A NEW DAY…

Soft rain falls. I woke early but stayed in bed sleeping a little more until 5 AM, my usual pattern of wake, sleep, wake, and sleep in the early morning hours. The rain soothes opening to a new day, one where I have no demands other than the usual and the load lightens. A feeling a well-being fills me like a rising tide. The garage sale sucked and having one in the fall is a bad idea but the basement is clean.

I think back on my life, how I was drawn to my abusers, Chet for one. Never hate for Chet, yet with his death came a sense of relief, one more monster down. That makes three. One more to go, and last one is tenacious and will probably outlive us all.

I was drawn to Danny. So sad. Who else did I have? But then I asked him what he did to me, and next suicide attempt was his last. I was never drawn to Tom, though for years was desperate for his love and acceptance- getting none, receiving rebuff, scorn and a malicious, sarcastic, biting rejection.

Then came Samuel into the fray, this so called ‘family.’ Tom, a chameleon, was all nice and pleasant even having us to dinner. An outsider was in and Tom set the scene or tried to. It was then that he became the enemy and I no longer needed or wanted his love.

Why do I lie in bed at 3 AM and think these thoughts?

Another pattern that tends to haunt me during the seasons with less daylight is focusing on an idea and having it spin over and over in my mind like a gerbil in a wheel. Don, Stevie, family, and not feeling close. These are facts, not failures on my part. And if they continue some sort of togetherness along with Tom with emails and a semblance of family, does it matter to me really?

I finally get up, take medicine and luxuriate in the coffee my body can finally tolerate. Then email three woman friends, people who are ‘safe.’ People who do not make me feel like an outcast or oddity, but look at me lovingly with accepting eyes, not eyes that say ‘You’re peculiar.’

My son Shane is 35 tomorrow. I am baking a pumpkin nut torte to take to dinner tonight in his honor. The purple grapes need picking then the work of slipping off the skins, straining the seeds and combining it all back together again and freezing it for pies later in the winter.

The studio beckons. A dazzling butterfly in her brilliance sits in the sunshine emitting shimmering rays of reflections begging for completion awaiting the last step, the grouting. A new day begins long before the sun rises…