I went to pack up some things in our apartment today and was struck when I walked through the door. The long staircase leading up to the main level, felt cold. Every step I climbed in what was our home seemed mute.

Our smell has left. No scent of spicy candles or the expressly masculine notes of Clay’s cologne. Although we still have things left within those walls, our presence is notably absent. The laughter that we share so quickly with each other seems as though it has never touched that place. The calcium of its structure seems to be leeching away, still standing, but hollow as a dead saguaro.

When we walked into our house the first time, I felt a gravitational pull. The floors of this beautiful home pulled at my marrow, begging me. I could feel the absence of life here, amidst the green plants. Amidst the dust floating across the surface. This house begged for life as if  dying. Our decision to be here grafted the bone. We give this place life.

I drive down different streets, eyes taking in the signs of houses, bursting with energy. People and animals and memories wrapping themselves around the walls. These things are load bearing. I drive down these streets and feel a longing that is being fulfilled. From our house, to us. From us to our home. From me, years of sadness becoming driftwood as I press that gas pedal and proceed forward. To him. To this life we’ve created. To home.

`

Over at the beautiful Danielle’s.  c’mon. you know you do

If you want to know how I know that, come see me here. But be warned, sock puppets and dog shit are included with the price of admission.

It used to be that I couldn’t walk dark corridors alone. Any restroom in tucked away corners left me scrambling for an entourage to come with me. I’ve held the hands of so many of my girlfriends,  fingers squeezing as our high heels clicked down beautiful walkways to hidden restrooms. Hidden terrors, for me. None of them knew they were my surreptitious bodyguards against my ghosts. Laced fingers through mine, held my shaken pieces together, until the time came when I had to walk by myself.

**

The first time I wrote about my rape in detail, I was overwhelmed with fear. A shameful  cloud spit its hateful rain around me in an acidic deluge. In the reflection of my computer screen, pixels of my worst moments darkening a white box I poured myself out into a tiny cup. My soul, my pain, my fear, my shame, my secret all there in indelible ink. The immediacy of a victim’s mind, is to run and to apologize. I wanted to tear that post, my words, like an outdated poster from a wall, leaving only the corners attached as a memory of its presence. But I didn’t and you were there. The solitary walk of the victim had ended.

**

For many years, the arms of my fiance wrapped around me as I tossed in nightmare’s ugly clothes. For many years he fought alone, the man whose knife had almost kept me from him. But as I wrote and write and soldier through, you are there. Since I have been able to share these things and fight these battles, I can sleep peacefully in the depth of his love. I can sleep peacefully in the depth of your support. You are a comfort.

**

I am, unfortunately, not unique in my experience. I am a statistic among statistics. But, as I struggle through this period of surviving, I find strength to look forward. I am no longer satisfied to muddle through denying the potential of my light.  Today, I am at Violence Unsilenced and I am imploring upon you..once again..to lend me your kindness. Thank you.

keeping in theme with my “start shit and don’t finish it” tendency, Fabulous Flutters will not be every sunday. It’ll be more of a whenever I feel like it kind of thing. But if you see a post that you love email it to me at fluttercrafts at g(mail) d.ot com

I go over to Where’s My Damn Answer and I talk about tits.You should go there, you really should.

Rest well, sweet angel

please be patient for the page to load, the servers have been crashing due to the outpouring of your beautiful hearts

Below is a guest post by Grace, for obvious reasons she wanted it not to be on her blog:

So.  I dated this guy for something like 6 months.  Exclusively, like we had met each other’s friends and stuff.  I let him meet and interact with my kid.  That’s a big deal, for me.
And then!  He broke up with me by (GET THIS) deleting me as a friend on Myspace!  (Blogged about this here: http://www.missdisgrace.com/2008/01/exactly-why-i-dont-let-my-guard-down.html and here: http://www.missdisgrace.com/2008/01/utterly-distractable.html). And that was it!  Never heard from him again, until about 6 months after THAT when he re-requested my friendship on Facebook, and followed up with this email:

So I suppose you ignored the “friend” request on purpose. I can accept that. I mean, really, what do I deserve in the way of communication? I was a coward in walking away. It speaks nothing of you in terms of the relationship. Your judgement of character was not off…you just didn’t know that I have abandonment issues so in turn I do the running first. You did everything right; you are perfect. I miss you as a friend more than anything else. I apologize for that supreme showing of immaturity. I’m really not asking for anything from you. I just wanted you to know that it hurt me to walk away and it bothers me daily that we don’t talk. I guess a few of the small things spooked me and I didn’t want to deal with that. So I took the easy route. I hope all is well with you. Maybe I’ll hear from you. Or not. Either way, stay you.

And I responded with this:

Chris,

I would think that by now you would have picked up on the fact that I don’t consider communication via
Myspace/Facebook valid communication.  I generally require some contact that is more concrete.  I suppose that this
will do.

For the record, I think that you indeed made it very clear that you have abandonment issues.  However I don’t believe in using your past as an excuse for what you do in the present.  If a mother was convicted of child abuse, she wouldn’t get off the hook because she had been abused as a child.  Reasons, maybe.  Excuses, never.

On an intellectual level, I’m pretty sure I have every reason to be angry with you for being such a pussy, but apparently I’m psychologically incapable of staying mad, so I think that I can probably be your friend.

If nothing else, I hope that you learn how to better handle yourself in the future.

Take care of yourself,

Jenny
And…then a couple months ago, we’re friends on The Facebook, he sends me a message like, “Hey I’m having a baby with my girlfriend!”  To which I was like “Neat!  I don’t really care!”  Except I care enough to check out his pics on a fairly regular basis and reassure myself that he is indeed flawed.  And why does he keep telling me about this child?  It’s not like we’ve moved beyond anything into any kind of friendship?  It bothers me, but I feel like unfriending him or whatever would just be validating the fact that he bugs me.

And then!  He emailed me to tell me that they’re naming their son Bradyn Maverick.  And that name annoys me on so many levels.  And really, THIS is the part I can’t put on my blog.  All of the other stuff about him being a pussy, etc., I think he should have to own.  But I feel sort of guilty bashing on the name that his girlfriend doubtless selected.  But BRADYN MAVERICK?  I asked him if he was into Sarah Palin and he asked, “No, why?”

She had blonde hair, the kind that screams of brass and minutes spent bleaching it in front of a bathroom mirror. Yellowy-orangey-brown at its thin roots. Streaks of gray, covered by white highlights. She spent time spraying it into a fluffy cloud, which was not moved by wind or tragedy.

She was more cigarette and leatherette than mignonette and string quartet. She walked shrewdly in shoes that were scuffed with wear, in a style unseen in a current decade. A feathering ash of her ever present cigarette swirled around her and left a smell in her clothes, her hair, her demeanor. Like stale peanut butter and old crackers. She was not one to envy, to some she was not one even to notice. She was one to throw away. Her language rough, her voice gruff, her head down. At her desk, working. Getting it done.

Whatever it was.

When she didn’t come in to work one day, her absence was noted purely for the lack of her presence. She was always there.  Always smelling of tobacco and old perfume with breath as deadly as a junkyard dog. Always rude. Always terse. But always there.

Until the day that her unknown mental illness drove her to her bathtub where she sat. For three days. In ever more frigid water, devoid of her trappings. Sitting. Waiting. The elegant noise of an unraveling spirit trembling through her unpainted lips. Singing softly to herself, the strains of Amazing Grace, over and over. Three days worth of begging for grace.

In her bathtub, alone. In cold water and her own waste, just waiting for grace to be bestowed. She waited. She slipped, septic and frigid into a decidedly unattractive sleep, then further until she slipped away.

of Amanda and her Dennis. Won’t you, too?