RMC

It’s funny how some events in life eclipse others. What I mean by that is how a person’s trauma can be blinded by another event in that person’s life.

Life is full of eclipses. Like the sun suddenly vanishing from the sky turning day into night, for just a moment, the trauma life induces at times in our lives we must blind ourselves to. We must blind ourselves until our heart is healed. Well at least that’s what’s gotten me by. I’ve never looked into an eclipse.

Unwittingly I had heard about one that I was actually walking to the store while it happened. I had forgotten about it during the day and had to walk to the supermarket for some reason years ago. I remember walking, then…out of nowhere everything above my head, which was a bright sun on a cloudless day, was dim and then suddenly everything turned black.

What once was a road and a cemetery I was passing suddenly went poof. And vanished right before my eyes. My instant reaction was shock. Because I had remembered the eclipse but I didn’t know what time it was to occur that day. It especially sank deep I had the inclination to get on the road. Must have been for cigarettes. Years ago.

The notion itself wasn’t odd. Just that as I was passing a cemetery at the time kind of struck me as odd. Yeah, real rosy story. Isn’t it?

I often ask myself why things are what they are but I no longer do that. Because when you brood there is such a manner in which to do so. As there is a season, a sun, a moon and stars there are also events that imprint on your psyche.

To move on from trauma in my life I chose to drink. Or did at one point in my life. I no longer do. Those chains have become unshackeled.

After my ex-fiance and I moved to the great bastion across four states from my hometown called, “In The Middle Of Fucking Nowhere, Texas, we went. Money being spent across the way via my side. Not hers.

It was awful. I remember it vividly. Now that I brood. I remember the pain of deception. Lies. Half truthes, using love as device. As if it were an object. Not an emotion. My sweet first and last fiance had me on the line after she discovered my work ethic. Wow. It’s all coming back.

Now that I think back about it I believe I think I know what happened. But it matters not. Because I can’t read minds I go by actions. She’s the one who ran up our cell bill to over $300. And this is back in 2003!

Think about that for a moment. $300? In one month back some twenty years ago was a lot of money. In perspective, where we were in Texas, the rent alone was $450. And for an  apartment that had two bed rooms on the left side of a box shaped apartment.

They also had a living room as you walked in the front door that if you walked through led into the far right corner of that box a full kitchen, sink, dishwasher, counter space, cabinets and a closet that contained both a full sized washer and dryer.

But yet, let us not go down THAT path now. Instead I like to think of the aftermath because in it what happened was both tragic and transformative. She felt as if I was the one to be punished. So she sent the devil after me after one night. After I had accommodated her the bed after our breakup, since I was paying I guess? Yeah. True story. All of this is true.

I can’t lie to myself. Once you do that you become something your not. But I had to numb the pain down deep into the recesses of my soul. I look back on it now with clarity. I’ll give you a tale for any you have. My life would shock you. I’m older than forty now. A hard life of drinking to numb the pain is gone. The very first thing I drank was out of mischief when I had to plot a path to my grandfather’s liquor stash.

God, I must have been older than 8 and younger than 13. Somewhere around that age. I only remember because the cabinet was forbidden and never discussed. So it was curious. I can not tell you how curious I was for there is no adjective that describes that feeling for me except for blindly curious. The emotion overtakes a child anyway so I’m not too worried about my mental state now.

Life is change and change is hard and as you get older it becomes less welcome. What we know and have learned as children gets swept away. Blotted out.

Anyway, I thought I might leave it here for now with a brief story. A story about what my life turned into after the tornado of a relationship I had that was mostly sexual. At 24 my fiance at that time was 19 turning 20 soon.

That’s when I wanted to marry her. On her twentieth birthday. Whatever I did she said yes. She had very sharp wit. She was an outstanding student in her class as well. Knowing what I know now she might as well have been leading me into a trap on our initial drive to Texas.

I’ve been on two road trips to Texas that just to get there was over an 18 hour drive our initial trip for her Orientation. I really think that initial trip or whatever you want to call it was an insane but curious endeavor.