Missing Pieces

8/5/2013





I’ve got a cashier’s check in my hand; I’m going to be able to keep my home. My roommate just moved in and things are only going to get better. I walk out to my car. I’m going to drop off the rent money on my way to work. I slide into the driver’s seat and put the key in the ignition.





I turn the key.





Nothing happens.





My car won’t start.





Nothing happens.





Nothing happens.





This can’t be happening.





I walk down to the leasing office to give them the check. The most important thing is keeping a roof over my head. I call my client to let them know that my car won’t start, and I’m looking for a ride, but there’s no answer. I call the office and talk to them about what’s going on. They call my client. My client calls me.





I walk over to meet Herb at the gas station on the corner. He’s picking me up so I can stay with his wife Helen while he goes to work. This is unexpected, this kindness. I see his brand new red van and he tells me to get in. I open the door and as I’m jostling my bag, I drop my fountain drink on the pristine floor mat. I grab it up, embarrassed. Herb hands me a box of tissues and says not to worry.





On the ride to their home, he offers to jump my car when he brings me back.





While I’m with Helen that day, we watch old movies, as we often do. The movie stars Charleton Heston, and it’s set in Hawaii. It’s about love, and interracial marriage.





I think about how lucky I am to have these experiences, these kindnesses, in my life.





“There’s only one language a child understands: Love.” --- from Diamond Head, starring Charleton Heston





* * * *





8/6/2013





We stopped and bought a bucket of chicken to take over to my Grandma’s for lunch. That’s the one thing she always eats when I bring it over. Fried chicken. Mmm.





JT insisted on ringing the doorbell. I was surprised to see him reach it by himself standing on his toes. My Grandma has this really unique doorbell -- it’s not a button that you press, but rather a small lever that you push to the left and then back over to the right. With the push left it makes the “ding” and the push back to the right, “dong.”





Left: ding!





Right: dong!





We stand back away from the door and I watch the blinds for signs of movement and see none. Worried thoughts are running through my head -- my Grandma lives here all by herself, what if, what if, what if...





We wait. JT rings the bell again. Left: ding! Right: dong!





Still no answer. I dial her number on my cell. It rings and rings and rings. No answer.





We wait. I tell JT to run and find the spare key, and he brings it back triumphantly. I ring the doorbell once more, just in case she might hear it this time. Still no answer. I turn the key in the lock and slowly push the heavy door inward. I poke my head in and look around; no Grandma. JT follows me inside and I tell him to wait in the living room while I go check on Grandma. He looks at me questioningly, and I hold up one finger: “I’ll be right back.”





Full of dread, I step slowly down the hallway toward her bedroom in the back of the house. Her door is closed, and I’m afraid of what might be waiting for me on the other side. I knock lightly and hear nothing, so I quietly turn the handle, slowly, slowly, click!, the door opens slightly and I see the shape of my Grandma, lying on her bed. She’s lying on her side, her body facing the door, her arms up by her head, her face turned, almost buried in the pillow. I watch her for a moment, watching for her chest to rise and fall, my hands shaking almost imperceptibly.





And then, I hear it. A small, soft snore, and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was even holding in. She’s asleep. I go back out into the living room and tell JT that’s she’s sleeping and we’ll go ahead and eat our chicken in the kitchen and wait for her to wake up. I pull plates out of the cupboard and dish up our mashed potatoes, our green beans. We talk while we eat, JT laughing, forks clinking on the dishes, relief pouring out in happy chatter with my favorite boy. I look up, mid-laughter, and see Grandma standing in the hallway, a few steps back from the kitchen doorway.





“How did you get in here?!” She’s upset, angry, scared, confused. I realize that she doesn’t know who I am. I tell her who I am.





“I know who you are. How did you get in here?”





I explain that we found the spare key and that I got worried when she didn’t answer the door. I tell her that we’ve brought lunch.





“I’m not hungry, and I don’t think that you were worried. I didn’t know everybody had a key to my house! I was taking a nap, I’m allowed to go to sleep if I want to. I locked the doors -- you’re not supposed to go in somebody’s house when the doors are locked.”





I don’t know what to say. I’ve never in my life seen my Grandma upset or angry, and just then she’s both, and I know that underneath that is a very real fear. I’ve invaded her home while she slept, unaware, and upon waking, she finds strangers in her home. Family -- grandchildren -- yet strangers in her eyes, in her tangled mind. I don’t know what to say to alleviate her fear. I ask her if she’d feel better if we left.





“I guess it doesn’t matter. Just do what you want.”





My heart sinks. I know she feels defeated, and she turns back toward her bedroom. I begin packing up our lunch and washing our dishes. I’m at a loss, I don’t know what to do. I need to make this right. My Grandma has never been mad at me. Should I go talk to her?





I should go talk to her.





I decide to go talk to her. She’s lying back on her bed in the same position as before, but her face is buried even further in the pillow. I sit down on the floor next to the bed, and I try to gather my thoughts.





“I’m sorry, Grandma.”





She doesn’t say anything. Words start spilling from my mouth; I need to make this right.


“I’m really sorry, Grandma. I didn’t mean to upset you, I was just worried about you when you didn’t answer the door, or the phone. I worry about you a lot.”





She lifts her head slightly and says she doesn’t believe me. She doesn’t believe that I was worried about her. I don’t know how to respond to this, so I sit quietly for a moment. Then I apologize for coming into her house while she slept, and I tell her I shouldn’t have done that. I tell her that I got her spare key from the hiding spot, and that not everyone has a key.





“Well I guess they do, or nobody would be getting in my house when I have the doors locked.”





I tell her only family members have keys, and I don’t even have one, just the spare. She’s shaking her head, and I tell her I’m sorry for scaring her. I didn’t mean to scare her. I tell her we will leave, and that next time I’ll make sure I get a hold of her before just coming in. I apologize, over and over, I apologize.





She lays her face back down into the pillow. Her breathing becomes steady and I know she’s fallen back to sleep.





I stand up and walk back into the kitchen. I feel awful, and more so because I know that she won’t remember any of this when she wakes up again. Anything could happen to her, here, in her home, alone, and she won’t remember.





* * * *





8/7/2013





My new room mate is really cool. We sat outside on the patio yesterday evening just bullshitting and drinking -- her, shots of fireball and Strawberitas; me, one shot of fireball and sangria. (I wonder if it’s the fireball giving me the awful tummy ache right now?) She brought a little radio outside so she could listen to the Tribe game and every so often she’d stop mid-conversation to throw her hands into the air when they scored a run, or drop her face into her hands when the other team did. After awhile, we decided to turn our jungle gym back into a living room, which we’d been putting off for three days since she’d moved in. Five minutes and we’re done. Ahhh, comfort!





I hope Ryan gets this job. He needs something big and incredibly good to happen for him. I feel like he and I have lived these sort of parallel lives since we met at The Grant, both being hurt and abused in different ways while wanting only to love and be loved. Why do good people go through so much horrible shit?





JT’s super excited that he got a new blue wrist watch. I love that boy!





Work with Helen today: Rainstorm, Italian wedding soup & crackers, old movies on TCM. I love having a job that doesn’t feel like a job. I love that I get to connect with people every day and help make their lives a little better. Working with old folks was never something that I thought I would enjoy, but now that I’m doing it, I really feel like it’s what I’m supposed to be doing.





* * * *





Something that bothers me: When I’m blamed for not trusting people. As if it’s somehow MY fault that they aren’t trustworthy. As if by trusting them, they would have somehow become trustworthy.





No!





I say no.





You must earn my trust. SHOW ME why I should trust you. Don’t expect me to just give it blindly, especially when you’ve given me reason not to. The logic here is just flawed. Sigh.





Lesson Learned: Respect myself enough to walk away from someone who breaks my trust -- immediately. Once they prove that they can’t be trusted, there’s no point trying to continue.





TRUST YOURSELF, Erin. Every time your gut instinct is telling you something is wrong, it’s always right. TRUST IT!





8/16/2013





Oh, good morning, Aunt Flo. So wonderful to see you! Even your visit can’t dampen my mood on this glorious day!





8/17/2013





“Why do we crucify ourselves?


Every day, we crucify ourselves.


Nothing I do is good enough for you.”


--- Tori Amos





“I never meant to be the one to let you down,


If anything I thought I saw myself going first…


Does anybody know how to hold my heart?”


--- Sara Bareilles





I didn’t know! I didn’t know!





8/19/2013





“You ain’t missed nothin’. Why, he wouldn’t buy a dying man a drink at a drinking fountain if you know what I mean.” --- “Riding Shotgun,” 1954 Western





Watching old movies with Helen today. Guess what the main character’s name is? Larry. I miss his surprised face and then his big loud laugh. I miss his hands in my hair.





Work with Helen today: She got her hair colored! No more patches of grey poking through. It looks really nice. Beef and barley soup for lunch. I’ll never get to make soup for Ryan.





8/20/2013





Note To Self: Always discuss feelings in person! Too much gets lost in translation via text. Heed this warning!!





How many misunderstandings could’ve been avoided?





Erin: You’re not good at relationships. You fall too fast, too hard, and you always get burned. Take a break. At the very least, take it slow.





Mom’s Advice: Let the man pursue you.





Amanda’s Advice: Look for stability, take your time, and focus on JT.





To Ryan: I hurt your feelings, and then I added salt to the wound. I’m sorry.





Positive Charges:





#190. Celebrate your birthdays.


#400. Always try to be fair.


#402. Know your limits.





Lesson: I need to work on my communication skills!





Empathy is more difficult in written word. “Recognizing facial expressions is the key to perceiving emotion… most of the information on the person’s emotional state is conveyed [via] nonverbal aspects of messages” (Inter-Act, p.203).





“People seem to make sense of their distressing experiences by expressing their thoughts and feelings in narratives or stories” (Inter-Act, p. 206).





10:16 pm. I wonder if Ryan got a call back about the job. I hope so. He deserves it. He needs a break.





Dear Ryan,





It’s a full moon and I’m sitting outside on my patio. The moon is behind the trees, but the lamp in the courtyard illuminates my writing.





You called! :) :) :)





8/21/2013





Today is JT’s first day of school! We made it to the bus stop with plenty of time to spare. Starting off the school year right! He finally admitted to being excited, last night as he was getting ready for bed. I know he’s bummed that Molly’s not in his class this year.





Work with Helen today: Italian wedding soup, crackers, root beer. I asked her if she wanted to go over to the metro parks today for our walk. I know she’d love it. She said no. She’s already been there.





I can’t wait to meet Cam. He has his Dad’s cute nose. I wonder how much he takes after him. I bet he has his kind heart. <3





Watching the news with Helen: Three teenage boys kill an Australian man because they were bored?! What is going on in the world?! People are fucked up!! When does murder ever become children’s entertainment?! This is why I don’t watch the news.





And what is this: Turducken?! A chicken stuffed into a duck stuffed into a turkey. Yeah… I dunno about that. Fear not, there’s also Turducken of the Sea. HA!





8/21/2013





I asked Helen again how she knew Herb was The One.





“What was it about him?” I asked her.





“Good lookin’!” she exclaimed, and we both laughed.





She told me again about when they told her parents they were getting married.





“I forbid it!” says her mother.





“Now sit down, Florence!” says her father.

Certainty Part III (fin.)

I’m here. I’m halfway to you, in our special place. I would come all the way to you, but you’ve said quite clearly how uncomfortable that would make you. I don’t want to scare you more.

There’s so much busyness around me, car horns blaring, revving engines, doors slamming, voices chattering. I’m trying to find the calm within me again, but I’m afraid, and it doesn’t want to come.

How do we keep ending up like this? So close one minute, so far away the next.

I’m sorry I laughed.

You told me the other night how I laugh when I get nervous, or I laugh when I’m talking about really bad things, or I laugh at myself.

I’m waiting for a sign, but it doesn’t come.

The doubt is creeping in.

* * * *

Suddenly she awoke

Went out for a smoke

With a click she broke

Inhaling, she chokes

* * * *

I could fall in love with him so easily. I know I’m scared. I’m trying not to be. I don’t want fear to get in the way of happiness. If I open up fully, will it be rejected as it has been in the past? Yet that’s what I practically demand from others. I want full disclosure. I’m almost so scared that I won’t even allow myself to form the words for the feelings I’m having.

Last night was amazing. We walked to the little store on the corner to get a six pack of beer, and on the way back to his house, he asked if I would go with him, that he had a crazy idea. He took me out into this big field next to Main Street where the old middle school used to be and we walked until he found the place where he was sure the auditorium was. He took my phone and found a song, placed the phone in his shirt pocket, took my hand and danced with me. He held me close and I was scared and excited and breathless. It was probably the most romantic thing someone has done with me maybe ever.

The song cut off before it was over. I had been so apprehensive about this, this thing that he wanted to do with me, he wants to romance me! what?! and then the song was done, prematurely, and I was sad, I wanted the moment to last forever, can’t it just continue forever, but then it was over, and we picked up our beer and walked back to his home.

We sat and talked for hours, and we went outside on his little tiny stairway while I smoked and we talked more and we laughed and laughed and we connected and there’s just so much, so much that we share, our ideas, our thoughts, our beliefs about life and what’s important, and he loves my laugh, and I love his surprised face and then the laughter that follows.

And then it was so late, five in the morning, and we laid down in his bed and I’m so tired, so tired, but I can’t sleep, he’s right there next to me, so close, I can feel him, he’s holding me, he’s running his hand through my hair, he’s stroking my face -- does he know these things are so dear to me, no one has touched me this way in so long, maybe never, maybe he’s the ONE, maybe this is IT, he knows instinctively what’s going to make me love him...

He kissed me. What is happening? I’m falling again, how am I falling again? I’m so scared, but it just feels so right with him. So completely right.

* * * *

I want to touch you

Not just physically

But within your mind

Discover the things

You keep locked away

Until we are one

Where there is

No you and I

But we.

* * * *

“Gazebo Letter by Ryan for Erin:

GAZEBO LETTER

—

8/16/13

11:55pm

Well, here I am. I'm alive, you're alive, we're only a fifteen-minute drive apart, and how unlikely is all this?

Do you know the song "Silhouettes" by The Rays? It's a doo-wop song from 1957 and it's always been one of my favorites. You didn't know this about me. Now you do. I'm sitting at the gazebo where we always meet, listening to the song on my phone right now.

The song tells a story. The singer/narrator is out for a late-night walk, and he decides to go past the house of his love. When he arrives, he is devastated to find a beautiful image in her illuminated upstairs bedroom window: the silhouettes of a man and a woman embracing—

"From within, a dim light cast

Two silhouettes on the shade

Oh, what a lovely couple they made

Put his arms around your waist

Held you tight

Kisses I could almost taste

In the night

Wondered why I'm not the guy

Whose silhouette's on the shade

I couldn't hide the tears in my eyes"

—so the narrator, wounded deeply, charges up the front steps and pounds on the door. The couple from upstairs answers: not his love and a secret boyfriend at all, but "two strangers" who "said to my shock: you're on the wrong block!"

Hilarious, right?

The song then has a transposition of a half step up — it suddenly builds, I always breathe in right here, because this is where the funny moment is slammed into from behind by the beautiful moment, one of the most beautiful in any song I know:

"Rushed down to your house with wings on my feet!

Loved you like I never loved you, my sweet!

Vowed that you and I would be

Two silhouettes on the shade

All of our days..."

This is the moment. This is the false alarm. This is the losing, followed by the sudden recovering. Why don't we learn? Why won't anyone learn from this?

We lose something dear to us. We are ruined. Then, suddenly, we're okay! Our health! Our love! Our lives.

Jonathan Safran Foer wrote, "It's the tragedy of loving: you can't love anything more than something you miss."

Why don't we love, always, with the same energy we bring to life immediately following a scare?

Where are you tonight? I'm fifteen minutes away. You know I'm here. Why won't you see me? Be with me. You've chosen instead to play cards and drink with your neighbors. We're a brand-new couple. You think there will be a million more nights like this one. But you're wrong.

The cruel choices we make when we think we have plenty of time.

I want you to know:

Flipping through old photos of you this afternoon, I found one of you, pregnant, in 2005. I saw this photo and I saw my future.

I sit here and I look for your car. You'll come see me. You'll realize this is too great an opportunity to pass up. You'll be here any minute.

I sit here and I look and I don't even see a single black car. A dark red one, once. False alarm.

The moon was crushing down on me. Now it's high and white and almost gone. The night, the wait, has hollowed me out.

I think of the pregnant photo again. There's not enough time.

Instead of I think of:

The pickle jar. We take it, laughing, into the bank downtown. Bills spilling out the top. People staring. You're pregnant but you're not showing yet. We're going on a road trip before the baby comes.

I'm driving. It's dusk in the desert. You're sleeping, head on the passenger seat, face turned toward me. There's an orange-purple light from the setting sun. Your halo.

One hand on the wheel, I turn my head, and I look. The road is straight, is straight seemingly forever, so I can look a long time:

Your eyes softly closed. Your dark hair on your cheek, your neck. Your breath, like sighs. My wife.

I think: open your eyes. Open your eyes, open your eyes.

See this.

See us.

See this perfect moment.

See what we have built, together.

See what we are.

See me, see me cherish you.

See our little family, about to be.

Open your eyes, open your eyes.

I almost say your name softly.

Instead I think: Open your eyes.

Open your eyes, open your eyes.

Open your eyes.

And then you open your eyes.

—*”

(A letter written by Ryan)

* * * *

Drifting in and out of sleep, I hear your voice whisper in my ear, “Open your eyes.”

I feel the vibrations of the tires gliding on the road, around bends and cresting hills, and it’s lulling me back into slumber. I’m so very tired.

“Open your eyes.”

My lashes flutter but remain closed. I’ve let go of control, put my trust in you to steer us where we need to go, to keep us safe. I’m dreaming of our unborn child, holding her in my arms, keeping her safe.

“Open your eyes.”

I feel your arms around me, your breath on my neck, and my dream fades.

I open my eyes.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I turn, round and round, searching.

Just a dream. It was only just a dream.

* * * *

Upon waking, I’m immediately thrust into the reality of being alone. Not the regular kind of alone, where you just haven’t met your match yet, but the cold, aching kind of alone where you know that just thirty miles away from you is your perfect person, but they’re not with you, and they won’t ever be with you. It’s over, it’s done, we tried, and it didn’t work. Screw the fact that you both know you’re perfect for each other.

My heart is sinking down into my stomach as I reach for my phone to check the time. Little green square smiley face tells me I have a new text message.

“Please call me.”

My stomach flips and bounces my heart back up into place and I dial his number. I take a deep breath and I feel my heart pounding, each beat knocking against my chest, a million questions scrolling through my mind too quickly to comprehend any of them.

A click in my ear and then, “Thank you for calling me.”

“Of course,” I say, “I’d do anything for you.” If you’d only let me.

I’ve had one moment of hesitation since we began this. Just one. He kissed me and asked if we were going to be together and, taken by surprise, I stammered, “I don’t know.”

His was the saddest, most heartbreaking smile I’ve ever seen.

“I want you to know that I’m not okay with the way we’re ending this,” he says. I’m not either. I’m not okay. I haven’t been okay, but I’ve been holding it together, until last night, after everyone was gone, and I laid my blurry head onto the cool pillow. The tears came first and following quickly were the sobs, escalating uncontrollably, choking the air from my lungs. Desperately I reached out for him, please, I need you, please, I don’t know who else to call, please, I just need to hear your voice.

It had been over twenty four hours of nothing.

But then he called, he responded to my plea only to say that we needed to stop this madness. My head was spinning and I couldn’t take any more, and I hung up the phone. Exhaustion overwhelmed me, and I fell into a deep sleep.

“We’re supposed to be together.” I hear him say the words, and instantly I’m shaking, my heart racing, I’m not awake enough yet. I’m scared yet sighing with relief as I tell him, “I know. I know.”

“Can we see each other? Can you meet me in Fairlawn at one’o’clock?”

* * * *

“VII. LUCY, SKY, DIAMONDS

Lucy meets me at the gazebo again.

This time I get into her car. She drives us to her home.

In the kitchen, she gives me a bottle of my favorite beer.

We sit outside at a table. She starts the grill. She knows how to grill.

We stand talking in the kitchen while she prepares food. Real food. There are onions, there is corn on the cob. There is chicken. There are seasonings.

I am in Japan, Korea. I am floating down the Nile. This is surreal. All of it. The food, the conversation, the kindness behind everything Lucy does, the ease with which she moves kindly through the room, through the evening.

Why is she doing this? is the quiet question pulsating behind my eyes. What could she possibly have to gain? The answer is: nothing. She is doing none of this for her own gain. I sense this, then I know this. Then, without knowing she is confirming this, she confirms this, by saying: “I want you to eat; I feel like you haven’t been eating.”

We start eating after dark. This food, this meal, is a knockout. The coals, once watery orange-red in the belly of the grill, have died and gone to pale ash.

I try with difficulty to explain my long sleeves in July, my two shirts, why layers and sleeves are essential, why I wear them almost always.

“Ever since Hawaii,” I start, “I’m cold. I don’t want anyone to see me or notice me. It started right after I started dating her, the sleeves, two shirts, a hoodie all the time—”

Lucy points at me and says, “You’re anxious, you’re scared. I know.” So matter-of-fact. She KNOWS? She knows. I fear everyone else thinks I’m a lunatic. I fear I am ruined. Lucy recognizes the truth, the truth I know but cannot articulate. It is in her voice. Then she says, “You have to face up to that.”

Lucy is medicine. Lucy is tonic. Lucy is a superheroine. Lucy is Helen Slater in Supergirl but better, because she’s real! Lucy will save someone. Lucy will save everyone. Everything will be okay. Everything will be okay. Don’t worry. There are people like Lucy. Are there people like Lucy?

I wash Lucy’s dishes after dinner and beg her to play guitar and sing for me. She puts up a token fight but I know she will play and sing for me.

She plays and sings for me.

I sit in a wooden chair across the room from her while she plays and sings for me. I do that new thing I can do now, where I let myself enjoy things. I enjoy this immensely. Lucy’s voice is like:

Weakening. Growing tired, so, so tired. Swimming for so long. No hope, no land. Water, just water. The letting go. The tiny waves closing in, whispering. The waves are fingers, hands, arms. The arms of family, the hands of friends. Gently now, holding you up, holding you there, head above water, all your power released and draining out and coloring the water around you the color of you. The darkness, the green, the mouth of the sea should have swallowed you. But these tiny waves, these tiny wings, these hands, these loving hands won’t let you, won’t let you, won’t let you. They hold you up above and your face is wet but warming in the sun.

~ ~ ~

A few days later I try writing a letter to Lucy, a thank-you letter.

I sit down with a pencil and a legal pad. I get it wrong right away because I cut right to it, I cannot help it:

“Are there people like you? Are there more people like you?”

I continue on in the same manner:

“I was telling my co-worker today about how you kind of didn’t seem to believe me when I said the dinner you made, the music you made, the evening you offered up, such a simple series of normal, everyday things to you, really was a first of sorts for me. It was the first in a very long time. Not just the food, or the music, but the gesture. I am helpless in the face of such a gesture.”

I try to explain how it felt later that night:

“Going home I felt like I’d won something. Like my life was coming to life.”

I give up on the letter there. I tear and crumple it. I think there will be more chances, better versions, different drafts.

This is all I have.

I sit and I sit and I sit. This is all I have.

I uncrumple and smooth the paper. I re-read it that night again and again until I fall asleep.

VIII. LETTER TO MY FUTURE WIFE

Where are you?

I look, I pretend everyone else looks too. They turn in their seats, pants wrinkling, dresses bunching, they crane their necks, they clutch their Kleenex, they look for you too. They look because you deserve to be looked at, looked for. You are worth all this looking. All this waiting. I have waited so long.

I am afraid you are not there. I am so afraid of this. I fear a bread truck will hit me. A statue will fall on me. A rare disease will rise up and claim me with long dark fingers. Are you there? Are you there?

Sometimes I think about you. I think about you constantly. If you are there, right now, you have a name. You are a certain age. Today you ate something for lunch. You wore a blouse, or a dress, or a T-shirt. A certain color. Your hair is maybe brown, maybe red, maybe down to your mid-back. Maybe you wear it up most of the time. Maybe you hope I’m here. I am here! I’m right here. I’m here and I’m already yours. Don’t you know this?

My life is made of days full of looking down this corridor, this aisle. I stare at the other end of the aisle, this emptiness, this point in space. Everyone who has ever cared about me stares at this point in space.

There is silence. I have waited so long. We are all waiting, breathing. Nobody ever stops.

Are you there?

So many other things can happen. So many things will happen. I remain poised. I have been leveled and rebuilt. I have been weathered away by years, decades, centuries of stress. I have been rebuilt, given yet another chance. I have been trampled, wrecking-balled, dynamited, spit on. I have been washed and rebuilt. I remain poised.

I have lost hope many times, so many times. I have feared giving up, have wished I could give up, have given up. Ten thousand times I have given up.

I keep going.

I keep looking, staring at this point in space. Waiting. For a flash of white.

A small step.

I have waited so long for you.

You are at your most beautiful when you are still. When you are there, when you are just still. Doing nothing in particular. I think of looking over at you, seeing you there, still. You are a miracle. You are mine. My miracle, for a while. Where there has been abuse, abandonment, thrown hands, there you are now, instead. Still.

You let me rest my hand over your heartbeat. No one knows how this feels.

I feel you breathing.

I look and I look and I look for you. How far? How far?

Please. Please be there. Please step closer all the time.

I live to lift your veil.”

(Story written by Ryan. I am Lucy. This is just an exceprt from a longer piece he’d written.)

* * * *
* * * *

Well, I DID meet Ryan in Fairlawn that day. He stared deeply into my eyes and told me he just knew we belonged together. I ate up every word, believing him to be the epitome of pure love. It wasn’t just me. Everyone that I knew who knew him all thought the same thing. He’s THE nicest guy ever. Oh, how very naive I was. I had no clue.

Ryan’s is an act that he has effectively mastered. He’s done it so many times, I actually wonder if he believes it himself. He got me to talk about myself and my weaknesses, taking in every detail, every look on my face, in my eyes. Then came the love bombing. That’s an actual term for what he was doing. He would stay with me, and after I’d gone to work in the morning, he would write love notes and draw pictures and hide them for me to find when I returned home. He sent me a beautiful card in the mail. He said a lot of really pretty things to me. He gave me a stupid cheap keychain from his job at a dollar store. It said something about carrying his love with me wherever I go. Pretty lame, but it made me feel good.

Almost immediately, he began telling me how his room mate in Rittman was crazy. How she’d have meltdowns in the employee bathroom at work, leave behind nasty notes for him at the apartment they were sharing. It was stressing him out so much that he felt he needed to move out of his apartment. He was renting a room to her, yet he wanted to move out. And so I let him move in with me. He quit his job about a week later and began “looking for work” closer to where I live. He very quickly ran out of money and I began supporting him. I gave him the money to pay the bare minimum on his child support. I bought him a winter coat because he didn’t have one after recently moving back to Ohio from Hawaii. Coat, hat, gloves, scarf. Then when he got a job at McDonalds, I bought him shoes and undershirts and socks.

His moods had been kind of up and down from the beginning, but I brushed it all aside. Once he began working, he became angrier more often. I never knew when it was coming, just that it WAS coming. I’m sure the first few times I figured he was just stressed. But when it became a weekly thing, I realized that this was a pattern of behavior for him. It didn’t matter what we might be doing, we could be laughing and talking and then out of nowhere, his smile would be gone, there was rage in his eyes, and his words were ripping into my character, into my heart, tearing me as far down as he knew how. After so many times, I knew when to immediately try to block out his voice so it wouldn’t hurt. I’d tell myself while he was saying it that none of it meant a thing. That his words didn’t matter. They weren’t true, and therefore couldn’t hurt me. It wasn’t until months later that I realized how much it still hurt, regardless.

Then he’d completely shut me out. He started “moving in” to the empty bedroom down the hall where I’d had roommates staying previously. He had nowhere else to go, and we were still friends, right? It was winter. I couldn’t kick him out, no matter how much he hurt me. I couldn’t do that to someone. So I’d go about my own business while he went about his, living in my spare bedroom but acting as though I didn’t exist. After a few days, he’d knock at my bedroom door and cry and call himself a monster. Then the next time he got mad, he’d be calling me a monster.

Then he picked up a second job at Taco Bell. Before he even started there, he was telling me how he was going to resent me if I wasn’t working at least as many hours as he was. No matter that I was the one paying the bills already, and would continue to pay all of the bills. No matter that I have a son home with me to take care of, or other things I needed to do with my time. I needed to kill myself working as many hours as I possibly could just because he’d chosen to do that himself. I love my job, but I want to make music, and write, and cook, and LIVE. He hated both of his jobs and wanted to suck the joy out of my life because he had none of his own.

And I let him, for awhile.

One night while Ryan was working late at Taco Bell, some friends came over to hang out. I was afraid the entire time that Ryan would come home early and find my friends over. We weren’t doing anything at all but having a few beers and a few laughs, but I was afraid of what he’d do when he found out I was having fun (how dare I?) while he was at work. They knew about the rollercoaster I’d been on since he and I had reconnected. My inner peace was shaken and they advised me to get out of the relationship. I knew they were right, but I wanted to believe that the person he’d been at the beginning was really him.

And so we continued on this way for a few more months, until the night that Ryan threw yet another fit, this time at 4 in the morning, waking up my son and screaming at him, traumatizing him… and then proceeded to break my laptop and deny he knew anything about it. It was the last straw. I’d given him a home, clothing, food, kindness, love, compassion, empathy… And all he’d given me were so many reasons to lock up my heart and throw away the key. How had something that started out so beautifully end up like this? If only I had known it had all been part of his game.

* * * *

Things he said:

You are a gem, a jewel, a masterpiece of a woman.

You are such a stunningly sexy, deeply gorgeous woman.

Your inner voice -- the person you really are -- is even more beautiful than your singing voice -- and that's saying something.

I have spent these past weeks awash in the strange, electrifying energy that has come with the blessing of your presence -- you have poured into me, without ceasing, so much support and encouragement and care and consideration and kindness and love. All from a heart so good and true -- Erin, the light you have inside is far too bright and too immense for me to ever begin to comprehend.

You are healing my heart.

You're ugly, inside and out.

You're a monster.

You're abusive.

I had to think about [another woman] to have sex with you.

You're the laziest person I've ever met.

You're depressing.

You're so negative, you're one big fat bad feeling.

Wipe that gap toothed ugly smile off your face.

You're so annoying.

You won't  back off.

You scare me.

Everything you tell me ends up being right.