While the content is not happy I think this bit of writing was one the few honest expressions I ever made before I couldn’t write anymore. Maybe one day I can write like this again. I believe the entire thing is about one day, but it took me 3 to find the time to write it all down. Anyone who has never been to the Farm might lack the understanding to some of the day-to-day things but give you some insight to that time, even in May it is hot and VERY humid in Eastern Tennessee and there is no air conditioning at the Farm. At that time there were over 15 people living at the Farm and tons of relatives and friends there every week. Everyone was a mess and no one could help.
**May 5th**.
My day was long, trying and sorta sucked. Actually I had a few people tell me it was a horrible day. So I guess it really sucked. I went downstairs after the kids were put to bed. To find the kitchen in shambles for the second time today. Not messy, not in need of tidying. OH NO. A freaking disaster. A Dishwasher load of dishes plus the pots and pans and everything that wouldn’t fit along, with all the clean ones from the first go round I’d had out with the cursed place. Only this time it wasn’t just breakfast I was cleaning up; nope it was dinner AND lunch since the lunch crew left their shit (dirty dishes) in the sink, the other shit (pans) still on the stove with shit (grease and dried food) in it and even more shit (more food only cooked onto) the stove top. And then there was the dinner mess. As I’m putting food away. I go to grab the salad bowl with leftover said salad only to have a cloud, not a few, a cloud of gnats (fruit flies) fly into my face. Jesus F-ing Christ! I mutter as half the things settle onto the fruit bowl. Guess it’s time to put the apples up I think to myself. I also wonder why I’m the only who noticed the large amount of bugs cruising around the island counter… Okay salad is officially bad! I finish putting the food away, and notice again the pan holding black (not blackened) sweet rolls. Jeez someone forgets to check the oven when they turn it on and can’t be bother to dispose of the burnt rolls they almost caught place on fire with? UGH. Another pan that will be fun to clean. I speed through the dishes. I’ve got head banging music going. Maybe it’ll shut out my thoughts too. Especially if bang the dishes to the beat as I scrub. Nope but it did cause the dog to bark. Okay scratch that idea, I’ll wake up the brats (children). I scrub burnt food off the stove (earlier said shit) and notice that the tea-pot has um goo? All over it. WTF??? AM I really the only one who sees this shit??? Okay add scrub damm tea-pot to list. Hmm the fruit fly’s are sniffing around my beer now that I’ve taken their food away. Bastards. I clean like a possessed dirty dish demon. I try to keep the dark thoughts away. Or at least blare them out with my music and push them away with nasty old food and furious scrubbing. Storm is coming. I hear the rain start up. As it gets closer I see the lightning. I watch it, memories swamping me. SHHIIT! I look down to the cause of my pain. I’ve scalded my hand in the hot water. Oh yea. When only on the hot – it burns. ops. I move to counters and tables. Sometimes I pause to skip a song that is too close to home. Or just too much memory. I go to take a swig of my beer. I think there is a bug floating in it… Oh well. Protein right? I’m supposed to be eating lots. Maybe this will count. Bugs and beer. Shit what a dinner. Sigh. I look around, the floor is disgusting. It hasn’t been scrubbed properly since uh the last time I did. Which was.. January? Okay, time to do that. Been talking about it anyway. I’m hot. I open the window and turn on the fan. Big gnats with spidery legs tumble down from the ceiling. Sigh. People would run screaming from my house… Takes a good 15 minutes to locate the LAST bottle with the LAST little bit of cleaner that will work on floors (not leave a sticky dirt magnet residue). Alright. I sweep up a bucket full of dirt and dog hair and god knows what else. I swipe the bucket out on the porch in the rain holding a six and a half pack of empty beer bottles…so what the hell is the bucket for? Scrubbing our floor requires a REAL scrub brush. And old fashion hot water. Yep like some people only see in the movies, it’s the only way to really clean the damn thing. I start. And within seconds realize this will take even longer than the hour, hour and a half it usually does… Great It’s already 10:30. I scrub so long and hard I have sweat running down my face and chest. Ick. Now I’m nasty too. The fumes from the cleaner make my cough worse. I feel like I’m doing hand to hand combat training. My knees become big bruises from kneeling for so long. My iPod lovingly does not freeze up and continues to play. I scrub, mop with old towel, dump bucket, refill bucket, and start again. At some point I finish my now warm beer. And open another one. People head to bed. the rain starts and stops. The lightning moves off. It’s just me awake now. And My dog. She comes in and checks on me now and then. At least she cares that I’m trying to do good here. My cousin calls on her way home from work. We talk forever. And I scrub. An hour passes, I tell her to get some sleep. She tells me to stop doing so much shit so late. I laugh, I don’t do enough remember? Get off the phone and go back to scrubbing with more force. I refill my bucket for the second to last time. Change “I’m in love with a stripper” to something less afflicting and sink my other hand into scalding water. Ops. Guess I filled the whole bucket up with hot water. Fuck my life. I finish. I am finally done. It almost 2 in the morning. By the time I put the chairs back, empty the bucket and get to my room. It’s after 2. Wow that took way too long. Next time I need to try harder is my only response to that. I get on my lovely new laptop. Get a little intense at the words of a close friend in response to an email about my day earlier. Her words ***And you know what else makes me angry? That anyone can tell you, you don’t do enough, from where I’m sitting it looks like you half suffocate yourself under all the work you do at times.*** Make me wish I could cry. So sweet and direct. Too bad we’re not into girls. She knows the way to my heart~ Complete integrity! But then she threaten to take my blankie away…so maybe not.
At some point, I have to see my everyday life as something other than what it is. HELL. So I wrote about it like it’s not me. Make me feel…not as connected to it and less likely to smash someone’s head with a coffee cup.
It’s 3:30 now. Kids will be up in less than four hours. Oh goody. It starts anew.
**May 4th**
Sometimes I don’t think people realize how close I am to the fucking edge of control, sanity and relative humanity. Sometimes I’m not sure that I know how close I am. And then I get pushed. My Father took my car this morning. NO big deal right? Shouldn’t be. But it is… He didn’t ask. Didn’t tell me. I call him as he drives out. His excuse is: ‘I’ was sleeping. Funny. He has no problem waking me up to ask me what I’m doing that day… Nope none. He just wanted to take it. No biggie. So why are my hands shaking with rage? Why is my chest tight with anxiety? Why do I now feel like shit when only moments before this I was feeling alright, I mean I scraped out 6 hours of broken sleep scattered with bad dreams. I WAS DOING GOOD! Now I feel worse. There went the benefit of my disturbing sleep patterns. Ah yep, still coughing too. It’s not going to be pretty today. I’m trying so hard not to let this “Dad running off with my car thing” not get to me. Hence the writing. But SHIT it IS my car. When I think about why this bothers me (see people, really don’t need a therapist to ask me, I ask myself!) I realize it’s because I feel like there are no boundaries in my life ANYWHERE. My stuff. People just take my shit. My brothers, My family, the police, the fucking FBI. Whoever wants it, come and get it. Really! Why should I think any of this would change now that I’m older… when that’s how it’s been my whole life? People want something from me? They take it. My body. My mind. My heart. And obviously my stuff. And when they are done with it. They give back in bad condition or just up and leave it, throw it away, whatever is easiest I guess. There has been only a few people who have never done this to me in some form or fashion. After all this, I don’t trust the now even fewer remaining anymore. Yeah… my bad on my part. I’m paranoid and all now. So what though, if my paranoia gets too bad, people will leave. Wait, that’s what I’m expecting to happen anyway, I’m just paranoid with how much of me they’ll take with them. Even I, a seriously fucked up paranoid person can see how sad this is… Yes even my hard heart breaks when I look at the child I never was and person I’ll never be now. Guess I’m not as hard and cold as people tell me. Just really close.
Yes my little sign of “Made to be broken, please break now” is calling in the shots. Even people who tell me they are here for me, that I have their support, are walking on me today. Making comments that cut like thorns, shallow on the surface, deep and festering on the inside. What do I do? Suck it up. What I always try to do. I mean they are hurting too. Sadly it usually works too. Today is no exception. And of course, people would pick today. It’s May 4th. Two months. How can it have been two months. I’ve aged years. Centuries. Yet only two little months have passed. I do not remember what it feels like. A life without everyday being a war, on the inside along with the outside world. A life where I am not alone. Truly alone. Not just with my thoughts (that I’m used too) but with the everyday stuff too. A life where I cannot even ask basic questions of life from the person I trusted the most. Mom. I barely remember the easiness of the days with her. Now it seems like a dream. A world I’ve made up to escape the hell that is my life. A fantasy that little kids whom do not like their lives create. Sometimes I wake up from those dreams of the past and ask my self if it was all a dream, my love and life with Mom. The peacefulness I didn’t even know I had. So where the hell does that leave me with Erick? I’m not even going there today. If only two months has passed, what will I be in two years? Will I remember at all? Or will I just be another lifeless person struggling to survive. Is this what my future holds? Losing all that made this life amazing and good. The people, the animals, the memories? Will they all get lost in this black hole. The darkest of nights in my past do not compare to the depth of despair in the brightest of days now. I feel as though my life never was anything but a struggle and never will be anything else. I watch myself struggle with not snapping as someone else takes control of something that is mine. A try not to lose control of myself. I put down my coffee cup so I do not shatter it. Oh but it would feel so good if I did… chucking it hard, glass breaking, the emotion of sound omitting from the impact. Like a druggie gazing upon his fix. It soothes him before he even uses. If shattering a coffee cup would feel this good, imagine what a baseball bat and bunch of windows would feel like? Too bad I never do. Just in my head. Just enough to make me feel something other than my control slipping. The nano second of fantasy leaves. And I’m still staring at the person walking on me. I smile and say nothing. Or if I’m really feeling it, I grimly say “whatever”. They frown upon my bad attitude and short words. Too bad they don’t know what I’m thinking. Cause a coffee cup and their head would make an amazing sound I know it my bones… And as they make snide comments about absurd things I grit my teeth. ‘Say nothing’ I tell myself. As the words bubble up, I lodge them in my throat and grind my teeth. The pain hits, as I again forget the wisdom teeth I now have and the sharp edges cut me. The taste of blood faintly coats my mouth. To bad I can’t just hit them I think to myself. Fuck the coffee cup, I’ll use my hands. But I don’t. Nope, don’t even come close. But I smile inside at the image. And when I am not consumed with anger. I feel the pain of their words. I suffer more. I tell myself not too, that they mean nothing. But I feel them as though a razor is making little slivers upon my skin, on my heart, my soul. I feel the wash of worthlessness flow over me. The guilt of not trying hard enough, not being good enough creeps into my very being. My heart wants to hide under a rock like a dog that has been kicked to many times crawls under the stove. I feel the despair set in. And I jerk myself away from it. It’s early in the day, I have work I must do, as the said person has already stated, I do not near enough. I must do these jobs, perform the tasks that others do not have time to. I work and the emotions are still there. The rage. The guilt. The despair. I finish the job, now I must find a way to express these emotions before they can control me. So I write. I read. Whichever comes first. And then someone sees me not working. And the cycle starts again.
The thought, I cannot wait till I am too dead inside to care comforts me. Horrifying to others, a blanket to sleep with for me. Yes I am this fucked up in the head. When the emotional pain threatens to become too much. I focus on the physical pain. For that I am used too. That I know how to deal with. And things that are familiar are a comfort. Whatever it takes, so that the physical pain is more relevant than the pain in my soul, I will do. A body can only handle so much. The soul though, there are no presets on the depth of love and the depth of despair it can feel. No range, no absolute lines, levels or ends. Every time one thinks they have reached the end, a new door opens, and all my doors are black holes. Never ending darkness that goes who knows where. When I experience too much physical pain, my body shuts off. If it is still too much, I imagine I would die. The death of the physical is not so bad. For your soul goes on. The death of a soul, now there is never ending agony. It would never change, never alter. None of use need to experience that. Sometimes that is what I feel I’m up against. My soul’s impeding doom.
But I will have to ponder this later. For I have people to take care of (children who just want Mom), things I must do (work & shower) and places I must be (group therapy) so that I am driven back to writing and the pondering of my soul.
**May 3rd**
Sometimes I wish for things I would normally run from. I wonder sometimes what that makes me? Obviously broken. Probably damaged in ways people wish to not know of. Some say reckless. Others say stupid. Or that I want to hurt myself and that’s why I am sometimes drawn to the very things I am normally frightened of. I have my own theory though. Maybe I want to feel alive. Maybe I just want the undeniable knowledge that I am indeed alive and can feel. Emotions are emotions. And a high from fear is just as powerful as a high from joy. I have no idea what joy is anymore. But I know what fear is. And sometimes at the end of a day, when I’ve done nothing but push everything down, deep, where it does not interfere with my actions. The pain. The anger. The rage. The betrayal. The endless agony… I just deaden these feelings. I want to die when I do feel them. So how do I live? I do not know. But sometimes I need a release. I need to feel the adrenaline that tells me to live, that tells me I AM alive. Even if it hurts and scares me. For I no longer care about such small things. Physical pain. Fight or flight reactions. It all tells me I am indeed alive in the kingdom of hells I live in. Such intense emotions tells me that I am in reality. That it is all real. Does this make me suicidal? Some certainly think so. But when I push all feeling away, I truly do feel suicidal; for I do not care what happens to me. My brain takes on a whole new meaning of possibilities. I suddenly see the world as something I can endure. That anything can happen to me and it won’t matter. Not too me. Not to my body. And my soul doesn’t get any say. Because my soul and heart does not matter anymore.
I think of dying when I am in such careless moods. And I feel peace. Thoughts of ‘I can’t wait for the quiet’ run through my mind. And how it will not be terribly long before no ones lives will depend on me. I look forward to the day I will die. Free from all of this. But I know it cannot come yet. Not for many years. But I can dream.
I also notice how I end up in situations that spell bad news. Whether the chance of being used and abused is high or death itself, I notice only abstractly and with little care of my well fare. As long as I am around tomorrow to take care of things, I notice not pain nor a tiredness beyond exhaustion. Only what I must do. I wonder at the significance of my actions. Yet I find only my soul cares. But it is my soul I keep silenced. So I must ignore this too.
I used to wish for someone to save me when I could not save myself. For someone to hold me when I could not hold on any longer. I used to wish for someone to catch me as I fall. But now I realize that I would be caught, only to be dropped harder, faster and more painfully than the original fall. And that the impact of the fall might not kill me, but the impact of bring tossed aside like the trash I represent would.
Life of Journey 