Queen Juicy J

I knew when I woke up for the second time an hour ago that I’d be leaving today. I still have obligations to handle, needs of others to meet, and a life to pick back up. But my head is crowded with thoughts, with feelings, whirling in a maddening storm. Do the right thing. Follow your heart. Be strong. Be weak. Be real. Be honest. be kind. Be brave enough to peruse what you want. Don’t care what others think. Care what others feel. I want this life. I want to wake up almost every morning to this symphony of life. I open my eyes and there’s so much to do. Chores, helping, talking, working, taking care and showing it. I don’t want to leave my current life completely, but everything it’s failed to yield is now only more evident. I’m sitting on the couch considering coffee with this miasma of thoughts circling my head like inky lines around Pig Pen when his little voice comes down. “Miss Jewel? I need help.” I don’t want to leave. Everything inside me has locked up, hit the breaks and ...

It’s Tuesday. I came down here five days ago, and I’m still dragging my feet in preparing to return ho... home? Home 2? The Annex? Attic? Compound that stretches nearly 100 miles? How can two places be home? And yet here I am, hearing the little warning bells that this is becoming home. Charleston’s bridge, every time I see it there’s the “it’s your bridge now, not the Boston one.” Mine. Where I belong. Twice now I’ve heard the whispers of painful moments to come. “You’re ruining the clothes mom folded! I mean Jewel! Jewel folded!” And more than a couple of times now R has accidentally come to me, calling me ‘mom’ before shaking his head and saying “I mean Miss Jewel”. Like roadsigns, they mark the beginnings of things drawing nearer. They are the first indications of what may come. Am I prepared for that? Will there come a day when they slip and then just never correct it? What will I do if that happens? What if I’m reading this all wrong? So long now I’ve been waiting for roadblo...

Hey girl, Look at you, slaying the game every day at school. Things go a little wild in the second semester. That dude you decide to date? Yeah, go ahead and date him but maybe don’t lose sight of your dreams so fast. Keep some of your individuality and goals. Just because he wants to sleep with you doesn’t mean he’ll keep his promises, and you’re right to stay strong and stick to your guns about sex. It will completely side track you and distract you from your original goals.  Don’t get me wrong, that shit is good, but seriously just wait till that diploma is in your hands before you discover what a little hedonist you really are. Your parents didn’t equip you with the kind of coping skills you’ll learn later on around that level of pleasure.  You’re going to get your heart broke. A lot. Like not just this guy, but the next and the next and the next, and it’s going to get brutal. I’d tell you who to avoid, but honestly, you’re a pretty cool chick by your 30s and ...

It’s Friday again. Another week passed by slowly and then suddenly started to speed past. He’s sad. And what’s worse is he wants to talk about it. Can I handle that? We don’t always communicate well around her when I’m trying to fix the problem and he just wants reassurance. I tell myself I can do this. I’ve had chances to practice suspending my own defenses. I need to work on that more.  We go first to Georgetown, to a private residence for a wax workshop. My anxiety is all wound up about parking, this sadness, and in general about a new situation. By the time I get there I lament a little that my truck has to be such a monster. She’s caused half my anxiety tonight. I walk up and he meets me outside. Anxiety melts right out of me for a moment and everything is still. He’s happy to see me. My heart skips a beat. The workshop is good, I even manage to get comfortable in a new setting. It’s hard to sit through it with my mind working on keeping my defenses down, but he’s rubbi...

Dear C, I don’t like you. In fact I might venture so far as to say I revoke the ‘dear’ at the beginning of this letter because that is the last word I would use to describe you. You are not dear, you are not kind, and you are far too selfish to earn such a sweet address. When I met this family, they revealed the wake of your destruction slowly but surely. Oh yes, I saw it all. It wasn’t just T you wounded, I saw the scars you left on everyone. I saw the wreckage in flames all around. When I met this family I began in a deficit. I moved slowly and carefully around the jagged edges you left behind, used gentle hands to help pick up the shrapnel. I was angry, livid that a human being could do this. Could turn on such a beautiful family with a thousand excuses and no reasons. That you could do this to them out of your own selfishness and pain. Maybe that’s the Witch in me, holding on to personal accountability, but I believe that past trauma doesn’t justify terrible behavior. You did...

There's not much time left. Another weekend is ending and time marches relentlessly forward. The song changes and the soft, crooning voice of vintage Garth Brooks plays through the shower speaker. He pulls me into an embrace. Tighter, tighter.. and we're dancing slowly. Maybe it's weird that I like stuff like this, but I feel so appreciated and understood in that moment that I want to sing. Time stolen, a moment just for us. A song I adore. A song I chose for him. How could I ever keep my heart?

The engine is screaming, the speedometer winding down while the tach redlines. The entire car shakes and vibrates, hitting limits, the wheel lurches. I’ve gone from cruising at high speed, shifting into lower gear to slow the drive without touching the brakes and she’s fighting every second of it until she finally slows and I take the corner easy. This is the closest analogy I have to the change. To how I have to slow myself down when I’m leaving them. Choke it down, brake the engine, and then let the whole thing adjust as it will to the change until it’s controlled again. I know they want me to talk, to be here. They want me to shine for them. I can’t. Everything in me is pushing me back, still going too fast, still running too hot. The weekend is still burning too brightly. *** “Is Jewel here? Is Jewel here?” He’s come to pick me up, and from the first second he walked in everything spun back into high gear.  Touching, kissing, breathing him in. It’s never enough. Even wh...

"Life is what happens when you're busy making plans." Yeah, that's accurate. The plan was to go to a wedding in the west end of the state and then drop by a ren faire on the way home, spending a night in an Air BNB. It ended up being the other way around more, and as you can guess it by now, this entry will be both a mix of past and present. So here we go. *** I made the drive to Charleston easy enough, got to the house earlier than expected. It was amusing to walk in a couple of hours early and catch people off guard. After a small break to let my brain shift out of driving, I got to work helping clean up the house for the Halloween party. All around me stuff was happening, music was playing and I was briefed over any parts I was to play for the party. Upstairs a blue shimmery light was fixed to the wall and the lights dimmed. The first chance I had to sneak away, I went up and laid down to lose myself beneath them. It was like being underwater, or in a seasi...

Dear K, Been kind of a crazy few months huh? I met you in the summer and came to understand that it hasn't been an easy time for you. It's been a season of transitions, of changes. You're 14 now, and going to high school. I can remember my first day in high school, how my stomach was tied in knots because it was so much bigger and more confusing, and I was the little Freshman. Just about the time I got used to it, it was summer again, but the following years were easier. I still remember that anxiety though, so I try to listen when you talk, just to see how you are. I know, too, that you lost a close friendship, and that you probably felt like it was important to be brave to help your family through it too. You were left with a lot of unanswered questions, and a lot of feelings because of that. I don't have the power to fix anything that happened, and I wouldn't try to. What you had was special even if it didn't end that well, and this is one of your first t...

This is not an easy post for me to write, but I think it may help me. This is a dream entry, documenting my most recent night terror in a effort to shed light on how these nighttime torments can take a drastic toll. No matter how much work I do in the daylight, no matter what I repair, in the dark there’s always some wound I never fully healed ready to rip open and bleed again at the slightest provocation. Proceed with caution. *** I’m standing in a field, the dirt under my bare feet is recently tilled. It smells like wet mud and soggy wheat. The skies are blistered black and blue in storm clouds and as I watch, a thin rope of cloud descends, whirling in it’s stretch to the ground. I turn and splash through maddened puddles, feeling the trickles up my calves, but I can hardly move. My legs don’t respond and my hair whips into my face. This is the herald. This is the omen. Tonight I will find no rest. I wake up from the tornadic dream, blinking my eyes open to peer around...

I hate it when I’m feeling a mixture of things that I can’t identify. It makes it nearly impossible to determine what I need to do to feel better. I’m love sick, I’m tired, I’m frustrated. I’m trying to sort out my work life that’s in tangles and they want to fight me with passive aggression. I want to find new work but I get unreasonably upset that most places demand nights, weekends, holidays and have horrible retail environments. Whatever peace I find seems short lived, making it all the more easy to feel addicted and seeking it out. I have to shake my head to clear it multiple times a day. Why do I feel like my stomach is tied in knots? Part of it is purely physiological. My period has always taken whatever I’m feeling and magnified it a hundred times, making emotional stability and regulation damn near impossible, and adds to a general feeling of malaise. I become driven to find comfort more than any other time, and my ability to control those thoughts and feelings diminis...