Dear Hearts,
I worked at Burning Bed yesterday with Jamie. She is 20. Half my age. I could be her mother. She is young, beautiful, not un-scarred by any means, smart, ambitious, compassionate and on the verge of Life after College. I wouldn’t want to live through my last twenty years again. But if I could go back to 20…I can’t. This is the life I have. I don’t even know if you call it life. This is what I’ve got.
Martha says that I need to decide where to land.
I can’t let go of the past. I can’t even throw out old panties—how can I give up a house.
Mom says the house is an albatross around my neck. Maybe.
Okay. Here goes—me just letting IT out.
This is probably not a good idea. It’s pie day and in an hour and fifteen I have to be ready to go to pie and drive with Aunt Faerie and Papa.
I never fully felt at home in My House. In fact, after we bought it—for a good three years it pretty much represented Asshole. I told my former therapist that My House was like a crouching Goblin waiting to pounce on me when I got home. I never felt fully home there.
Then when I divorced Asshole, I had to hold onto that house.
I was supposed to work at The School until 2039 and retire to My House. The one with six bedrooms, a spring in the back, a swamp pond,
My world was shattered. I had to keep the house. I did and I turned it into a self-imposed prison. Well, first it was a real prison where I had to sleep behind a locked door and lock up three other rooms so Asshole wouldn’t wreak havoc on all that was precious and important to me. He would hide the TV remote and then he broke the cable box just to make me suffer. “I like to see you suffer,” he said. I was not going to allow him access to all my things: material and otherwise. So My House became my prison. After he was gone Mom so lovingly helped me paint the bedroom and Barbie Fun Room.
My House was everything I thought I wanted: big, in the country, old, quirky, middle-class.
But it doesn’t even represent me anymore. It’s filled with pentagrams and Pagan things from the days of yore—before I converted. None of those things are bad. They just aren’t me anymore. I am not the Republican-Hippie-Witch.
I was crushed-on-the-floor-could-not-get-up-broken when I filed for divorce from Asshole. Divorce wasn’t even part of my vocabulary. Until it was.
I need to divorce My House. And this makes my want to wail, gnash and grind my teeth, sob, and never stop.
Yeah, I could sacrifice my life for My House—I could have for my marriage too. Had I stayed married I would have killed myself a long time ago.
I can’t afford My House. I don’t want to live there. I can’t live there and LIVE. It was in that house that I hatched the first Nuclear Option.
I did all the right things: college, job, marriage. All of those right things brought me to the brink of Death. I loved Asshole when I was divorcing him and…I don’t even remember what it was like to be with him. Not the good parts anyway. I don’t want to go back to My House in Ariel. Ariel is poor and there are no jobs. I could teach again. HA! I am isolated in Ariel. Asshole lives five miles away. I tried to fill my holes with stuff—Barbie, faeries, Pocket Dragons, collectibles…but my holes are still gaping.
I remember what it felt like to divorce Asshole—the inextricable, unbearable loss. I guess I have to go through that again. I know that I can’t live in My House. Writing this physically hurts.
At Jesse’s age I was a devout Pagan who was sure I was gonna it big as a writer. I couldn’t write fiction now if I wanted to. I never thought I’d be taking care of G-Pa in The Holy City on disability dealing with panic attacks every day.
I loved Asshole—I imagine that a part of me always will—but I had to leave him. I love My House—what’s inside it and the attachment I’ve sold to myself over the years to keep living there—but I have to divorce My House.
This is so not fucking easy to write. My face in twisted and pinched in pain or anticipation thereof. Like someone is gonna haul off and hit me.
I can’t promise God or anyone else that I won’t kill myself. I can promise that I won’t kill myself before my Mom comes on next Thursday. I swear to God and Mother Mary I will not kill myself for the next seven days. Hey, that’s better than no promise at all.
“We have a lot more Buffalo Hunts to go on,” Daddy said.
If I am here I have got to motherfucking believe that God wants me here for some fucking purpose—even if it’s to make sure G-Pa takes the right pills.
This House—Gram and G-Pa’s house that they bought over 60 years ago—this could be My House. This could be My Home. I could live in The Holy City. This House feels like Home—This House feels safe. The only really bad memory I have in when I was a little girl a miniature giraffe came out from behind the garbage basket in the kitchen and bit me.
I could make This House into My Home.
The Holy City needs a Starbucks—not that I can afford it. It also needs a restaurant that stays open past 9 p.m. But, Ariel doesn’t have those things either.
I want to be able to work again—I don’t want to be this way forever. Fuck. That’s the kind of fear that makes me wanna kill myself. But, I know I CANNOT go back to 40 hour a week job yet. I can’t. So, no matter the circumstances I can’t afford My House.
When I taught at The School my UC was ever-present. I stopped teaching and THANKS BE TO GOD my UC went into remission. I can eat like normal person. So unless I go back to work full-time in the East, I cannot afford My House. I could probably substitute or get a job as an aide. Do I want that? No. Ariel never felt like Home. Not the way Home Town does.
In these last few months, I figured Providence would provide. Providence has. Burning Bed hasn’t hired me yet. And, I am afraid they will and won’t. Terrified.
I love This House. It was built around the Civil War. Yeah, neighbors can see into my windows and I can hear their phone ring. And One-Tooth check out my tits every time I go out for a cigarette in the summer. But, I could feasibly be on disability and work part-time and support myself in This House.
I can’t see a tomorrow. I CANNOT FUCKING SEE A FUTURE. Martha says it’s because I haven’t decided where to land.
It’s gonna fucking gut me to divorce My House. It’s gonna fucking gut me when the inevitable happens with G-Pa.
He was so totally confused about the pills yesterday. He had no idea what he was and wasn’t taking. I had to lie to him at night—just make shit up—to get him to take the right meds.
The culture of the Mid-West is not the culture of The East and I miss that. If one more fucking twat makes a crack about where my horse is or how I have my cowgirl outfit on—I am gonna cold cock them no questions asked. Just BOOM!
“You’re dad really shot that?” “I didn’t know you could make a coat out of a deerskin?” “You have your whole Cowgirl outfit on today, huh?”
YES MY DAD SHOT MY FRINGE JACKET AND WE ATE IT AND IT WAS GOOD. ARE YOU A FUCKING IDIOT? IT’S NOT A COSTUME—I HAVE WORN COWBOY BOOTS FOR NEAR 20 YEARS AND I LIKE THE COWBOY HAT—IT SUITS ME. THIS IS ME MOTHERFUCKERS. SO BACK THE FUCK OFF.
I digress. But living in the Eastern Culture didn’t cause me to thrive did it?
More pain. More loss.
That house is all I have left of the remnants of my Old Life that was supposed to be. It’s all I have to show for these 40 fucking pathetic years. Although looking in the mirror this morning my tits and ass still look good and I have a good figure despite the pie and ice cream.
My House has lots of ghost of my past the pasts of others. This House does too—but they are not at malignant. There is a lot of joy and love in This House.
My House is last bit of who I am. Or whom I thought I was. Or whom I thought I wanted to be. More loss.
There has been so much loss and pain.
That’s what I want: to not feel pain all the time. I want to not fucking hate myself anymore.
How can I divorce My House? How have I wasted my life? Why am I such a fuck-up. Cut the femoral artery, Kate. Nope. Nothing doing. I promised not to do anything like that in the next week at least. We’ll re-open negotiations then.
That Kate who fled to Illinois—she needs to let go of the anchors and the “supposed to’s”
I am not at peace with this. Fuck the country drive today. If Aunt Faerie wants me cognizant and at dinner she can drive G-Pa around the country. I’m going to visit Gram and pray and smoke.
I don’t know where I see myself landing. It’s wasn't in Albany with T.
It’s not in Ariel either.
It hurts so fucking much. Please God.
Not fucking reading this over. Just fucking posting it.
Smoke ‘em if ya’ got ‘em. God Bless
In the name of The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Mother Mary, Saint Brigid; Saint Jude; Saint Therese Lisieux; Saint Peter; Archangel Michael, and my Guardian Angel, Jed.
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