do you remember
(cloudy eyes in november)
do you remember
(vacant brain, AA member)
do you remember
(our first kiss, sparks fade into embers)
do you remember
(saving ourselves, forever each others mental mentors)
do you remember
(making love, eyes fixed, no other contenders)
do you remember
(the pretty boy, our slender defender)
do you remember
(establishing our love, innocent splendor)
“i will always remember these rich memories”
speaks the troubled lamenter
I don’t remember much of my childhood.
The memories I do remember are best kept hidden deep inside.
They swirl around my insides like a whirlpool of dead stars into a black hole.
But my dear reader, I can’t hide them anymore.
It’s all too much.
These dead stars poison my body and soul.
Please take them from me.
Reach into that black hole and hold them for awhile.
And then, please stay awhile.
I cannot be left alone with them, again.
Over the last year, after losing my Mom and my two cats all within the year of one another, I have had nightly nightmares that have me re-live the worst times in my life thus far.
My dreams consist of seeing my mom pass away, become sick, or injure herself.
Last night, she choked and had a seizure in front of me.
My dreams consist of nightmare scenarios: being stuck in the ocean, shark attacks, losing friends and loved ones, falling from high altitudes, plane crashes…..
Last night, I fell through the sky, off of a skyscraper, and I felt it. I felt the roller-coaster feeling for a long time.
Will I ever recover? Will these ever go away?
I’m stuck in my trauma, awake and asleep.
I am sorry you felt the need to binge tv shows nightly and eat fast food to soothe yourself.
You stopped seeing friends except on the weekend when you would get wasted.
I am sorry you slept with numerous men who did not care about you.
(Remember the one who slept with you, took your cigarettes and then left and never talked to you again? Shout out to Kyle from Longmeadow, Mass. You reignited my trauma, yet I feel sorry for you. I saw those sadness in your eyes. I hope you are ok.)
I am sorry you let your mother, who loved you and who you loved very much, to control your emotions like a light switch….so badly that self harm and disordered eating became a part of your life.
I am NOT sorry for these experiences. They taught me lessons.
I am sorry for the hurt they caused my sensitive soul though.
Now, we will heal, but it’s up to me when.
When?
I don’t know.
I am unsure if I will live through these addictions. The addictions of life. These addictions keep me going, keep me living, keep me surviving. The happy moments I have had these past years has been manufactured by a chemical substance. How will I ever be able to experience something that instantaneous happiness that GREAT again?
What is it like waking up under no influence of a pill, an herb, or a toxin? What is it like waking up like when I was a little girl?
The little girl before trauma. The little girl who wanted her bottle, her blanket, her Baka. The little girl who was robbed of her childhood and yet forgives those who robbed it from her.
Oh, that little Kayla was such a sweet soul. She had no hate in her body. She had love. The hate came later on disguised as rage. Rage against being forced to grow up without feeling completely nurtured.
Sadly, I do not see waking up as my natural self ever again in my lifetime.
It’s being here now that’s important. There’s no past and there’s no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can’t relive it; and we can hope for the future, but we don’t know if there is one.
George Harrison
I stop for a moment and look up.
In front of me, I see a square window surrounded by chipping paint flakes and coated in a deep brown color; similar to the dark color of my soul.
The curiosity reels me in, and I’m standing directly in front of the window now, so close that I can open or close it.
I look up. There it is, I think. Above me was a round and majestic glowing figure that seemingly met me here, at this same spot, for years now.
Some call it The Moon.
To me, I don’t care what it is called, as it puts me in a trance when it’s around.
I’ve…fallen in love with this…thing.
It never fails me, nor abandons, nor shames.
It just exists and lets me live next to it, without any judgment.
“Edmund! Edmund!”
I hear my wife calling from the porch across the way. I hope she gets tired and gives up with that yelling. Her voice used to spark a flame in me; now, sometimes, it extinguishes it.
I look up one more time before I must go.
The Moon has drifted farther from where it last was, and a jolt of sadness arises in me.
“Edmund! Get over ‘ere I need yah!”
I take a deep breath in and one breath out. My hands are clenched, yet I slowly let the stress from my body go.
This is why The Moon and I meet every night.
We are not involved in some scandalous love affair; no, we are engaged in a community.
When I am with The Moon, I create and build mastery in my life. I build what I’ve lost with my wife…
We never may know where we go one day to the next – or what may happen tomorrow, or a minute from now.
At least I know the Moon stays consistent for me, and I for it.
“EDMUND!!”
I break my gaze with my new lover, shuffle over to the barn door, and see Millie on the porch, in her nightdress, looking beautiful. The way her hair naturally swayed in the wind was memorizing.
Until she opened her mouth.
As I headed across the field towards the house, I couldn’t seem to focus, because our home was now glazed over in Moonlight, like the Moon was giving me a gift of departure.
We will meet again, My Moon. Until tomorrow.
Wake up. Remember reality. Go back to bed.
This is how I, and I’m sure at some point you, have felt since March of 2020.
Now, let’s forget for a second that Covid-19 is a virus.
Let’s make it real, let us give this monster a name, an identity.
Basically, the Monster, previously named Covid-19, showed up one day, risked murdering the majority of our population, ceased to leave us alone, and has morphed into a million little personalities; not anti-social ones either.
The Monster has changed everything, forever. I’m not sure if we will be coming back to what we knew before. Many people are outraged, many are scared, and many are neutral. There is no one ‘ right’ answer to this Monster mess and we know it. I have no idea what we should do to protect those we love or how to make sure we are spending valuable time with loved ones and not spend it isolating. The Monster feeds off instability and we have that here.
Okay. It’s time for some radical acceptance. We are at where we are at. People will hate wearing masks, and others will not mind at all. People will resist vaccines, and people will get vaccines.
What we can do is be curious with ourselves.
Why does their behavior weigh so heavily on my mind?
Why do I care what the ‘other side’ is doing with their lives?
Yes, it’s valid to be angry with people that don’t agree with you.
No, its unessecary to consistently gripe with them.
My main point to this, is to live your life focusing on what you can do to change your life and the life around you.
This whole Monster virus is about love. It takes away what we love – family, businesses, friends, freedom, etc.
We have no idea when our time is up here, and when we are on our death beds, the last thing we want to be thinking of, is how much time we spent, on battling those who disagreed.
Lets try to love more, instead.
