Tuesday, August 14, 2012

J. A. Strikes Again

Last Tuesday was the last day I wanted to go into the city for my session. Hot husband had just gotten home, PJ was seriously riled about me leaving (and the possibly-maybe-likely-chance of a thunder storm) and Ruby was coming home from 9 days in Florida later that night. Besides, I was good! I was doing really well; couldn't come up with a single thing to talk about. I was fine! But... I went anyway.

Holy. Shit. It may have been the most eviscerating hour of my life. I practically clawed my way out of there. As we were finishing and I had my body positioned towards the door, I made a joke. A good one. And he laughed and reached out to shake my hand "good bye". I willed my hand up to meet his and got out of there alive. Out through the foyer and up the few steps and OUTSIDE. Out and away from the uncomfortable chair and worse cushions. Away and breathing and blinking and not in front of him any. fucking. more.

How was it possible to feel so solid and so perforated at the same time? To have such a complete sense of whole but with bites out of my middle?

My whole life I've chased around my brain to find the words to describe a certain feeling I've had since forever. That "I'm a phony" thing, the "fraud monster"... when I was a kid and it crept up my ass I called it the "I don't belongs" and it's a real jerk of a companion: an ill-fitting, damp, dusky, smoke-stained cloak that thinks it's your favorite leather jacket, your perfect prom dress, the bra that doesn't pinch. It meets you in the morning before you get out of bed and clings to your shoulders like a moth's silks.

And when they come to take me away from my charade of a life, that piece of shit cloak will laugh me into the ground.

At least that's what I used to think. Until I started to really talk about it and let the words fall and fall and tumble out of my mouth. Until he heard the words and picked them and turned them into a picture for me to look at, to see.  And I saw the two headed monster and her mangled mind & emotions staring me right in the eye.

Last Tuesday, no shit, the seas parted, the fog lifted and I realized that even though I made that part of me all by myself, that part of me is the fake part. That part of me is extra, it's after-market, it didn't come from the factory. Get it? It's NOT REAL!

I felt immediately, instantly lighter. I did. Instead of a wet, dead dog on my back, I felt it as (I saw it as) a sort of light grey, puffy cloud thing that I could seemingly blow away.

Great! Right?

Except now the real work begins (as is always the way). Now I unravel. I pull stitches. I rip bindings and I extract this thing.

great.

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