Queen Juicy J

We’ve ended up in his room after eating ourselves to death and I’ve laid on the bed with the lights shining down on me. He’s sitting in the chair in the corner, watching me and smiling. Earlier he had pulled me close and danced to Christmas music in the living room. Now his eyes were on me and it felt like heaven. I had his undivided attention. We talked about holidays. How spending them together was such a big thing. How neither of us had spent them with anyone other than spouses. I’d never even dated anyone around the holidays, usually in a deep depression after Firemen’s. This is my first, and boy was I really going balls to the wall. Matt and I had been having discussions for years. Dreams, ideas. What I want to do for holidays versus what we could do. We’ve spent them largely isolated, just the two of us. They have been lovely, but he’s held my hand every year, given it a little squeeze and told me that some day we’d have the family I miss. He resents me nothing in my desire to ...

It’s dim, the Christmas tree in the living room is casting colors into the shadows. The side of his face is lit up soft hues of green and red. At our feet my imitation fireplace weakly tries to add romance. It’s not quite a crackling fire but it’s cozy and we’re curled up in each other’s arms.  It’s getting harder and harder to leave, to be apart. He whispers a question, and for a moment I think he’s teasing me. He’ll grow tired of me quickly, I’m less impressive when viewed daily and a rough day takes it’s toll on me. When I come home with the euthanasia’s of the day tangled in my hair like so many little birds, pecking and squawking and refusing to let go. When angry words from clients are etched and glowing in my skin after carrying them around all day. What then? Where would I go when things aren’t perfect? What if they are imperfect for too long? What if I stop belonging and have traded security for... for what? Every time my thought train gets here, it derails. This ha...

I don't know who I've been the last decade and a half. I mean, I know I've been me, I've been solidly in this head because that's how heads work. I made choices and had great experiences and felt all kinds of new things. But I don't know who I've been. And the only reason I know that is because I looked in the mirror today for the first time in years and saw me. I feel more connected to the strong me, the inner me who has been asleep for so long. The me who stands on solid ground and knows her path. The me that didn't have shit figured out, but always landed on her feet anyway. I stood in the lobby of my work today, marveling that I was in a leadership role. That I wouldn't have noticed if I didn't stop for just one moment and see everyone looking to me for the answers, for the direction of where to go. Not because I held anything special but because I felt like me. Just me. I was impressed by my own attitude, by my own actions and words. For...

It’s 2am. I’m in nothing but pain now. My body has spent almost a full day in panic mode, adrenaline pumped through my veins for hours. Every joint aches like I’m 100 years old. My stomach, voided violently in the late afternoon now feels like an empty barrel. But there is no hunger. The chemical cocktail of stress prevents it. Just like it prevents sleep, peace, or ending this infernal shaking.  I’ve gone into shock, I know that now that I’ve past it. After the worst has past and I’m back to myself enough Matt discusses it with me. There were moments when I’d cry so hard nothing came out, every muscle in my body straining under duress. And then, just as suddenly my breathe would hitch from lack of oxygen, my eyes would close and for a little under a minute I would sleep because my body was shutting down this reaction.  Then I’d wake up and struggle to hold on to my stream of consciousness. There are gaps, time seems to have jumped around in my memory. Sometimes I forg...

Where does the time go? How does it pass so suddenly no matter how hard I try to keep it in my grasp? There are times when I focus, laying in his bed, looking at the ceiling and lights, hearing him breathe in sleep and try to exist inside the moment without thought. Capture it like a living picture. Enjoy that for the moment I am there for times when I am not. It never stays though. Like water in my hand it finds miniscule cracks to slide through until it’s gone forever. “Who’s sitting where for the movie?” “I’M SITTING NEXT TO JEWEL!” There’s open affection now. Hugs, cuddles, snuggling up to watch movies. A few times I’ve had all three around me, on me, piled up like all my memories of my own childhood. I’m thankful T and S let me have this, let me share and bask in moments like these. I belong here, with them, and for a little while I get to be. There’s nothing else outside these walls, no world, no pressing concerns. Just them and this time I get to have with them. Later in ...

"Jules, you're zoning out again. Where do you go when you do that?" Other places. Other times. My best friend Laura is calling me back to my head. I've just been thinking about my future. Hopes, dreams. We'd been talking about plans after high school. All the things we wanted to do. I pictured myself coming home from some Very Important Job, dark outside and maybe a little cool snap in the air. The glow of the interior lights crosses my path in a swatch of gold and I can hear all the noise inside already. I get to stop and look into the heart of a home bustling with stuff to do. With a family. *** It's summer. I'm 16. 12. 8. From the earliest memories I recall that feeling, that thing way down deep in my bones when I was coming home at night. Green highway signs flash and I know them because I practiced reading them when I first started reading. Each turn the wheels make is as familiar as the bath and bedtime routine that will be following soon. Well m...