ve never lost a loved one and I often think what I would do, or who I would become if I were to lose my husband, my parents, my best friend, my Mema. I’m uncomfortable with being unhappy, so much so that I tend to ‘forget’ the bad things so I can move on with my life.
When I lost Boo Radley, I was so uncomfortable in my own skin, the memory of his glazed, open eyes staring back at me, gone but not forgotten. Losing Boo Radley was my first taste of death. I’m 25 years old and fortunate because of it. I am unmarred from loss, my life yet divided between the before and the after. I am the person I will never be again once death has touched my life.
I miss you, Boo. And Tsunami, I’m sorry. You were the best of friends in life, and I take comfort in knowing you are together. If animals are here to teach us about life, I can only assume you’ll be waiting for us, to lead us on to the next part of our journey.

Goodnight, Elizabeth

One.

John.

It wasn’t the silence of the room, the absence of her breathing, but the coolness of the sheets as his hand found his way to her side of the bed, that alerted him, woke him from a troubled sleep. Thunder clapped outside, drowning out the pounding of his heart, lightning flashed, illuminating the fear in his eyes as his reflection appeared in the mirror adjacent to his bed.
The dread was omnipresent, lying dormant in his gut until a moment such as this. She was gone. It was never a surprise, but a realization, like a tumor you could see, but never acknowledged.
It had been coming for a long time. The upswing had lasted too long. Her gaze had become increasingly distant, her laugh a little too false. Three months of recovering from the last time, three months to re-establish their relationship before she shattered it again with the jack-hammer of her condition.
Bi-polar. Alcoholic. These words had been used in the past to describe her, but they meant nothing to John. It was just Elizabeth. She’d always been that way, before rock bottom, before small padded rooms and long nights of worrying and diagnosis and medications. They’d called it a disease, but John wasn’t convinced. A disease was something you could recover from, but Elizabeth would never change.
Still, he loved her all the same.
The phone interrupted the heavy silence, sounding louder than a tornado in the dark, scaring John as if it were. The dread cemented him to the bed. Was this the night, the moment? He wondered. Was this the night she died? Who would be on the other line? The police? Was she in jail again or in the morgue?
He moved slowly with lead feet. He found the phone beside her un-rumpled pillow. She left it there for him, right next to his keys.
“Hello?” John swallowed hard, bracing himself for the worse.
“It’s been a bad night, John, but she’s alright.”
“Why didn’t you call me sooner?” John asked, the anger taking him by surprise. “You know how she gets, Bear, you know the signs as well as I do.”
“I wasn’t working tonight, Maggie was.”
“Maggie knows better than you.”
“Maggie said she was fine when she came in. She only wanted to talk,” Bear said defensively. His tone softened. “You know how Elizabeth is. She blindsides us. One minute she’s sipping coffee, watching the news at the bar and the next she’s ramming a barstool through my jukebox.”
John grimaced. “How much do I owe you this time?”
Bear laughed once. “Maggie stopped her before she could do any major damage.” Glass broke in the background and Bear suddenly became muffled as his hand covered the receiver. John heard a feral scream in the background. He threw on his coat, his laces untied as he shuffled quickly through the house.
“You better come quick,” Bear said suddenly, “She’s worse than I ever seen her.”

Off to a Meeting.

And when it rains,
it pours,
and the words pour out of me
right about the time
there is something else to do.
And I am pulled away,
and I am sucked down,
and the words dissipate.

All I Want in an Ideal World.

I try to take myself
out of the context of what I see,
of what I hear and smell and know.
I know that I want children.
To feel the joy and frustration
of a mixed and messy and complicated
brood of family.
I also know that I don't want to work
sunup to sunset.
In an ideal world,
I'll publish my first novel.
Experience the joy of a stranger
appreciating something I fished
from the depths of my being.
Make a modest living,
enough to quit my job,
build a nice house,
with a nook all my own,
in which I will have great, wide windows
and walls of books,
and I will write,
and I will write
and I will have children,
and I will write.
And we will be happy.

Self-doubt.

I sit within colorless, windowless walls,
eight hours of artificial light
and conditioned stale air.
I am my own sunlight,
drifting in, telling of the day.
I am my own potted plant,
the delicate, chipper, yellow flower.
I am my own inspiration,
my own experiences.
I am my own desires,
feeling trapped,
knowing what I can be,
unsure of how to...be.
Words I need to express,
worming their way through and out.
So much untapped potential,
because I'm selling myself short.
Fighting against the desperate,
hungry, yearning need to write.
Fighting against the pleasure
of complacency.
Tears of frustration,
the urge of knowing
that untapped greatness,
or at least goodness,
is within me.
Sustained on the faith of knowing
where I am destined.
Hiding from the fear
that my dreams will decay in waste;
that I will wake up one day
and nothing will have evolved
from what is gnawing at me
from the inside out.
I have a feeling,
a great, deep, well of feelings,
that words are my contribution
to the world.
But is it enough?
Am I enough?
I am my own sunshine,
I am my own flower.
But am I enough?
And what will come of me
if I'm not?