Coming Out of the Pain; Umbrella at the Ready

"It's very difficult keeping the line between the past and the present."

- Edith "Little Edie" Beale of Grey Gardens

My life has never been one of luxury. I have never been one to take the easy route - or even known where that route might be if one such exists. The bulk of my life has been a succession of hand offs from whomever wanted me the least to whomever could stand me for the time being. There was never a lot of effort made to actually rectify the problem(s) as much as it was just "Here, you deal with him." As an adult, I am coming to understand just how much that really has shaped who I am and how I deal with things. Or, don't deal with things as the case in point and truth may be. I just walk away. Let it be and watch it fall all to hell and go down in flames. And always from a distance.  Distance being key.  Next.

I'm a Cutter

My sister toyed with the idea of "cutting" at one point, though I think hers was more for the dramatic license of teen angst bullshit and a middle child's look-at-me antics than anything.  My ex went the cutting route on a balcony in California, bathed in the spotlights of a frantic SWAT team in a broken culmination of an unloved life.  I am a different (and worse) kind of cutter - too vain to wear my scars on the outside for all the world to see.  It's hard to rock a poker face when you look like you've been gangbanged by a pack of hungry Exactos.  I do not cut myself.  My cutting is more permanent.  It leaves no marks.  It does not grow back.  I cut people - entirely and completely - off and out of my life.  It's a cut that seldom heals.

Despite my oft perceived Surly Demeanor, I really do have a big heart.  Huge.  And of Gold.  It bleeds for more lost causes than Saint Jude.  It weeps for more stray and lost children than Sally Struthers.  And it often costs me dearly.

But, when It is over.  It's Over.  I. Am. Done.  Deb asked me yesterday what the song I posted meant to me.  Initially, when I put it out there, it was directed with vehement intent at one person - an ex.  But upon listening to it - really listening to its message - I came to realize that it was something else entirely.

Of Tigers and Dwarves

I knew in that moment that I was done for.  I felt it in that single, solitary instant like some cosmic blast from an unseen flamethrower...

"Who is he?" I asked.

"The big one?  Or the little one?"  She countered.

"The tall one that looks like Dopey..."  I replied.  "I want to meet him."

Her eyes lit up with all the trouble-making tenacity that made her her.  "Are you gonna bring him home?"

I chuckled.  Bring him home, I did.  And for years following, there was seldom a night that he wasn't by my side.

We lived fast.  We loved hard.  We fucked harder, and partied the hardest of all.  We dug our nails into each others flesh and held on for dear life as the angry tides that were the world around us tried like Hell to beat us down and tear us apart.  We were having none of it.  We were two warriors without the weapons needed, fighting a battle I think we both knew, in our hearts, that we were destined to ultimately lose.  We were our own private Waterloo.