There is a period of my life of which I do not speak. While watching something on Netflix tonight, I was reminded. The story was about a kid in foster care and the scene was a conversation wherein the kid had critical information, but wasn’t willing to talk because he just knew it would mean he’d go right back into the system and lose the family he finally had found. The writer’s of this episode got it precisely right. Even as they missed a lot. It’s the little things that make the difference between feeling empathy and actually feeling it. […]

He says that he does not trust me with his feelings. I gave him my trust and feelings to do with as he would after our second date. He did not seem to notice that he had them; they were forever dangling out of his pocket, dragging along the curb and collecting dust and debris. I do not think he ever noticed and he will never know how it feels to have to run alongside, hoping and reaching to retrieve them when he has already decided that it doesn’t even matter if they or I are there. He tells me […]

There are only three reasons for pure silence; disgust, despair, or deceit. A person who is disgusted, be it with themselves or another, will resort to silence as a means of trying to avoid association or to try and save another from association with them. A person who is despairing thinks silence will “be best” for all concerned and assumes the right of choice and control (which is, itself, an act of selfishness and avoidance). A person who is deceitful uses silence in a (futile) attempt to hide; the old “it cannot be proven” saw. Were I to make the […]

“I promise,” He said, reaching out to hold her hand and giving her that soft smile, “I’m not going to vanish.” She sat in the quiet, looking at the box with its neat, careful packing and reminded herself once again that it was foolish to trust words; they were too easily said and too easily forgotten, it seemed. The litany of reminders ran like water through her mind. Of especial soreness was the one wherein she had set forth the pattern, painted it in careful outlines and demonstrating precisely how it unfolded, just so he would know that this was […]

Unexpectedly, I am feeling content. Funny how this works. Truly. I’m laughing about it. Woah.

If you have raised a child, eventually you reach that moment in which some wisdom that you know but, for whatever reason, have not truly permitted access, reaches you in their words. I had such a moment with my daughter last night and it turns out to have been quite timely. She said to me, “You need to stop giving your energy and bounty to those who will not restore it in you. You can’t keep it up; no one can, and no one should ever have to try.” This morning, sitting here in the aftermath of yet another proof, […]

Accipere quam facere praestat injuriam

I am beginning to get just a wee bit grumpy with the manner in which every good or enjoyable thing I attempt to accomplish winds up skittering off the damn road and landing in the weeds. Worst of all, there’s no “fault” or “blame” in it, so the frustration has nowhere to go and just sits here and stews and thickens until I feel like I am going to choke on it. I finally got tires and the damn shift lock module fixed on the car. Naturally, this means something has to immediately go wrong with it. I’ve got to […]