The Impact of 24 Hours and a Winter Sunrise

“At some point, you gotta let go, and sit still, and allow contentment to come to you.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

 

There’s beauty in waking up to face the mundane day ahead. There’s zen in the taking of a shower and doing my hair for work. A pleasure in making a sandwich for lunch, and grabbing fruits and veggies too. There’s serenity in listening to the dogs yap as I make my way out the door and drive down snow covered roads. There’s beauty in watching the sun come up, even if I’m on my way to work.

There’s no shame when I wake up these days. There’s no guilt from what I’ve done the night before. There’s just this sense of calmness that comes over me and let’s me know that I’m blessed to be alive. I’ve got 24 hours to make an impact. 24 hours to change a life, even the only life I change is my own. I’ve got 24 hours of reprieve from a disease that would like to kill me.

You know what I love? Not having one damn bit of drama in my life, and knowing that I am loved.

You Do Not Need Me

I was 15 when I kissed him for the first time. He had Freddy Mercury’s lips and I watched as he dove in to kiss me. We were lying on the grass that covered the top of the crypt in the cemetery in the middle of town. We had barely met and spoke but a few words, but I knew I wanted him. My young body woke to the sound of his voice, a deep and soft growl that told me he wanted me.

I heard crickets in the distance as he kissed my trembling lips. I knew there were no seeums crawling on my skin as he covered my young body with his. Instinctively my legs opened and wrapped around his skinny waist. He covered my mouth with kisses. His hands reached up under my shirt and expertly squeezed my left nipple. My body arched towards the stars and I moaned the sound of my Neanderthal ancestors.

You’re my one and only, he lied.

I’ll always be your girl, I lied back.

He wrapped his arms underneath my shoulders and ground himself into me. I moaned again knowing that this feeling was fleeting. I knew he’d never belong to me. I was too fiery for him. Too empathetic.

His hands reached into my hair while he pulled my jeans down. With my sex exposed, he pulled himself from his jeans and filled me. I screamed like a banshee into the star filled night and told him that he would always belong to me.

When he was spent he helped me back into my clothes. I reveled in the scent of him and the fullness he left inside of me. The inside of my thighs were bruised, but I didn’t care. All I wanted was him, but he left me there, on the cold grass filled with his nectar.

Not a day goes by that I don’t think of him. The kisses on my lips, the tongue in my mouth, the fullness of him inside of me while I cried out into the starlit night. He was my everything, my first love and he always will be.

It’s been 35 years and I can still feel his hands on me, and in my hair. His whispers in my ear as he entered me and the guttural sounds he made when he filled me.

I’ll never forget him, and I know he’ll never forget me either. He’ll always wonder what might have been, and so will I. I will move on in this life of mine. I’ll brave new adventures, while he remains stagnant and mourns for me.

Almost Everything You Think You Know About Addiction is Wrong

My ex-husband asked me how when we suffer a relapse we are welcomed back into AA with open arms. I turned the question around on him and asked, why wouldn’t I go back to a place that would welcome me back even if I did falter? God knows my family wouldn’t do that. In most cases all they feel for me is anger. In the rooms I’m welcomed back because I’m just as broken as the person sitting next to me.

We are all just one drink or drug away from relapse and ultimately death. That’s what this disease wants to do, it wants to kill me. It wants to scream in my ear all of the bad things I’ve done to make me so covered in guilt and shame that I pour myself into a bottle and die.

A normal person doesn’t think this way. A normal person doesn’t drink this way. And a normal person can not understand the power of surrender in AA. Admitting to this surrender is the only way I can win.

Somewhere Only We Know

I walked across an empty land

I knew the pathway like the back of my hand I felt the earth beneath my feet

Sat by the river, and it made me complete

Oh, simple thing, where have you gone?

I’m getting tired, and I need someone to rely on

I came across a fallen tree

I felt the branches of it looking at me

Is this the place we used to love?

Is this the place that I’ve been dreaming of?

Oh, simple thing, where have you gone?

I’m getting old, and I need something to rely on

And if you have a minute, why don’t we go Talk about it somewhere only we know? This could be the end of everything

So why don’t we go

Somewhere only we know? Somewhere only we know.

Oh, simple thing, where have you gone?

I’m getting old, and I need someone to rely on So tell me when you’re gonna let me in

I’m getting tired, and I need somewhere to begin

And if you have a minute, why don’t we go Talk about it somewhere only we know? This could be the end of everything

So why don’t we go?

Somewhere only we know

Somewhere only we know

Watch Your Fucking Language and 5 Minutes to Change the Next 50 Years of Your Life

When we were little girls we were told to be ladylike. Don’t talk too loud. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Let the boy come to you. When we were grown, we were told to find a man to take care of you. Be a delicate flower. Be thin. Be anything but yourself. Don’t eat on a date. Don’t drink too much. Blend in. Be the wallflower. Be demure. Be, be, be, but don’t be you.

I was never the quiet girl. I was never the one to follow the crowd. I was the unicorn. The girl with the big boobs that weighed 150 lbs. and was thought of as fat. The one that decided rebellion was a good thing. I laughed too loud. I swore a lot. I drank, smoked cigarettes and weed, but I was the good girl too. And did I LOVE boys! I wore clothes to reflect my mood for the day. I didn’t belong to any group or clique. Just flitted from clique to clique like a butterfly lighting on the blooms in a garden. I belonged everywhere and nowhere, and that was okay.

As I get older, the butterfly that flitted from group to group is tired and looking for a home. I still belong everywhere and nowhere. I think part of it is because I was adopted and might still be feeling lost from that. It’s not healthy to be feeling abandoned at this age. I know that this thought is of my own making, and I have to be the one that steps away from that sorry and into the light.

So today I say fuck the fuckers, and use my loud voice. I’m the girl with the big boobs. I’m the girl that is not the typical beauty. I’m not a delicate flower, nor do I want to be. I want to be the girl that rages against the dying of the light. It’s time for me to be, be, be and to the real me. I am a goddess rising, a butterfly and a unicorn. I’m not just a manic pixie dream girl, hell bent on being the sidekick.

I’m the dreamer and the dream, in charge of my own destiny. So what if I say fuck, a lot!?

I No Longer Hunger

I knew I was depressed the day food no longer held any allure.

He told me that he’d met someone and of course I was jealous, but what struck me was when he said that she didn’t eat much, like him. That they both never ate much so he asked her to have dinner at his place.

Of course my mouth got the best of me, and I spouted off, ‘well fuck, she must be skinny, how lucky for you!’

He responded, ‘it doesn’t fucking matter if she’s young or old, skinny or fat, I just wanted to have dinner with a friend.’

I knew she was more than a friend. That it was a date, and he had moved on.

I lost my appetite and became an empty vessel. I felt nothing, except the iciness of anxiety as it crept into my heart and made a home where my sparkle used to be. Something inside of me broke and I shut down. I hadn’t felt like this in ages, but I knew what it was.

My old friend depression had returned, and it had put its cold, dead hand in mine.

I finally admitted it to myself, and then my daughter this weekend.

‘Mom, I don’t think your anti-depressant is working.’

‘Honey, I know it isn’t, but I don’t know what to do.’

I sobbed while we talked, and I think I used about 25 tissues in about ten minutes. Meg kept reassuring me that I was going to be okay, but all I could say was I knew that I would be without a partner for the rest of my life.

The whole thing with K had devastated me. Here was this man that I was sure I loved already moving on.

Sure, he has his demons, but so do I.

There’s addiction, of food and alcohol that continually sing their siren song into my ear. There’s the nagging feeling that I’ll be alone for the rest of my life. That I’ll leave no mark. That I’ll have been brave enough to save myself from insanity, to only die alone in some hospital bed while machines whir and measure my heartbeat till I’m no more.

The pit of depression is a deep one and I’m at the bottom of it.

To begin clawing my way out, I sent a text to my therapist. I’ve contacted my closest friends and I’ve told my sponsor the work I need to do. I think I need to make a call to my addiction psychiatrist, because I think I need a stronger medication to battle this. Meditation is great and prayer even better, but I know that I need it like a diabetic needs insulin.

I want out of this abyss, and I want to be loved. I want to love myself first, but that may never happen. There are women like me that feel love for those around them, but will never feel their worth until they are loved by someone else.

Tomorrow, I will get up early, and prepare for work. I’ll go through the motions of life and I will take time for self care and meditation. I’ll force myself to take care of myself, until it is no longer a battle, and I can do it with ease. And even if I’m never held in the arms of man again, I will find something in this life worth living for.

Daily Prompt-5 Minute Story-Peaches

Peaches

He gently sucked the peach juice as it ran down my arm. I tried my best not to respond as his tongue languished on the sensitive skin of my wrist. He looked at me with hazel eyes filled with want, but I gave him nothing in return. His sweet words were lost on me and I wanted nothing more than to kick him in the tender skin of his right shin. He continued to kiss up my arm, and my anger began to ease.

As his lips moved to my neck I bent my head and touched my lips to his. I murmured, ‘you hurt me all the time, you know that don’t you?’

‘Yes’, he replied.

‘I hate you.’

‘I know, but you love me too.’

‘I do, but you have to let me go.’

‘I can’t, I mustn’t, and I won’t, for I belong only to you’, he whispered and then started to cry.

(I purchased a book called A Year of Creative Writing Prompts by Love in Ink and have decided that I will share at least one per day on my blog. I know it’s been a long time since I’ve written and I’m tired of waiting around for the creative juices to start flowing. There are three prompts for each day starting with the 5 minute prompt. I’m sure it will be easiest to start with this one but I’m hoping that the stories will become longer as I become more inspired. There are a few bloggers out there that host some interesting prompts that I want to try too.

Happy New Year to you all and may 2017 be a damn sight better than 2016 was. Much love to you all and thank you for reading me.)

To Remember touch More than Thought

“I remember that feeling of skin. It’s strange to remember touch more than thought. But my fingers still tingle with it.”-Lucy Christopher

My pulse quickened as Matt enclosed his left hand around my right. The intimacy of his actions brought a blush to my cheeks. Confused, I wanted to pull away but I craved the contact. Instead of retreating, I allowed his hand to engulf mine. My mouth went dry, as his thumb repeatedly caressed the palm of my hand.

I yielded to his touch, my heart slowed its thready beat, and I allowed myself to enjoy the closeness of my dear friend. He asked for nothing but my hand. He told me he loved me and how glad he was I came into his life. We grew silent, as his thumb continued to make lazy circles on my palm.

His was the first intimate touch I’d felt since I’d become sober. It wasn’t a sexual touch. I wasn’t sure how to label it, and honestly, I didn’t care to. In that five minutes, I felt more protected and loved than I had in a long time.

With our hands clasped, my friend silently asked nothing of me, but to love every broken, raw and damaged part of him. And in return, I asked him to do the same for me.

Friday Fictioneers-A Field of Stone

 

There we were, me and Sis holding our sleeping bags. My mother, her body shaking with grief and little nourishment, told us to unroll our bags. Fearing she was close to her breaking point, we did as she instructed.

Ignoring us, Mom leaned against Daddy’s grave. Sis slipped in next to me, and I held her close. Running my fingers through her knotted hair, it smelled faintly of little girl and chilly air. Too late in the season for crickets to sing her to sleep, Sis drifted off quickly.

Sleeping in a field of stone, unfortunately had become our routine.

 

100 words/genre: dramatic fiction

Thank you Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for hosting Friday Fictioneers. I’m doing my best to become inspired again and this photo for some reason did it for me. Please be sure to give me constructive criticism and read the other stories that are posted on Rochelle’s page. Have a great weekend everyone.

Love, Renee

Dance With Me in Springtime

I’d wake from a nap at the start of an early Spring shower

Shoes off I’d run for the screen door

Just to stand out in the middle of it

You’d scratch your head and wonder how you could have waited so long to live with me

You’d realize that even though I needed you

You needed me even more

The dog and I would continue dancing and singing to our own tune

Out in the rain

Splashing in the mud

There I’d be

The city girl bathed in springtime

Breathless and full of spirit

Yes you’d again wonder why you waited so long to live with me

As I swayed and sang I’d wonder the same thing

But then I’d look at you standing on the back porch

And my apprehension would dissolve

I’d crook my finger to tell you to come to me

And you would

Without reservation

And with all of your heart

To dance with me in Springtime