when I was down for the count
you never gave up on me
you always reached for my hand
offering to set my spirit free
when grief shoved every one away
you loved me with no conditions
and you never left my side
loving me with no exceptions
i fell into a well, dark and deep
there was no rope to be found
you lifted me out and calmly
set me back on solid ground
you whispered, you don’t need that
when I used drugs to numb the pain
my child just set that down
and you washed me clean with rain
on the darkest days you colored
pink behind the black clouds
you covered me in your grace
your love infinite, it has no bounds
you knew what was best for me
sad when I embraced the worst
you promised me i was loved
when all i felt was cursed
when I screamed, I cannot make it
i heard you whisper, yes my child you can
open your heart and reach out for me
oh child, please just take my hand
despite the days and nights I wasted
you simply gave me more
gently laying your hand upon my head
while i kicked and screamed on the floor
i never would have made it
without you holding on to me
stubborn child i placed myself in chains
a prisoner of self until you set me free
Perhaps if we had not named us Love
if we had just let emotions run free
we’d still be snuggled side-by-side
beneath the magic of you and me.
No expectations, no promises
just the touch of wanting hands
needs flowing and unbroken
uncrippled by Love’s demands.
Perhaps if we had not named us Love…
Inspired by https://rebeccapells.com/2017/03/01/letting-go/
He shatters my self-worth
with a single sentence.
“You looked prettier before
you went back to work.”
Oh God, I’m nothing.
Wait. I go to the mirror
just to see for myself.
A familiar woman
sadly stares back.
I give her a smile
brush away her tears.
Hey, I look better
since I started working.
I realize, I am not the
woman he says I am,
I am the woman
my own eyes see.
Well, the weather lady said there’s a blizzard coming tomorrow. She promised from 5 to 10 inches of snow, so I figured I’d better get out to the store and stock up.
I also figured I might need some fresh air before the snow came and locked me in the house for another two or three days.
My husband and I went to Rite-Aid and l picked out some stuff on clearance. Coffee cups, coffee jars for my sisters and a pretty rug for the kitchen floor. A New Hampshire Live Free or Die tee-shirt for my daughter and a big wash pail for the garage.
Okay, so what else did I need before the big blizzard hits up here in the White Mountains?
We saw some vitamins on clearance and after a lively conversation about who had the worst memory, we picked out two bottles of DHA 600. According to the label, it’s necessary for optimal brain function and we totally agreed we each had room for improvement.
Last, I picked up 2 packs of Marlboros even though I’ve gotten myself down to less than a half a pack a day. You just never know how long you’re going to be stuck in the house after a blizzard.
Our trip’s Grand Finale was a meal at McDonald’s, the only fast food available for miles around and I had a breakfast sandwich for supper.
Luckily, it was delicious, because complaining about your food can be a big problem in a little town.
In fact, I was hoping that the girl didn’t remember me from the last time we went there.
I had ordered a grilled chicken sandwich that I took one bite out of and very quickly returned to the counter girl. I declared it a piece of manufactured something that could not possibly be chicken, politely, but I also shuddered as I declined the offer of replacing it with anything else.
I think the same girl waited on me today and I have to say, she was sweet as anything.
She even brought our food over to the table and made sure my coffee was just right.
So now we are home all tucked in and getting ready to watch a movie.
We didn’t realize until the dogs started to bark at us that we had forgotten to get dog food and an onion for the corned beef dinner that we’re going to cook tomorrow. (We did have enough dog food for tonight.)
Even worse, we forgot Marshmallow. That’s my new addiction and I’m almost out.
I’m not going to say who ate half of it, but that is the person who is going to get dressed tomorrow and go to the store during the blizzard.
He’s very sweet about things like that anyway, maybe because he eats so much Marshmallow.
My sisters and I, we like to love Mad Men. Seriously.
We are Crazy Women.
The Mad Men we love are always mad at the world and we spend way too much valuable time trying to make them calm and happy…
We are old-fashioned, cooking and cleaning while working full-time, loving our man all night, kinda women.
It doesn’t help very much.
Turns out Mad Men don’t want the all night loving after they get you. They are too busy being Mad at you.
But Mad Men don’t always tell you when they’re Mad…they just make you pay in a million little ways and then tell you it’s your fault.
Can you say Gaslight?
The Mad Men think everything revolves around them and I’m being brutally honest here, Crazy Women agree.
Splitting up is as common as Full Moons in our homes.
We certainly know how to leave, we just don’t know how to stay gone, so reuniting is also on our agendas just as often.
Fight. Cry. Talk. Don’t talk. Pack. Leave. Talk every night for hours. Agree on a fresh start. Pack up. Go home. Unpack. Pack. Leave.
We put up with a bunch of bullshit, but luckily the Mad Men are all different, so our phone calls and visits never get boring.
We got rid of the Mad Men who hit many years ago. I give us credit for that.
However, there are thousands of ways to hurt another human being without hitting them.
We watched our mom maneuver this same road with our dad, a truly certifiable Mad Man, and we vowed that we’d never marry a man like him.
But we did.
We are not weak women.
We are strong, intelligent, creative, loving, caring, beautiful women.
But once we fall in love, we give of ourselves until we break and we do not accept defeat gracefully.
My dad begged my mom to leave him before he killed her in a drunken stupor, which he was working on every night, the killing and the stupor.
He would try to wrap the phone cord around her neck and strangle her while my twelve-year-old sister sat on Mom’s lap and stopped him.
My mother’s most famous words were, “Go to bed. your father is not going to kill (or hurt) anyone tonight.”
Our strongest model of reality and she told us we were safe when we were not safe.
Dad even stood over our beds with his hunting rifle now and then. Pondering killing us.
Reality has been confusing for us, at best.
As young girls, we all had a turn sleeping in front of Mom’s bedroom door trying to listen under the crack to see if she was still breathing.
If dad got quiet, she would say, “Go to bed, Ray.”
You would have thought she’d stuck a hot poker in his side because those words would spur the Mad Man on for another hour.
When I write it down and then read it back, it sounds insane and it was, but that was how we lived.
My dad would rant and rave until the sun came up and then we would all try to go to school and my mom would go to work…
It wasn’t hard to find a better man than my father, but I know for myself it took me a long time to realize that on a core level, I was recreating the dynamics of my childhood home and trying to make it come out right.
Four divorces between us, one of us married the same Mad Man twice, not naming any names, baby sister. I would have married mine twice too, but I never got brave enough to divorce him.
I did leave my Mad Man five times, six if you count spending a few nights (alone) crying in a motel. I think that counts.
Serious enough about not going back to buy my own place to live, twice.
I’m in the second place I bought right now, packing to go back home, again.
My sisters and I, we like to love Mad Men. Seriously.
We are Crazy Women.
I have the beginning stages of Fuhgedia or as its also called on the street, Fuhgeddaboudit.
It’s a very peculiar illness and quite common in codependent women.
We go through life blocking out our daily experiences and feelings so well that we start to fuhged who we are and what we are doing, who you are and if you are related to us.
We don’t remember who we were before someone told us who we needed to be, what the desires of our heart really are and how we would like to wear our hair.
So you might have to tell me things more than once…things like the day my newest great-grand baby is due, your birthday, my birthday, what day of the week it is…stuff like that.
Otherwise, I’ll just fuhged about it.
Jeanne Marie, 2016
Women Who Think Too Much by Jeanne Marie 
You must be logged in to post a comment.