Tag Archive for 'family'

CREATIVE WRITING: The Day I Said Hello

This creative writing piece has to do with processing some of what happened the other day when I saw my family. The story concentrates on my sisters reaction to seeing me and possible reasons for her reaction. I changed the place I saw my family as and the dialoged is fiction.  The point of writing is to explored how my sister may have felt during our encounter. The writing is to show how I felt and the validate that my appearance was difficult for her.

I was to be up at 7am and ready to leave town with friends. We were to travel by car two hours away in order to attend a tri-county convention for Fish Keepers. I’d been looking forward to the aquarists gathering because there would be guest speakers with helpful information. I was so giddy I couldn’t sleep. It was if I were going to Disney World the next day. I just couldn’t sleep!

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The Wicked and the Wise

I have a couple of good days then a bad one. I get a few nights of good sleep then a bad one. It’s a yo-yo that’s tiring me quickly.

Today I had the strangest thought: my mind seems to really enjoy torturing me.

I was making spaghetti and meat balls when I had the worst urge to cut the hell out of myself. I’ve wanted to cut my arms to shreds for most of this evening. I’m not. I’m just saying that the urge hit and stayed.

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Black History Month: Learning to See the Difference

This entry has been stuck in my drafts since February 4th, of 2011. There’s an older entry that has handwritten journal entries that go into further detail of my experiences of being told what it means to be black. If you click the little photo under this it’ll take you to that entry. I’m having trouble with WP right now. It’s not letting me add links properly. Anyway………

http://www.sundrip.com/journal/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/anyone-except.jpgMy experience in 2011: Wednesday afternoon I stepped outside and it was 62 degrees. I could tell people were in a good mood and appreciative of the break from the cold. As I opened my car door to drive myself to therapy a man drove by and yelled, “N-word!”

I’m no stranger to that word. Most of the time that word cuts to the core but for some reason when I heard it that day, I pitied the man. I pitied him for choosing to spend such a beautiful day filled with hatred.

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A side salad and a window seat

I’m more than half way unpacked. While unpacking I haven’t stopped to cook a meal or anything, I’ve just eaten sandwiches and salads. The other night as I sat on the futon and picked out Chinese crunchy noodles, I was reminded of all those nostalgic times with an old girlfriend I used to traveled with. Sometimes we only traveled across town, but across town there’s a really wonderful hotel that serves free cocktails every Thursday evening. She and I checked in Wednesday, closed the curtains to shut the world out then we’d chat until all hours of the evening. We’d sing show tunes in the hot tub, dance in the room and sit down to a candle lit microwave meal and a side salad. Once Thursday evening hit it was Cosmopolitan time for me and several Tom Collins for her. After free booze it was back upstairs for more girl time. We had a blast doing that. For most of nine years she and I found a way to have mini vacations like this.  Expensive? Yes, but well worth the bonding time.  

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Stuff She Got Right

Just like most psychopaths, my mother had parts of her that were not violent and destructive. I’d like to list a few things she did right. The list is in no specific order.

  1. My mother taught me to look decent when I leave the house. Don’t go out looking like any old thing. Be clean and presentable.
  2. My mother taught me the importance of speaking a foreign language of
  3. typing, shorthand and other basic secretarial skills. She taught me to type when I was 8 years old.
  4. She taught me the importance of manners. Thank you. Please. Those basic manners make a difference.
  5. She taught me God’s name. (She did everything in her power to mess with my head with religion but she did teach me God’s name. That much she couldn’t mess up.)

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The Young Version of Me

Ah yes, family photos!

In these you’ll see my Pretty in Pink years, the years I thought Corey Hart was the greatest person on earth and my sister’s “I’m so hot” poses. There’s a rather embarrassing one of me with a piece of wheat in my mouth while holding a guitar (which I don’t know how to play). There’s one where my sister and I have “dukey braids” and others of me, little duck, at various stages of duckling-hood.

Quack!

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I’m Not Sorry

I don’t exactly remember what you look like until I see your photo but I remember your voice, your hands and your eyes. The rest of you escapes me.

Photos of you as a child show such sadness only I feel no sympathy for you. I know what was done and how horrible it was yet I feel no sorrow for you.

I’m not sorry nor am I happy that she beat you, but  I am sorry you chose to beat me. I’m not sorry nor am I glad that you were molested and raped, but I’m sorry that you CHOSE to do those things to me. I’m sorry that you blew a chance to turn our family’s legacy around.

I’m not grieved by nor am I pleased that your heart breaks because you know your mother doesn’t love you. I’m sorry that you CHOSE not to love me. I’m not sorry that you hated having me as a daughter. If I was such a horrible, horrible person and you decided to keep me anyway, why, that was your choice too. Continue reading ‘I’m Not Sorry’