Spring Break

The drive to my hometown is nice but long. We take stop in historic Georgetown to peruse antiques and craft chocolates, and make multiple supply stops on account of there being such limited variety once we get to town.

Day 1 I attend a service for a cousin in the LDS church in Vernal before they are sent to Missionary work on an island in South Africa. He’s a kid but he actually speaks pretty well to the point of ministering his word and faith through kindly actions to neighbors.
The young lady that spoke after him was not so to the point or understandable in regards to her trip to west Virginia. Neither knew how to close up shop when it was time.

We meet some of my moms husband’s family at his sister’s house afterwards for lunch. There are big paintings of Jesus and religious sites on the wall, but it is a nicely furnished space. I haven’t seen his sister’s since my babyshower years ago.
We are welcomed to a bounty of food left over from the previous nights party for Sage, and it isn’t long before the house fills up withextended family and their friends. There’s a conversation about Sage’s Trump shoes.
For me there is a moment of cringe when as one of the tie clad young men is departing, he is saying his goodbyes to the lady of the house and states that he’d much rather be there than working with a bunch of Mexicans. The lady, responding with that’s right!
My kid eats a bunch of pizza and has a dance party in the hallway, resulting in her throwing up in the hallway on the pristine carpet. The auntie is kind about it, highlighting how she knows how kids are and has experienced it as a mom more than once herself.
I thank them all for their hospitality.

Later I pick up my grandma and we all drive out to my brothers farm where we get to check out his new baby chick’s, before visiting with the ducks,chickens,peacocks,and horses out back. It’s very relaxing. My brother and his partner suggest me helping with a mural they want to set up in their kitchen later on. I immediately start obsessing over it. He’s gotta cover material cost but I think it’ll be a fun project, and my largest yet if this talk develops further. I’m thinking old west town and carriage type deal with their horses. I overhear some concerning stuff

I end the evening dropping my grandma off at her apartment where we scratch some lottery tickets and I leave with plans for lunch and shopping the next day.
It really hasn’t been quiet at all, and despite my misgivings at some of the things I’m hearing.

For Once

For once

For once I want to experience what it’s like to be the girl who’s important

Important in another person’s life romantically

The girl they’re actually scared to lose

The girl who’s opinion matters, the one who they actually listen when I speak

I want to be the girl who someone pays attention to every little detail because to them I matter

For once I want someone to care, to care if they hurt my feelings

To care to know how my day is going

For once I’d like to be the girl who is a priority and not an afterthought

For once I want to experience what it’s like for someone to be so intrigued by every little thing about me

For once I’d love to experience romance and not just be a pretty accessory

I wonder what it feels like to be seen?

For once I want to know I bring excitement to another person

For once I want to feel like I’m not the underdog in every situation

For once I want to experience genuine love.

For once.

Darkness and an uncertain sunrise

I have to face the facts
That you don’t want to know me anymore.
Truth be told, I feel like I haven’t wanted
To know me either for most of my life.
There is courage in walking away
That I admire about you
And there is bravery in me trying to love
Someone who feels so unlovable.
Perhaps getting to know me is more important
Than your forgetting.
I have run away from myself for so long.
It’s time I greet myself as a friend.
Softer, lighter and casually with good intentions
And then..

Next door

The place where the guy offed himself, the lady that moved in swears its haunted. Though as she’s expressed to me could be explained off as psychotic depression from ongoing stressor in her own day to day, ranging in severity from auto accidents to general insomnia, a job that deals in frequent mortality. Teacups show up in places she never placed them. Noises cause her disquiet.
She’s had me sit at her place for a good half day to help her meet with an inspection guy for her landlord. For the most part it was quiet, her cat napped on me. There was some thumping upstairs, but I didn’t investigate, I posited it off as potentually sounds of my own cats from the other side somewhere.

I’ve seen the guy that lived in that space before both of those families for more than a decade a good a handful of times since we attended his daughter’s funeral , but the impressions haven’t been great.
Last time he met my husband at a metal show with his friend, my husband offered them a ride home and the friend puked all over the back seat from drinking too much.
The time before that he was doing some holiday stop by, drove to our place drunk and was way too affectionate to my comfort. Making requests for me to come give him kisses and being grabby. My husband noticed too and was also put off by the interaction but we discourse on an appropriate response, which was to maybe keep him away from our place but be of amicable disposition. We’ve tried to talk to him about his habits before but it seems to only make him want to double down on them, to the extreme risk of his health and legal life and the greater potential for his actions to ripple out with fatal consequences. I think he mentioned being in therapy but as of now I’m keeping a bit of a distance for personal concerns.

My other neighbor is also convinced the place is haunted but she won’t say what explicitly convinced her. She’s been in that weird in between space of planning for a new baby and having to say goodbye to a beloved dog, Aesop has been such a well loved community buddy and its sad for us all.

I’ll be heading off in a few days to spend spring break with my mom in our hometown. The kid is looking forward to it and I get to pay my family dues by chauffering grandma around for a week. Maybe get my next round of projects set up and enjoy being somewhere a little quieter just for a bit.

Cheers to you

People ask me all the time if I have forgiven you and my answer has always been vague. Yes and no. Yes, I forgave you in a sense that I don’t let you have that effect on me anymore. Whenever I see you post, I feel nothing. I don’t feel angry for your happiness but I don’t feel happy either. I forgive you just so I could have my peace of mind.
But on the other hand, I didn’t forgive you. The cheating, lying, emotional abuse, and sexual assault you did was not forgivable. I was not some toy you could use all you want and replace for a shinier one. I was a person with feelings. I was a person who loved you so deep I forgot to love myself. I was the person you promised you would never hurt because you said I was as precious as a ruby.
So there’s that. Maybe in another lifetime where I did not feel like ending my life because of the pain and damage you have caused me, I will forgive you fully. But not in this lifetime.
In this lifetime, I will continue to wish the pain and damage you have caused me would haunt you at night. I hope it would haunt you in a way you’d question yourself why you did that to us, to me. In this lifetime, you would never have my forgiveness because you never deserved it.
In this lifetime, you would be the person I loved too much even if you did not deserve it and you would be the person I loathe too much because you deserve it.