My late naughty older stepbro, ladies and gentlemen. My fur sibling. Sign added for good measure. My way of paying respect for the years spent living under the same roof. Not by choice but it had its moments. What we had was not an untenable relationship despite the situation thrust upon us by our hooman ‘rents. Such implusive creatures, those two. The mutt did put up with my moods and claws all those years so…RESPECT.
This is one of those rare occasions I’m willing to pose for a photo. Make it worthwhile. And don’t you dare create one of those social media accounts using my photo and give me ridiculous handles for your amusement. You’ve been warned.
“This is ridiculous,” Rachel complained. “We don’t have to argue about who did what right or not back then. I’ve even forgotten the details already. But why spread lies about me?”
Determined to save face, Monica insisted she had nothing to do with the lies, although many people have pointed to her being the source.
Rachel makes up her mind. This is it, she thought to herself. This situation has become untenable. One of us has to go. She comes up with a plan and leaves the apartment.
Back in Joey’s place across the hall, Rachel hesitates at the door. There’s no time tovacillate, she reminds herself. It’s now or never. She knocks and finds the door unlocked.
What she saw inside Joey’s apartment were the stuff of horror movies. Phoebe, her former roommate, was lifelessly crouched at the table, her blank eyes staring at her. Blood spilled all over the floor, slowly making its way towards her. Rachel stood frozen in place, as if made up of immovable parts.
Written for the ff. daily prompts: The Daily Spur (self), Jibber Jabber (determined), Your Daily Word Prompt (ridiculous), Ragtag Daily Prompt (horror), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (vacillate), and Word of the Day Challenge (movable).
It’s been awhile since she last saw her. It gets harder to remember her face sometimes as an adult, but her scent is unforgettable.
She came and went like the wind, showed up one day to loosely re-introduce herself to her, yet she hasn’t forgotten. The secretly sick woman was her mother, gone from her life almost forever, but now back to atone for her sins. Her time is running out unbeknownst to her.
This bottle is all that’s left to remember her, the flowers taken from when she left this world, her life, to fall asleep forever. She was forgiven even when she was missing, even before she reappeared. Had she known would she have come back sooner..?
“Don’t go”, she would have said. Nine years old, and she never had a chance.
Goodbyes are tough…for most people. But not for me. It’s always been easy for me to up and go, reflect on events and even tragedies, pick up my lessons, and move on. Maybe I take after my mom or guardian, or it runs in the family. Who knows, really.
But there was a time when it was tough. I think only by getting used to it did it become easy. Certainly, moving more than a couple of times, leaving friends behind, and letting go of ‘stuff’ to lighten the load made it easier along the way. The downside is the value and meaning of people and things fade, or at least take longer to mean something. After all, deepening roots and being invested in anything don’t happen instantly, anything worthwhile does take some time.
But I still think it’s worth taking back. After all, learning to value, appreciate and love are correlated to REALLY living. A wake-up call was when I tried to look back at the last 5 years of my life in my early 20s and nothing memorable came to mind. That’s when I knew I had to change things up a bit.
Pretty early on I’ve also come to realize that at least 3 lessons enable maturity, that is, learning to forgive, to let go and to love. The latter speeds up the growing up process but the former two are just as important to adulting. Staring death in the face (thrice) early in life made this crystal clear. In the face of my biological mom in her deathbed who had too many regrets in life, to another who succumbed to cancer peacefully, and then with my best friend passing so soon in life, I became forever changed. At that moment, I think having purpose suddenly became important. Nothing is to be taken for granted.
On a (slightly) lighter note, I’ve learned that happiness is a choice. Whether or not the choice entails leaving a relationship, a toxic environment or even your past behind, or staying knowing or not if there’s hope for change, boils down to a decision. Only after this conscious step can there come peace, acceptance, or at least, resignation.
How about you, what are your biggest life lessons so far?
On the surface, she looks like any well-adjusted, well-educated woman in her 30s, ready to take on the world and achieve her dreams. She easily offers a quick smile with a spark in her eyes. Sometimes, when you get a glimpse of it, she exudes an air of mystery, ever so slightly and briefly, when she tilts her head to the side while thinking, or observing something or someone.
You wouldn’t know just by looking at her what she’s been through to be able to give warmth to others. She had to grow up quickly, at a tender age, when her parents separated ways. She had to take on abuse–verbal, physical and emotional–and not know any better until she was old enough to process everything, the should and should-nots, what had happened and its aftermath. She had to bring some semblance of normalcy to her family or what’s left of it, serve as a lynchpin, to what would otherwise be a badly broken and dysfunctional unit. She had to learn to forgive, let go and not give in to bitterness, and eventually love, which was tough for someone who had absentee parents, emotionally unavailable and punitive guardians, and unreliable relatives. Her friends never knew any of this; for a long time, she put up a wall for self-preservation, not letting anyone get close enough to hurt her. She exuded ‘maturity’ at a young age, learned to live and fend for herself, and give of herself, sometimes a bit too much, to her family, the needy, the unwanted in her community.
But inside she’s about to explode, like a ticking time bomb, if neither defused or dismantled. What she didn’t yet know about herself, she later realized, could hurt her and others around her, if left unaddressed in the light under the sun. It’s an extraction that will leave her vulnerable and weak, yet a necessary operation.
A hard life calls for courage in taking the bad out, not just to leave the good things at the core but to replace the bad and heavy, with new and better things, so that sooner or later, there can be a lightness to one’s footsteps, a considerable weight off the shoulders. Like a brand new lease on life.
I blog about life as an Autistic female with Bipolar 2, giving parenting & marriage my best shot. I am a passionate Advocate for Autism & Mental Health. I'll make you laugh & cry. And I promise you the truth, the whole truth & nothing but the truth.
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