Holes In Time

The deepest misunderstanding of time is that we have plenty of it. We don't.

I've watched a man run into fire and burn. I've lost an old friend in a head on collision, and too many people to drugs, alcohol, and depression. I found our family dog hanging from the fence in our backyard. I have had a gun pointed to my head and thought "This is it; my end is now."

Nobody wants to believe that hate, resentment, and disappointment will cloud their mind after learning that a parent is dead. Either we wish to feel nothing, or we wish for the sadness to be overshadowed by the comfort of good memories and the support of those that share your blood. I have very few good memories and I find myself once again sitting alone. I am but a girl with her cat. I'm in a storm of what I can only assume is a form of insanity. I guess I should laugh, maybe some of my exes were right: I am crazy.

Only someone crazy could love the people I have loved. My "father" drove me mad with his give-and-take love. The normalization of daily activities and interactions prepared me for every moment in my nearly 32 years on this planet. He helped mold me during my most early, informative existence. He made me angry. He devoured my self-esteem. He treated my mother like property, so I became property to another and another and another. My soul was yelling and raging. So how did I end up here?

How did I find myself to be sad about the death of a man who made my journey extra treacherous, harmful, and scary? Indeed, I am sad about the death of a man I decided to no longer call "dad", only a few short weeks ago. My therapist told me that seeing my family again should happen when I was ready, and on my own terms.

Life is what happens while you're busy making plans. I thought I had time to reassemble my pieces and then speak my truth. Maybe a small part of me thought he would fucking apologize. That's never going to happen now, and probably never was. The word probably will haunt me. It shall extravagantly stride whilst holding hands with all of the maybes from my daydreams of a better life.

"If only, if only," the woodpecker sighs, "The bark on the tree was just a little bit softer." While the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely, He cries to the moon, "If only, if only."