I feel numb and She is hiding. I know she’s furious with me and she didn’t believe that I would go through with my plan to get rid of everything that I didn’t absolutely need or want…before we moved into our tiny home on wheels.
I guess it was my turn to pitch a fit. It happened when I was decluttering tonight, when I was down to facing the boxes that I hadn’t unpacked in over ten years.
She objected over every piece I tossed. She cried. She screamed.
She was so upset that she had me walking in circles, holding things to my chest, paralyzed by grief and indecision. After about an hour of circles, I snapped.
“Stop! Stop, leave me the f… alone,” I screamed as I dumped another pile of boxes in the middle of the room. When the pile was gigantic, I sat down beside it with a kitchen trash can beside me.
She left and the silence was eerie.
I quickly filled that kitchen bag, so I went downstairs for the green yard bags and I kept going.
I dragged at least six green bags full of papers, memories, CD’s and tapes down the stairs tonight and out onto the front porch for trash day. Plus, containers and boxes full of stuff.
My wedding dress got special treatment. It was 3:00 a.m. and I walked outside and hung it on a tree beside the yard sale.
My neighbor was still outside because she was getting ready to have a yard sale with me, and she said, “You have to take a picture,” and of course, I did.
As I took pictures, trying to capture my emotional whirlpool in a snapshot of a dress, I remembered the day I went shopping for it with my mum and how proud she was that I was marrying such a good man, a man who worked and took care of me and my three kids financially.
I remembered how happy she was to buy the dress for me, and in 1983, $27.00 was a lot of money.
The dress draped my tiny hips like it was designed just for me, and it made Mum smile because back then, I seldom wore dresses.
She special ordered artificial roses for my corsage and for the wedding, because I was allergic to flowers and I remember how the florist thoughtlessly sprayed them with rose perfume and I sneezed all day.
Our mind is like a computer and it captures every little thing we have ever done, seen or felt.
I threw the still rosy corsage away tonight too, along with a box of wedding day souvenirs. We never dreamed thirty-eight years ago it would end this way, my wedding dress hung in a tree for a yard sale, all alone in the dark. Big ouch.
Couldn’t hold on till morning. Needed to let it go, let it go.
He was here helping me finish up the packing and for the closing, and I couldn’t afford to show any weaknesses in front of him. It was a real test.
His heart was hurting as he saw me throw away our memories.
The picture Mum bought me because she thought it looked like us, my IHRA umbrella and dozens of presents he had bought me.
I think it hit him hardest when he saw my books start to go. Fifteen houses and thirty-eight years, through it all, he’d been complaining about moving my books. I always found ways to resist his demands to get rid of the damn books, because I loved my books. I had learned that if I carried the boxes in and out of the moving trucks, it wasn’t as bad, but even then, the “weight” it added bothered him.
I usually soothe him when he’s hurting, even if he’s sad because he hurt me, but not anymore. (Codependency, which I’m recovering from, one day at a time…amen.)
I probably went too far tonight, when I shoved She away with all my strength.
She left, but I know she will be back, so I’m going to enjoy this time without her.
It’s the first time in forever that she hasn’t been challenging me, quietly or violently.
(# 1 SHE Saga) She Wants What She Wants
Link above will take you to the complete list of She Saga posts.
This yellow hibiscus
has been rained on
and it has been beaten
senseless by the wind.
It has been bent
almost to the ground
and it fought storms
to stand back up again.
It stands proud and
yes, it stands tall.
It was shaken
and it was bruised
But not beaten after all.
13 years ago…thank you Jesus for taking me so far forward in my fight against Past…
Christmas is hurtling toward me again. My fifty-third Christmas season. The emotional burden of Christmas Past swoops down from the twinkling lighted trees and brightly lit homes that surround me. The blue and red flashing bulbs wringme out until I resemble a soiled, sour dish rag. I resist the waves of regret and remorse, work and work on my computer until my shoulders are on fire, EBayuntil my arms are no longer able to function. Work around the house until I can’t trust my twisted, deceitful hands (hands which used to be so petite, so pretty) to hold a Styrofoam cup of lukewarm coffee without letting it fall to the floor.
I’m tired. It’s time to lie down and accept my lashes. Lashes of regret for all the loved ones whom I’ve hurt, for all the loved ones who have slashed me with the tree switch of dysfunction, my remorse…
View original post 843 more words
The breeze in my face is sweet
and it tastes like the ocean in my lungs
although it’s not.
Then again, it really is because
that’s what it tastes like to me.
Freedom is a wildflower growing
where ever the wind blows her seeds,
in a garden or in an empty field.
Freedom tastes like the ocean
and looks like wildflowers
and freedom…she dances
with the confidence of seventeen.
Jeanne Marie, 2019
She takes me by surprise this morning. She’s awake and she’s crying.
“What’s wrong, She?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come mere, Baby.”
I open my arms and she comes to settle on my lap, her little face pressed against my heart.
I’ve had more patience with her lately because she has been working with me, instead of against me, since I got God involved.
As I gently rock her, she whispers, “I’m scared and I’m sad and I’m feeling lost.”
“Oh, baby girl. I have those feelings too. It’s okay to feel uncomfortable when everything is changing.”
“We won’t get in trouble?”
“No, we just can’t act out. We have to be big girls and work through our pain and the anxiety without hurting ourselves or anyone else.”
“We are taking a huge leap of faith, She. Selling and giving away most of our possessions, planning an unfamiliar lifestyle, rolling full time in our little house on wheels. It’s normal to feel afraid and to feel sad and lost sometimes.”
“But that’s just our feelings and we can jump over them and be brave. God has us. It’s no coincidence that we sold the house in two weeks.”
She blows her nose on my clean tee shirt and I smile.
A month ago, I would’ve have yelled at her, and thrown her off my lap to rip off my snotty tee shirt.
She has come so far in these past few weeks that I almost forgot that she was still here.
Thank you, Jesus.
I bought a home on wheels and I have a life plan. I have a very intricate, inspired plan and I know what it is, and God knows what it is, but sometimes I feel like my plan is this long strip of taffy and some people keep grabbing it at the edges and pulling it and pulling it, into places it’s not supposed to go, but it is my plan and my vision and God, as long as you have my back, I will keep walking toward it.
I’m done letting anyone pull and stretch my plan into what they think it should be because it is my plan.
My plan may be far from perfect, but I don’t care.
I won’t know until I try.
If I fail, I will have no one to blame but myself.
If I follow what some people want from me, I’ll sit here, stuck, blaming them and I don’t want that to happen.
I want responsibility for my own life for the first time, 100%.
If I don’t hold on to what I want and what I believe I can do this time, it won’t be good.
It’ll be awful.
I haven’t fought for eleven months to awaken my brain and to relearn who I am, just to give up and throw control back to other people. No way.
Thankfully, I also have a fan club cheering me on, and they are awesome.
She had a horrible nightmare last night and we ended up on the floor. Again.
She dreamt that every person who had ever hurt her was chasing her and she was shooting at them as she ran away and the police were chasing her for shooting at them and she was trying to explain that they were trying to kill her, but the police said it didn’t count because that was in the past and she said, but they are still killing me, they are just doing it slowly and in my head.
Round and round the house and out into the dark streets they raced until She knocked me out of bed, and I woke up, shivering, shaking, crying and a bit bruised. It was 5:00 a.m.
I went outside to have a cigarette and I waited for She to stop shaking.
My four-year-old granddaughter had been asleep in my bed and she had felt me leave her side.
She came outside and whimpered, “Grammy, Grammy,” and as she climbed up on my lap, she fell right back to sleep with her arms wrapped around me.
As I snuggled her, I prayed, “Please, dear, sweet Jesus, please keep this little angel’s mind free from trauma so she never has to heal her inner child. Amen.”
(# 1 SHE Saga) She Wants What She Wants
From my newsletter, Women Who Think Too Much, 2002
Should I Pass the Salt?
by Jeanne Marie
To salt over the sink, or not? Ah, such a loaded question.
If you are the one who washes the kitchen counters and sweeps the floors, then you may salt wherever you like. However, there are rules for the non-cleaner. Yes? I’m the designated cleaner, and I despise housework.
I’ve begun to employ avoidance tactics in my house, like, if I don’t spill it, I won’t have to wipe it, or if you spill it, you wipe it.
The kids are gone, so I figure it’s time to shift to minimal maintenance here. Now, this week my mate said that he feels bound and nagged by my little quirks, especially my salt fetish.
“You’re driving me crazy,” he said. “I pick up the stuff you leave lying all over the house,” he said.
True enough. But here’s the deal. He picks it up if he feels like it, maybe yes, maybe no. He has a choice. On the other hand, I’m bound by the laws of nature to snatch up everything I see, and put it away, at least every other day. He could and I should, and that is worlds apart.
Another tiresome disagreement centers around the dogs. If the damn alien dogs didn’t eat biscuits under the sheets, I wouldn’t have to shake out the bedding each night, before I climb into bed.
My mate has no problem sleeping on crunchy bits of treats. But as for me, I’ve barely recovered from the “Princess and The Pea Syndrome.”
I become quite nuts when I crawl over sharp bits of meat by-products. To add to the dilemma, my insane, female poodle, Peggy-Sue, turns into the Tasmanian Devil when I sweep my hands across the sheets, to rid my side of doggy debris. Maybe she thinks, “Hey! I just buried that stuff!” and here I am, depriving her of tomorrow’s snack, but geez! Does she have to bite me so hard?
I’ve promised to buy myself a bed for the spare room at least a hundred times, and to lock the dogs out. It worries me that I haven’t carried through on that threat. I’m afraid that the dogs and my mate know I’m just blowing off steam. They all continue to munch in bed. Yes, Lays potato chips are also a problem. Of course, the fact that when I get up to go pee in the middle of the night, Peggy-Sue refuses to allow me back into the bed, is wearing me down. And Charlie, her cohort, loves to run through my hair while I’m sleeping, tangling his paws in it, and tearing hunks of my thin enough hair, right out of my head. He also runs across my face while I’m asleep, and fifteen pounds sounds light, but equipped with toenails, it can smart.
Speaking of smart, if I was, I’d have my own bedroom by now. Am I a masochist, or is cuddling the warm backside of my husband that fulfilling? Is the habit of intimacy so strong, that self-preservation loses its drive?
He said that he’s afraid to tell people I ask him to salt his food over the sink, it’s so perverse.
Well, I’m not worried! I’ll invite fifty people over to watch his salting habits and see if they don’t have some compassion for me, the cleaner.
He is perverse himself, throwing salt on each nugget of corn, from a foot over the plate.
Strangely enough, when my kids come back home to visit, they salt over the sink and they leave their muddy shoes at the door. The weird part is, I couldn’t pay them to do that when they lived here.
For twenty-odd years, I was a slave to kids, housework, cooking, laundry and on and on.
I just want to be free to write, to have time to putter in my garden, to smell the roses.
I guess I shouldn’t complain. My mate does more around the house than most men. He does at least half of our dishes, (I thank him for doing the dishes; he doesn’t thank me when I do them.)
But I am not going to pass the salt.
JMG, 2002
She’s been quiet for a few days, so I was surprised when she whispered, “You know I still love him, right?”
“Yes, She. You remind me every day, several times per hour.”
“Well, what are you gonna do about it?”
“Nothing. I’m going to do nothing about it. I accept that you still love him. He’s been good to you and I understand why you trust him, and you don’t trust me. But that’s not my problem. It’s yours.”
“Wow. You have gotten hard and mean. You used to cry with me.”
“I’m not hard and mean, it just feels that way to you because I used to give in to you every day. I can’t do that anymore. I’m all cried out.”
“I can’t keep torturing myself with accepting unacceptable behavior. He knew what he was doing when he tore us apart this time, no doubt. Of course, I’m sure he didn’t know that it would be the last time. I don’t think that I even knew.”
“Why is it the last time?”
“She, do you remember last 4th of July? We had just moved in the new house. I dressed up in my red, white and blue to go to the block party. When it was time to go, I was already exhausted and couldn’t make myself walk out the door. He left with some neighbors and I could finally breathe again. We sat with the puppies and took pictures all afternoon, so happy to be free for a little bit.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Well, I’m sorry, She. I don’t want to feel trapped and exhausted all the time.”
She is acting up tonight. Granted we had a rough time last night, and an overly complicated day, but I really can’t handle her fears, on top of my own anxiety.
I whispered to her, “Behave, little one. Please.”
The day began with a phone call from my younger sister.
We have been looking for my dad, a mentally ill, homeless, alcoholic for over thirty years. Checking for at least a death certificate, looking for closure.
My sister has had contacts in the military looking for any information for over a year and today, on Dad’s birthday, she received the information.
Dad is dead. He died alone and homeless in 2000. Buried in a poverty grave by the military.
It hit me hard, even though I had felt that he was gone, I was never sure.
My sister has his Death Certificate and his military records, and we now know where he is buried. The military is even going to put a marker on his grave.
The inner child, She, is taking it much harder than me and while closure is a relief, it’s a rough time to throw more grief into our fragile infrastructure.
Right after I heard the news about my dad, I had an appointment with a local domestic violence shelter and showing up was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I can admit to my family and my friends, my readers and myself that I have suffered and accepted abuse but reaching out to total strangers for a support group has taken me almost a year.
I made the appointment the day before my house sold and I decided to go anyway, if only for an exercise in courage and to give them a copy of my book, Women Who Think Too Much. https://books2read.com/u/md0J5d
Well, they can’t give out their address, so they gave me a meet point and told me to call them when I arrived. I made it there ten minutes before my appointment and called them. No answer.
I started to panic, but I took a deep breath and I prayed. I managed to sit there for forty minutes, calling back every five minutes. Never got an answer.
I left there disappointed, but so proud that I had overcome the anxiety to show up. She even stayed calm, which was surprising. I think she was mourning Dad and wandering in her own little world.
She woke me up and forced me out of bed at 3:00 a.m. last night because she was screaming and yelling in her sleep, completely consumed by a full-blown panic attack.
I staggered out of bed, shaking from head to toe, trying to quiet her down at the same time, not an easy task. I unwisely added caffeine to the mix but for some reason, coffee makes me feel better. I paced the floor with my coffee cup for about an hour while I tried to figure out the fight or flight mode I was experiencing.
Yesterday I swapped cars with my daughter so that I could tow her smaller car when I bought an RV.
I know driving different cars triggers my anxiety, but I almost ran someone off the road the first day, because her car has blind spots.
Still, it was bigger than that and I realized I had gone against my best interest when I let myself be influenced by him toward buying an RV rather than a pull trailer and if I got rid of my car, I wouldn’t have a choice.
It’s always you need bigger, better until I am in over my head financially and I want to do it different this time.
All I want is a small pull trailer. Simple.
So, at 3:00 a.m. I wrote three or four texts to my daughter telling her that I was panicking, and I wanted to re-exchange cars. Thankfully she knows me, and she has a sense of humor. We swapped cars back the next day.
Wow. Why does She jump in my face as soon as I wake up?
Well, before I handed her over to God, she was in charge. Now, she’s not in charge. She still pops in and tries to mess with me, but I can see what she’s doing now, and I can deal with her fears and calm her down.
Imagine tumbling down a waterfall compared to being pushed in the pool. I’m still getting wet, but I’m not drowning.
This month will make me or break me. I have thirty days until my house keys go to a new owner. Thirty days to take my courage in hand and reclaim my freedom.
Freedom from the past, freedom from material things that weigh me down, freedom from this little girl’s fears. Freedom from this crazy cycle of leaving him and going back to him. He will never understand why I leave him, and he will never take responsibility for his addictions. That’s okay. I don’t need him to validate me today. I’ve spent my entire life trying to explain myself to a man. Game over.
Thirty days to put my faith in God’s plan into action. Just take the right next step. Repeat.
She wants me to hold still, she sees doing nothing as safe when it’s the most dangerous choice of all. Life happens whether you participate or not, resist or hold your breath, become paralyzed by your fears, life, it will just keep happening.
Why not choose my path? That is the least I can do to give God something to work with, trust His grace, breathe and make choices.
A lifetime of letting life happen to me must end.
She’s getting a crash course on growing up, owning her fears and overcoming the past.
I have babied her for way too long.
She must be tougher than she appears, or she would have blended with me by now. Well, I’m stronger than I appear too. And my God is stronger than everything.
She was waiting for me when I woke up this morning, so before I even had my coffee, I had to deal with her.
The first words I heard were, “What are we gonna do, what are we gonna do, what are we gonna do?”
I yelled at her, “Stop!”
We just sold the house yesterday, and after a few hours of anxiety, we came up with a plan. She was completely comfortable with everything we decided. Now she’s hysterical.
The plan is the best one I could produce to satisfy her anxiety and mine. No more houses. No more boxes. No more clutter.
We will have enough money left over from the sale of the house to buy a small pull trailer and travel for a year or two, but it’s a long way from signing that contract and getting rid of all the stuff that is weighing us down, to hitting the open road, free at last.
This morning, she’s acting like we never agreed on a plan at all.
I think she stays awake all night freaking herself out while I’m sleeping. I told her, “Stop focusing on all the work we have to do in the next month and focus on the fact that God has given us a chance to live our dream. I know you don’t trust me yet, so just look forward to the adventure and trust that God goes before us to pave the way.
(#5 SHE Saga) She Forced Me Out Of Bed
She’s back, but she has an entirely different attitude.
I’m sure God had something to do with that change.
She asked if she could hang out with me today, and while she admitted that she was sad, she said we could do something that made us happy.
So, I said she could stay. I know, I’m taking a big chance, but we’ve been together since I was born, and I do love her.
She has given me some of the happiest moments of my life, especially when she comes out to play with the grandchildren.
I’d been missing her anyway, not her emotions, just her company and her playful attitude. She’s the one who taught me to chase butterflies and to climb trees.
We sat down and tried to decide what we would do today, something that wouldn’t upset either of us.
I went upstairs to get a book and I saw a pile of my mother’s letters lying on a table, waiting months for me to scan and share them.
I was going to write today, but with the water department digging up the road in front of my driveway and an appointment to show my house at 1:00, I’m a little distracted. (Yes. House Fifteen for sale after barely a year.)
The minute I saw the letters, I knew what we would do today. I picked them up and read them as I walked downstairs. (I know…another crazy idea, stairs and not paying attention.)
As I read the notes, they brought tears to my eyes.
The pleasure of hearing my mother’s words speak to me once again, touching the paper she had written on, envisioning her sitting at her tiny kitchen table, with me on her mind, removed everything that was hurting me.
Touching the letters, physically pulled her back into my life for just a little bit.
I am so grateful because of all the things I’ve lost from moving too many times, I still have every note and card she sent me.
Her love and her admiration poured over me and I felt it as strongly as if she was standing beside me.
When I ignored She, she got restless and I had to ask her to go back to sit with my mum in Heaven. Yes. That’s exactly where God placed her when I released her to His care.
At least I am learning to share my personal space with her, without getting bull dozed emotionally.
l have been learning to set boundaries this past year and I think I left her for last because I knew she would be my greatest challenge.
Funniest thing about this day, thanks to Mum’s notes, I’m writing after all.
Your energy is so very heavy
and as you spill it all over me,
I withdraw, I stumble from the weight
and before the negative mudslide
completely smothers me, I run.
I’m not healthy enough to deflect
your darkness. No, I absorb it.
Removal from your presence is
the only way I know to break free.
Perhaps, someday I will be stronger
holding my own under your heaviness
brave enough to resist your magic show
your slight of hand that captures my light
killing me slowly to feed your hungry soul.
But, not today my love, not today.
Arms wrapped tight
around my waist.
Grasping skin and bones
squeezing, pinching, holding
don’t let go, don’t let go!
Everything will fall out
all this grief
all this pain
it will spill
on the floor
and then…
I won’t be
me anymore.
Arms wrapped tight
around my waist.
What kind of a person
paints over a helpless worm?
How long could it have taken
to throw it back into the yard?
Painted to the wall with
no way to pull its tiny, body free
smothered in the paint.
What kind of person gets upset
over the murder of a worm?
Me.
Me and this grasshopper.
He came to the memorial
But he couldn’t stay long.
She won’t leave me alone.
We talk and we talk for hours, going in circles. I explain to her why she can’t have what she wants. I think she understands, and I tell her that I am done, that we are done talking about it.
She sniffles and she walks away.
Not five minutes later, she’s back and she wants to talk about it again. She makes me want to bang my head into a wall until I can’t hear her anymore.
I don’t know what to do with her, how to silence her.
Sometimes, she won’t listen at all. She cries, she screams, she yells, and she demands her own way.
She wants what she wants and nothing I say will make her give up on it.
It’s not possible, I explain. We have tried your way. Over and over with the same pain filled results.
When she doesn’t convince me with her words, she sits there silently, tears pouring down her face.
I hate it when she cries, it breaks my heart.
But if I give her what she wants, it will kill me, I swear.
I don’t want to hurt her, I want to protect her, keep her safe, but she is so immature. Sometimes she acts like she’s two.
When she cries herself to sleep, I feel guilty, but I am also so relieved.
If she sleeps too long though, I get nervous. I make her a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich and I wake her up. Big mistake, but I’m a slow learner.
We start all over again, going through the thousands of reasons why she can’t have what she wants.
I sit down and take a deep breath and try to understand her point of view.
I know she has valid reasons to not trust me. I have let her down so many times, times when I told her everything would be okay if we stuck to my plan.
All the times when I promised that I would take care of her and then I then I threw the plan away and ran back home, all the months when she suffered for nothing.
How can I convince her that this time is different when I’m following so many familiar patterns?
I feel the weariness in my soul. I’m so tired of fighting. Being strong isn’t easy.
She is a little girl in a woman’s body, and although I know her so well, I don’t know how to make her feel loved and safe.
Our boundaries overlap and I struggle to resist soothing her by giving in to her demands. I hurt when she hurts and it’s tough.
I’m always fighting her pain and her fears, while I’m struggling to be the grown-up.
I give her facts. She wants to live blindly. Screw the consequences. I give her reality. She wants the elusive happy ending. No matter the cost.
Yes. She’s spoiled and bratty. So very insecure. I haven’t done much to change that situation.
No matter how hard I try to resist, I always give in to her. Her anxiety is overwhelming, and it breaks through my barriers.
I can’t give in to her this time. I can’t do that roller coaster again. My feet are on the ground now and you couldn’t pay me to get back on that ride.
I’ve even tried locking her away so that I can think without hearing her voice, but my locks do not hold her for long.
I turn around from locking the door and there she stands.
I don’t know when she became so strong. Maybe, she was always stronger than me.
I don’t know how to make her understand that only one of us can make important decisions and that I’m the grown-up.
What’s sad is that she often makes a good point and I become confused.
“I love him, and he loves me! He takes care of me! He loves you too, but you keep pushing him away. You’re ruining everything!”
How much do I need to spend on therapy before she learns?
I end up screaming at her. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.
I want to slap her right across the face. She frustrates the h*** out of me. I should have left her behind a long time ago, but how do you let your little girl go? Especially when she is so helpless and needy. She won’t survive out there.
Some days, like today, she totally runs me ragged, and I sit, and I cry. Just like she does.
I lay on my bed, wanting more than anything to shut down and go to sleep.
No. I can’t do this.
As I get up, my arms are clenched around my body like a straight jacket, trying to hold the pain inside.
I go outside without my phone because I’m afraid I’ll call him and tell him how she feels.
The angels in the wind whisper to me, “You’re going to be okay, just let go, raise your hands to the Father. He will hold your hurt if you let him.”
Slowly, I release the grip I have on my ribs, and I lift my arms to Jesus. I give it all to him.
He is my only hope; I would be lost without him. He reaches down and he takes the little girl from my hands. I hope he sits her on my mother’s lap.
Thank you, angels, for reminding me, he can, and he will, but only if I let go.
(#3 SHE Saga) What are we gonna do?
(#5 SHE Saga) She Forced Me Out Of Bed
(# 7 SHE Saga) Let Freedom Ring
On my garage stoop the cats are gathered
crying into the damp, dark mist that rises before dawn.
Sitting in a circle, they howl and whine and mew
like old women with a dilemma to ponder anew.
Another stray arrives but softly cries outside the circle
whimpering as he pleads for admission to the klatch.
The cats howl and whine and mew among themselves
and one fat grey cat snarls his veto. He is out-voted.
The sitting cats become silent and look into each
other’s glowing eyes, then, as one, they turn
their sullen eyes to gaze upon the stranger.
Their silence is inviting so the tenderfoot softly
pads into the circle and sits submissive.
The conversation resumes.
Cold air turning warm breath into smoke and eerie whispers
forming smoky words which crawl into my veins, raising hairs,
fears that have no name, foundation for terror that blooms.
There are…
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I decided the best way for me to celebrate Mother’s Day is to share some of my mom’s writing. I used to write a newsletter and my mom contributed poems and articles on a regular basis. I love you, Mom, and I know that even though you are playing with the angels, you still watch over me. Love, Jeanne Marie
A NOTE FROM GRACE
When my children were growing up and got into their “teenage problem” years, I’d become exasperated with them. I’d think, “They’re just like their father!” Then, one day the light dawned on me, (Marblehead) because after taking a hard, honest look at myself, I realized; they were just like me. The me I had suppressed and hidden deep inside, where no one else could see. I was as wild and rebellious as they, but I had put up a shield of adult perfection, striving to become…
View original post 451 more words
She used to climb apple trees
with fearless abandon
never worried how she’d get down.
She used to run in fields of grass
without a care in the world.
She used to hide in the flowers
inhaling the nectar
never fearing a sting.
I’d like to invite that girl
to come out to play.
I’d like to reclaim her
travel the path back
to that courageous girl
she who once lived free.
I must go on
Wake up
Drink coffee
Smoke a cigarette
Say words
Take a shower
Curl my hair
Do the dishes
Mop the floors
Fold the laundry
Weed the garden
Remember to breathe
Remember to eat
Fake a smile
Crush the memories
I must go on
Without you
Right?
2015
She Was
The grief encompassed her soul until the elements of her former self were nothing.
Nothing.
Destiny squeezed her guts until she splattered all over the floor.
She was, she was, but now she isn’t, not anymore.
Wait.
Amidst the wreckage of her shattered, twisted dreams perchance a gem remains?
A shred of what was, a stair to climb on, a hand to reach beyond her agony,
clutching what still could be?
Carefully, small slivers extracted of what value they weren’t sure
held up to the light by white coats who thought they knew the cure,
the cure for secrets that had hammered her to her knees
events which paralyzed the frightened child she was before.
Men and women who only added their putrid slime to the illness
then when her hour was up they shoved her through the door.
That of course was just good business, nothing’s free,
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Women Who Think Too Much by Jeanne Marie 
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