Ostara
I’m shaking, and inside there are so many voices screaming. So many memories playing out across my eyes so that I can’t even look up. I can’t bear to see his face change from neutral to angry...
***
It’s been another whirlwind weekend, another holiday, another house full. The week leading up to it has not been the easiest. To be blunt, emotionally, I have been a fucking wreck. My stability has been compromised, I’m unsure of where I stand and what’s to come. Work is hellishly roller-coastered with highs and lows, shocks and pain.
He’s been away with his wife to her family, and I am keenly aware of how important this is to him. She will be accessible to him in a way she usually is not. This is a time for them, for their family, and to steal moments as they can. Even saying hello in the morning feels a little guilty. That’s not my place and this was not my time, and I want to be more than supportive during a rather tumultuous time. I wanted to go above and beyond, even as I was struggling.
I still feel the huge desire to spend what time I can with him, and I can hear his need to stretch out and move in other directions. My hands, threatening to clench down and hold tight are being pried open in my mind to prevent myself from grasping overly much. This was the other side I had been anxious about. That things would become so good, and my absence of depression because of that would make me want to cling on harder. I am always deeply aware that I have the potential to suffocate. And even now writing this I can hear my high school boyfriend’s accusatory tones as he dumped me. I know what I am capable of and so I try to keep myself in check.
Perhaps that was why, when after a longer separation, I was hanging on to words and what I took to be promised time. I had pried my fingers back and even insisted he go be present with his family despite my storm, wanting him to take advantage of what he was given so that when it became our time again I might have more undivided attention.
I had, ultimately, only tasted disappointment duplicated. I cut off his support on a bad day and still found him gone when my time rolled around. The real price of martyrdom, I suppose. Let that be a lesson to me.
And so the weekend flew by in a rush. I went from no air, to what felt like a single breath before my head was pulled back under to wait another week. Is that why it was so hard to breathe? They came late on Saturday, and each passing minute became amplified in my mind. Gave rise to thoughts I couldn’t keep from swimming to the surface. But I prevailed, if only barely. They are delayed, traveling is difficult. You’re the absurdly anxious one that keeps your travel times down to the minute because you’re practically insane, you can’t expect that of others.
I sat on my bathroom floor, gluing nails to my fingers while Godsmack echoed off my walls at a high volume to try and keep the noise in my head drowned down. It did not work. Breathing did not work. I was consciously and painfully aware of every passing minute, of every switch of the minute counter in my head that slammed the next number like a hockey buzzer. I reached the end.
They were sitting in the car, the kids around the house when I left. Matt sent me on an errand in Aynor, a petty and poorly disguised excuse to buy a pack of cigarettes and sit near a park with my feet dangling out of the open passenger door until my heartbeat resumed a less hammering nature. “I can come back from this” I tell myself. I can sort this out. And so I did, if only barely. I could be disappointed and still kind. Alone as an incident it could be glossed over. Why make a fuss about things out of control, especially as Matt fed me less volatile, more reasonable arguments to counter the ones in my head. He wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t personal.
And so I came back, cooler and less shaky, more interested in soothing than in confronting. Life is messy, I know this.
There was food and a walk around the neighborhood as the sun sank. How many times already in my short residence have I taken this track? And now here, the full brood and then some walked it with me. Even as my brain tried to circle back around and degrade me for being so crazy and so out of it, no wonder he wasn’t in a rush to come back, I managed to soak up the sights, as if two people live in one body.
The next morning was Easter. Matt hurriedly tucked eggs out in the yard and C brought baskets for everyone. It was dawning on me that I’d given no thought to it, had been caught up in life in general, and that I wanted to savor the day a little more when they began to get ready to depart. It was a hot blade of pain that seared me. Leaving. Already thoughts to leaving. ‘They don’t want to be near you’ was all I could think. He tries to reassure, that it’s just to stay on top of things. Was such thought given to returning to me? My brain automatically answers that it was not, and then begins the feedback loop of every things I have ever done wrong or every time I have been too much. Every. Single. Time.
Jason blares into my mind. “You should be thankful I’m with you, no one else would put up with this shit.”
We figure out rides. I’m standing in the driveway to try and get my brain to slow down when he comes. He’s going to ride with S, to help handle R. I can feel the icy cold fingers crawling up my legs and into my body but I mistake them for my current panic. “Of course.” Why would I argue? My brain is so fired and replaying Jason so loudly that I cannot hear it say anything else.
I go back inside, thinking to grab things that I might need and any last minute things for Matt. I ask if he’s alright being the last out and I step out the door. Into cold so deep it hurts from my fingers to my toes. They are gone. Not even just down the block, but gone, gone gone.
“No one else would put up with your shit.” It’s deafening now. But there are two little faces watching me, And so I bite the inside of my cheek as I used to when I had to stop my face from betraying me, and I climbed into my truck. Cold hands turned the key. Cold lips asked if they were alright. Ice sat in my belly like lead and field the replay in my mind. Over. And over. And over.
The drive is a long one. I pour the ice out of my leg, visualizing it sliding up into the engine, firing off with each piston, burned away by the miles of road. The truck is suitably loud enough when I get into the gas, the feedback on the pedal just enough to feel productive.
Over and over and over the thoughts repeat. He was late coming and so fast to leave. So fast. My mind drew parallels and crushed me. “Isn’t that just how it goes for you, dumbass? You fall first, you fall harder, and you’re always the last one here. You never. Fucking. Learn. And now this is your penance. Sit in this and remember it the next time you go getting fancy ideas about people wanting you.”
K speaks up after a while. I can’t tell if she knows I’m not ok or if she’s lost in her own world too. Z is fast asleep. “My family always talks about what they’d put in that empty lot if we had the money. Like an amusement park.” I unclench my jaw and find it sore, but I force myself to talk anyway. I talk about adding a dude ranch, and then wonder if that can be a new kind of salad dressing. It starts to work, but traffic is becoming horrible.
My anxiety levels up when we find the park and it’s full of people. I have no armor, nothing to hide behind. Nothing to save me if trouble comes, if anyone decides to be horrible. We roll up to the booth and that’s when I remember the fee to get in. I had been so utterly hurt at seeing them gone that I had forgotten about money. Would they take cards? Would I even be able to ask? My voice trembles just a little when I do, and she smiles and says yes. Can she tell I’m off? Can she see my lips don’t really want to stay steady?
Crisis averted, we move further in. K and I try to figure out where to go. Onward, towards parks and playgrounds. But it’s a guess, and I don’t see places big enough for my truck left. People back out towards me, people walk out between cars without looking, and I have no idea where I’m going. My lungs suddenly feel as if they are filling with water and my chest is bound by iron bands. I cannot get a full breath.
After I begin to think I will just drop them off and drive to the house in Hanahan, I see a spot. It takes a few tries to get in, largely because I am shaking and it’s hard to be in control, but I manage. I’m so far gone that I try to light a cigarette on getting out and I cannot. My fingers are trembling, my lips will not stay still and my brain is currently telling my that my dress makes me appear pregnant and so smoking will draw dirty looks. Looks I have no armor to withstand.
And then we are lost in a sea of people. What do we do? I hand my phone to K, without even thinking that she has her own, and ask her to talk to T. Guide us. I can’t do it. I am beginning to think I will not be able to walk before much longer. What then?
But I force march myself along beside her, avoiding the gaze of anyone near me, knowing I’m either too pale or blushing too much. I don’t look right and I know that. After a few moments that stretch out into eternity, he’s there. And he comes to walk with me and reaches out to touch me. It’s like being scalded. I can’t stop myself from shaking my head and pulling away. I can’t use words, I can’t do anything but beg him silently to let my body be. It’s in pain and my mind is clouded.
I come to the group, and they smile at me. And I think all of them wear mask, behind which they mock me. They are not friends, they are not caring. They don’t actually like me. No one wants me here. When I talk it feels high pitched and fast, too fast. Too high. Too loud. He’s not near me. Neither of them is. I look up and see C’s face is twitching the way mine wants to. I cannot find solace here. I must bear on and get through it as I can.
I try to speak up and engage. But every time I try, my brain is screaming at me “OH MY GOD, NO ONE CARES.”
I introduce myself, my ties. Matt introduces himself and C. T just introduces himself and instantly before I can shut it down I can see Curt, always avoiding anything like public acknowledgement of me. I fight myself at first not to be hurt, and then just give in. What’s one more thing? One more face and one more voice of the past?
“He likes having babies.” If I could barely breathe before, I cannot now. ‘And that’s something you can’t give him, J, so why the fuck do you think you can make him happy? What are you bringing him besides this ridiculous mess?’
The meeting concludes, and I’m scrambling, trying to find anything. It’s Beth next to me who can see I’m not ok. I try to form words, to make my mouth ask for a walk, but I can’t seem to make it work. She can see I’m not ok and so everything is trying to shut down. But she asks the right words and so we go.
She sees my hands shake. She hears my voice stop being steady and asks if I’m ok. I shake my head no but I can’t tell her when she asks why. Instead I tell her of my week at work, and that I’m tired and overwhelmed by the people in the park. She tries to understand, but she knows there’s more to this. More I can’t say.
When we walk back, Matt checks in. I manage to get more out but it’s making my face contort. My chin won’t stay still and my vision is becoming blurry. He cannot help because he isn’t involved. He just tries to tell me what I feel is valid and if I need to escape, he’ll find a path for me. But he has to go help C, and he cannot stay. I don’t even have to turn fully to sense him there.
He asks, he knows, he sees. The lump in my throat is threatening to kill me if I try to talk. Should I lie? I don’t want to confront. I don’t want to let this out here and risk it going so much worse. I can see Jason in my vision, his face contorting. “I’ll give you something to pout about.”
I go slowly. Triple and quadruple thinking words before I say them lowly to the ground. I can’t look at his face. I can’t see that moment when it turns. I give him only what he’s responsible for. The feelings he’s singed. I brace for the change, the impact, the shouting or the whispered threats. For the fight that it always turned into with Matt.
But there isn’t one. He hears me. He doesn’t take it to a place of guilt or saying he’s unworthy, he just hears me, and apologizes. And he’s kind when he does it. He’s soft and gentle and soothing. He’s not angry with me, he’s encouraging. And we sort it out.
The air rushes back into my lungs. The bird chirping in the trees no longer sounds like warning, but like pleasant song. The sun dims from a harsh light to an ambient filtered light in the trees. The storm suddenly breaks and ceases and all that has happened is suddenly gone. There is just him, just us standing here. He’s done more in a single moment than others have done in years.
Warmth comes back to me, trickles and then floods back in. I still shake, but it’s ebbing away. Inside I can feel the pain changing from white-hot sear to the dull ache of post-adrenaline. And even with that, I can feel my heart responding. This is all I could ever ask for. There is no fix, no cure. There is only gentle hands. Soothing words. Acceptance.
I find it easier to relax int he evening, to let go and just let my body settle as it will. When I lay my head on K’s lap to watch tv, she slowly runs her fingers through my hair and it sends a tingling sensation through my scalp and into my heart. Soothing, kindness, love. I am home when I feel this way.
I still struggle a bit with feeling secure, with not dissecting words and actions and repeating them and whipping them to death to drag all meaning from them, but I am trying. And this time I feel like a great victory was had.
***
It’s been another whirlwind weekend, another holiday, another house full. The week leading up to it has not been the easiest. To be blunt, emotionally, I have been a fucking wreck. My stability has been compromised, I’m unsure of where I stand and what’s to come. Work is hellishly roller-coastered with highs and lows, shocks and pain.
He’s been away with his wife to her family, and I am keenly aware of how important this is to him. She will be accessible to him in a way she usually is not. This is a time for them, for their family, and to steal moments as they can. Even saying hello in the morning feels a little guilty. That’s not my place and this was not my time, and I want to be more than supportive during a rather tumultuous time. I wanted to go above and beyond, even as I was struggling.
I still feel the huge desire to spend what time I can with him, and I can hear his need to stretch out and move in other directions. My hands, threatening to clench down and hold tight are being pried open in my mind to prevent myself from grasping overly much. This was the other side I had been anxious about. That things would become so good, and my absence of depression because of that would make me want to cling on harder. I am always deeply aware that I have the potential to suffocate. And even now writing this I can hear my high school boyfriend’s accusatory tones as he dumped me. I know what I am capable of and so I try to keep myself in check.
Perhaps that was why, when after a longer separation, I was hanging on to words and what I took to be promised time. I had pried my fingers back and even insisted he go be present with his family despite my storm, wanting him to take advantage of what he was given so that when it became our time again I might have more undivided attention.
I had, ultimately, only tasted disappointment duplicated. I cut off his support on a bad day and still found him gone when my time rolled around. The real price of martyrdom, I suppose. Let that be a lesson to me.
And so the weekend flew by in a rush. I went from no air, to what felt like a single breath before my head was pulled back under to wait another week. Is that why it was so hard to breathe? They came late on Saturday, and each passing minute became amplified in my mind. Gave rise to thoughts I couldn’t keep from swimming to the surface. But I prevailed, if only barely. They are delayed, traveling is difficult. You’re the absurdly anxious one that keeps your travel times down to the minute because you’re practically insane, you can’t expect that of others.
I sat on my bathroom floor, gluing nails to my fingers while Godsmack echoed off my walls at a high volume to try and keep the noise in my head drowned down. It did not work. Breathing did not work. I was consciously and painfully aware of every passing minute, of every switch of the minute counter in my head that slammed the next number like a hockey buzzer. I reached the end.
They were sitting in the car, the kids around the house when I left. Matt sent me on an errand in Aynor, a petty and poorly disguised excuse to buy a pack of cigarettes and sit near a park with my feet dangling out of the open passenger door until my heartbeat resumed a less hammering nature. “I can come back from this” I tell myself. I can sort this out. And so I did, if only barely. I could be disappointed and still kind. Alone as an incident it could be glossed over. Why make a fuss about things out of control, especially as Matt fed me less volatile, more reasonable arguments to counter the ones in my head. He wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t personal.
And so I came back, cooler and less shaky, more interested in soothing than in confronting. Life is messy, I know this.
There was food and a walk around the neighborhood as the sun sank. How many times already in my short residence have I taken this track? And now here, the full brood and then some walked it with me. Even as my brain tried to circle back around and degrade me for being so crazy and so out of it, no wonder he wasn’t in a rush to come back, I managed to soak up the sights, as if two people live in one body.
The next morning was Easter. Matt hurriedly tucked eggs out in the yard and C brought baskets for everyone. It was dawning on me that I’d given no thought to it, had been caught up in life in general, and that I wanted to savor the day a little more when they began to get ready to depart. It was a hot blade of pain that seared me. Leaving. Already thoughts to leaving. ‘They don’t want to be near you’ was all I could think. He tries to reassure, that it’s just to stay on top of things. Was such thought given to returning to me? My brain automatically answers that it was not, and then begins the feedback loop of every things I have ever done wrong or every time I have been too much. Every. Single. Time.
Jason blares into my mind. “You should be thankful I’m with you, no one else would put up with this shit.”
We figure out rides. I’m standing in the driveway to try and get my brain to slow down when he comes. He’s going to ride with S, to help handle R. I can feel the icy cold fingers crawling up my legs and into my body but I mistake them for my current panic. “Of course.” Why would I argue? My brain is so fired and replaying Jason so loudly that I cannot hear it say anything else.
I go back inside, thinking to grab things that I might need and any last minute things for Matt. I ask if he’s alright being the last out and I step out the door. Into cold so deep it hurts from my fingers to my toes. They are gone. Not even just down the block, but gone, gone gone.
“No one else would put up with your shit.” It’s deafening now. But there are two little faces watching me, And so I bite the inside of my cheek as I used to when I had to stop my face from betraying me, and I climbed into my truck. Cold hands turned the key. Cold lips asked if they were alright. Ice sat in my belly like lead and field the replay in my mind. Over. And over. And over.
The drive is a long one. I pour the ice out of my leg, visualizing it sliding up into the engine, firing off with each piston, burned away by the miles of road. The truck is suitably loud enough when I get into the gas, the feedback on the pedal just enough to feel productive.
Over and over and over the thoughts repeat. He was late coming and so fast to leave. So fast. My mind drew parallels and crushed me. “Isn’t that just how it goes for you, dumbass? You fall first, you fall harder, and you’re always the last one here. You never. Fucking. Learn. And now this is your penance. Sit in this and remember it the next time you go getting fancy ideas about people wanting you.”
K speaks up after a while. I can’t tell if she knows I’m not ok or if she’s lost in her own world too. Z is fast asleep. “My family always talks about what they’d put in that empty lot if we had the money. Like an amusement park.” I unclench my jaw and find it sore, but I force myself to talk anyway. I talk about adding a dude ranch, and then wonder if that can be a new kind of salad dressing. It starts to work, but traffic is becoming horrible.
My anxiety levels up when we find the park and it’s full of people. I have no armor, nothing to hide behind. Nothing to save me if trouble comes, if anyone decides to be horrible. We roll up to the booth and that’s when I remember the fee to get in. I had been so utterly hurt at seeing them gone that I had forgotten about money. Would they take cards? Would I even be able to ask? My voice trembles just a little when I do, and she smiles and says yes. Can she tell I’m off? Can she see my lips don’t really want to stay steady?
Crisis averted, we move further in. K and I try to figure out where to go. Onward, towards parks and playgrounds. But it’s a guess, and I don’t see places big enough for my truck left. People back out towards me, people walk out between cars without looking, and I have no idea where I’m going. My lungs suddenly feel as if they are filling with water and my chest is bound by iron bands. I cannot get a full breath.
After I begin to think I will just drop them off and drive to the house in Hanahan, I see a spot. It takes a few tries to get in, largely because I am shaking and it’s hard to be in control, but I manage. I’m so far gone that I try to light a cigarette on getting out and I cannot. My fingers are trembling, my lips will not stay still and my brain is currently telling my that my dress makes me appear pregnant and so smoking will draw dirty looks. Looks I have no armor to withstand.
And then we are lost in a sea of people. What do we do? I hand my phone to K, without even thinking that she has her own, and ask her to talk to T. Guide us. I can’t do it. I am beginning to think I will not be able to walk before much longer. What then?
But I force march myself along beside her, avoiding the gaze of anyone near me, knowing I’m either too pale or blushing too much. I don’t look right and I know that. After a few moments that stretch out into eternity, he’s there. And he comes to walk with me and reaches out to touch me. It’s like being scalded. I can’t stop myself from shaking my head and pulling away. I can’t use words, I can’t do anything but beg him silently to let my body be. It’s in pain and my mind is clouded.
I come to the group, and they smile at me. And I think all of them wear mask, behind which they mock me. They are not friends, they are not caring. They don’t actually like me. No one wants me here. When I talk it feels high pitched and fast, too fast. Too high. Too loud. He’s not near me. Neither of them is. I look up and see C’s face is twitching the way mine wants to. I cannot find solace here. I must bear on and get through it as I can.
I try to speak up and engage. But every time I try, my brain is screaming at me “OH MY GOD, NO ONE CARES.”
I introduce myself, my ties. Matt introduces himself and C. T just introduces himself and instantly before I can shut it down I can see Curt, always avoiding anything like public acknowledgement of me. I fight myself at first not to be hurt, and then just give in. What’s one more thing? One more face and one more voice of the past?
“He likes having babies.” If I could barely breathe before, I cannot now. ‘And that’s something you can’t give him, J, so why the fuck do you think you can make him happy? What are you bringing him besides this ridiculous mess?’
The meeting concludes, and I’m scrambling, trying to find anything. It’s Beth next to me who can see I’m not ok. I try to form words, to make my mouth ask for a walk, but I can’t seem to make it work. She can see I’m not ok and so everything is trying to shut down. But she asks the right words and so we go.
She sees my hands shake. She hears my voice stop being steady and asks if I’m ok. I shake my head no but I can’t tell her when she asks why. Instead I tell her of my week at work, and that I’m tired and overwhelmed by the people in the park. She tries to understand, but she knows there’s more to this. More I can’t say.
When we walk back, Matt checks in. I manage to get more out but it’s making my face contort. My chin won’t stay still and my vision is becoming blurry. He cannot help because he isn’t involved. He just tries to tell me what I feel is valid and if I need to escape, he’ll find a path for me. But he has to go help C, and he cannot stay. I don’t even have to turn fully to sense him there.
He asks, he knows, he sees. The lump in my throat is threatening to kill me if I try to talk. Should I lie? I don’t want to confront. I don’t want to let this out here and risk it going so much worse. I can see Jason in my vision, his face contorting. “I’ll give you something to pout about.”
I go slowly. Triple and quadruple thinking words before I say them lowly to the ground. I can’t look at his face. I can’t see that moment when it turns. I give him only what he’s responsible for. The feelings he’s singed. I brace for the change, the impact, the shouting or the whispered threats. For the fight that it always turned into with Matt.
But there isn’t one. He hears me. He doesn’t take it to a place of guilt or saying he’s unworthy, he just hears me, and apologizes. And he’s kind when he does it. He’s soft and gentle and soothing. He’s not angry with me, he’s encouraging. And we sort it out.
The air rushes back into my lungs. The bird chirping in the trees no longer sounds like warning, but like pleasant song. The sun dims from a harsh light to an ambient filtered light in the trees. The storm suddenly breaks and ceases and all that has happened is suddenly gone. There is just him, just us standing here. He’s done more in a single moment than others have done in years.
Warmth comes back to me, trickles and then floods back in. I still shake, but it’s ebbing away. Inside I can feel the pain changing from white-hot sear to the dull ache of post-adrenaline. And even with that, I can feel my heart responding. This is all I could ever ask for. There is no fix, no cure. There is only gentle hands. Soothing words. Acceptance.
I find it easier to relax int he evening, to let go and just let my body settle as it will. When I lay my head on K’s lap to watch tv, she slowly runs her fingers through my hair and it sends a tingling sensation through my scalp and into my heart. Soothing, kindness, love. I am home when I feel this way.
I still struggle a bit with feeling secure, with not dissecting words and actions and repeating them and whipping them to death to drag all meaning from them, but I am trying. And this time I feel like a great victory was had.
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