You and Me, Babe, How 'bout it?

With fear of sounding over dramatic or forcing emotion from the reader like wringing out a rag, I want to tell you something:

There was a day in late July 2014 when I laid on the ground in the hallway outside my kitchen. We have a little runner rug the length of this hallway, and I just laid there on it sobbing. The consequence was all mine. The loneliness was insult to injury. The rubbed-red raw face was par for the course. This was the summer I thought I'd kill myself.

I didn't.

I only had a half-assed plan that probably would have failed -- but, each day that I was groping around in the dark, the plan was solidifying. The only clarity I had was accompanied by guilt -- and it just didn't seem like living was an appropriate response. I was in pain, my husband was in pain, most of my friends wouldn't talk to me, my family felt pity, my hair was falling out, I was losing weight, and I had stopped sitting in chairs, I only sat on the floor and cried about the affair.

That particular day in late July I was visiting my home: husband gone to work, my cats rubbing against my legs, the air smelling strongly of the familiarity I missed since staying in a friend's spare room. I lost my footing. Laid on the rug, cried, and called Sarah Miller Freehauf. Or she called me. I don't remember. I don't remember what she said, exactly. It was something along the lines of "you are still a good person" "still worthy of love" "still my friend" "still able to receive warmth and goodness" "still capable of giving warmth and goodness."

Somehow she convinced me to stand up that day and the many days after.
She and her (new) husband would hug me when others wouldn't look my way.
She called me everyday.
She would quell the panic by reminding me I was human.
She told me funny stories about her mom.
She told me things her mother said in response to my affair.
She picked me up some evenings and forced me to eat bar food.
She cried with me a lot of the time.
She wrote poems for me and about me and about the affair.
She was, by all means, at the ready when I needed her and I always needed her. And she knew it.
She helped save my life.
She was part of the very small troop who helped me off the rug.

I don't necessarily know how to write her a love letter that correctly and comprehensively covers everything I want and need to say, but this is the start of my love letter to her.


***************************
Thank you, Berry. 

I Know There's Pain

Here's this: my bike was stolen.

I can't seem to settle my heart. I can't calm down. I can't seem to quit kicking things; fantasizing both about explaining to the bike thief the emotional earthquake he's thrown me into and standing on his throat.

To say the very least, I'm struggling with resentment - the kind that is so pure one drop out of the little glass vile I keep around my neck would burn a hole through an oak tree.

I'm sad.

But also, something beautiful is happening. I posted on all my social medias about my Fuji folder and the rush of sympathy was instant. And wonderful. My posts were shared and reshared and commented on and then reshared again and again by friends and friends of friends. On all platforms. There are eyes everywhere in my city looking for my Fuji.  And I can't help but feel sugary in my browbeaten bones. So thank you. Thank you, universe. Thank you, Fort Wayne. Thank you, West Central.

But one man has destroyed me with his kind words.

I knew your dad and he was mature beyond his years. He was taught to be nice and respectful to everybody. He always greeted me warmly with a smile. His deep voice and kind eyes were very inviting to everyone who talked to him. I'm very glad to have been a friend of his. He had a super mom and dad, I believe that is where he got his personality and character traits from. I'm sure that he would tell you that what's in your heart far outweighs what that bike represents to you. Dayne wouldn't want you to harbor any resentment. Let it go and free yourself of the bondage of resentment. You need look no further than his friends to have mementos of your dad. There are plenty of stories of him to go around. 

And now, I'm looking for a new bike.  

You Want to Be Free

Goodness is everywhere: under my pillow, in the far corner of my 'fridge, under the mixing bowl I haven't used since I baked that last batch of cookies, down the hall, under my fingernails, at the bottom of that bottle of wine. It's in that blues riff that always makes you want to die. Exchanging coupons at the Bed, Bath and Beyond, inside peanut shells, quietly typing in the morning all alone - these are places, too. What about the dust on your bookcase? And your split ends? Hardware stores, between aisles 3 and 6, and with country boys named Mark.

Remember that one time we were at that one bar and you played Willie Nelson? It was there, too. Walking near churches late at night in the rain. Crying until your young lungs are tender. Standing up with a sore back. Burdens tucked deep in the muscles somewhere between the scapula and spine. All of those places. There and everywhere.

Don't kid yourself, though, you know? Other things live there, too.

Tuesday I Get a Little Sideways

Somedays this girl wakes up wanting wine, and maybe to die, but just a little bit. Instead, I make coffee. Some victories are palpable. Listening to that one song by Ray Charles that always makes me cry can't be an option on mornings like this, so on second thought, I'll listen to Brooks and Dunn. Sure, I'll think of my dad, but the good stuff.
"Jukebox plays on drink by drink."

My grocery list should be longer than it is; it reads: Peroxide, Cereal. I should add "booze", but we don't have money for that.

Before the morning is over, I'll make the bed. I'll put away the dishes and polish off this pot of coffee. I'm going to waste a few more hours daydreaming of running away. I might research New Mexico towns, look for jobs in Labelle, Florida, and apartment search in Sulphur Springs, Texas.
"I like my women wild."

I'm trying to make good decisions. That's why I'm listening to country music.

Only The Good Die Young

I want to tell you about poetry school. I want to be able to say, shyly, "Who woulda' thought, you know?" and you say, in sweetness, "I thought. I always thought" in the kind of way a dad would say. Except we would both know that you've been worried about my trajectory.

Teach me to change my oil, would ya? And while we're at it, can we conquer the country roads with a manual shift?

Let's sit on the porch and gossip about your neighbor lady, but the good gossip. The "can you believe how earnest she is about keeping strangers out of our yard?" gossip. And the "She's honestly still kicking" and "She never NOT talks about her surgery" gossip. We'd start every sentence with: "I mean, I'm not talking bad, but.." We'd finish (probably) a 12 pack of beer and feel fulled up with the meat of a good-goddamned autumn night.

Tell me the importance of measuring twice, cutting once. Tell me the mistakes you've made, that seemed big, but now are small.

Is everything permanent? If not, why does it seem like concrete has filled the little sacs in my lungs?

We should be crazy one night and buy expensive tickets to a rock and roll show. We can sit and eat up the night; poison it with sentiment. If you wanted, I'd let you tell me about when you fell in love with mom, what it was like in the 80s, the first time you heard Guns'N'Roses, why you stayed with mom, what it was like when your children were born... If you wanted, I'd listen all night, after the music died with the moon. Maybe we'd drink a little bourbon and I'd promise my first born would have your name. Girl or boy.

Maybe one day I'd call you and cry, but I'd call you because I just needed your voice to calm me, like it did when I was a tiny with an upturned nose. You'd say, "Did I ever tell you about that time we were in the abortion clinic - and I looked at your mom and your mom looked at me? Did I tell you what I said?" [Silence] "I said, 'I think we can do this,' and so we left." And that would appease me. That would reaffirm me that at least two people in the whole world, so big/so small, loved me before I even existed. And I'd stop crying. We'd probably make dinner plans. Afterwards, I'd help you weed the garden.

Anyway, I want to tell you about poetry school. But you're dead.

untitled: a little like my heart

Once, I read this thing in a newspaper. Seriously. In high school, I would read the newspaper. Anyway, I read this thing in a newspaper that said: "Just because someone doesn't love you the way you think they should, doesn't mean he/she doesn't love you." It's true, I suppose. But I'm selfish enough to look at that statement (that obviously made a huge impression) and say, right to it's eyes: Fuck you.

Fuck you.

I don't want to buy that. I don't want to acknowledge that someone may know how to NOT hurt me, and do it anyway. Doesn't seem fair. I offer everyone I know an advantage - because everything I am and everything I'm about is right out in the open.

My dad used to tell my grandmother that I was too vulnerable for my own good. That exposing my feelings the way I do would eventually be my downfall - that surely, it's a fault.

I'm beginning to agree.

Inertia

I don't believe in fate. I haven't for a while. Probably since my dad got all burned up in a fire. After that, the people who didn't know how to say a simple "I'm sorry" would say something along the lines of: "everything happens for a reason". To which, I wanted to stab them in the face and, with a witty smile, ask them "what was the reason for that?"

I know it helps people to think that every tiny detail is organized by a supreme being who has everything in order. It doesn't help me. I've never really enjoyed being micromanaged. Not to mention, how unrealistic it all is.

Imagine with me for a moment that there IS an all good, all ruling, just being who has the ENTIRE world (or universe, you know, whatever) to be in charge of... and this entity is going to care about "blessing this food to my body" when millions of people are starving? It's going to care about my grieving heart after the death of one person when people all over are getting massacred? It's going to care about me landing the job I want when poverty is pulling people under down the street, across this nation, all over world? Can we be anymore selfish?

So, we've got my stance established.

But here's what I want to say: Just because I believe that fate is an ill-designed fantasy - that doesn't mean that when tiny, lucky moments present themselves, that I'm not excited by the fact of what can happen with them. Just because every detail wasn't written eons ago by god, that doesn't mean good things can't happen. Because good things can.

And good things will.

it's too late to say you're sorry

Some things will never change, though. In my grandpa's top left-hand-drawer, there will always be containers of floss, super sharp finger nail clippers and hearing aid batteries. When I'm here, I will fill the coffee maker with appropriate amounts of finely ground coffee and water and hit the "delay brew" button. The dishwasher will depend on me. I will drink wine after everyone goes to bed and I will pine away under the orange glow of Main Street.

They haven't changed yet. Not here. This sanctuary, despite the shit storm this winter, has yet to be tainted by you fucks out there.

I don't know how to describe the calm that comes along with this place. A certain structure in knowing that no matter what the goddamn circumstances are, I'll have two insanely gorgeous people who love me like no other. And despite the thawing river and the inevitable, beautiful end - we have the moments we have.

like the pine trees lining the winding road

There are serene moments in life that don't make sense. Laying flat on my back watching the stars fall right the fuck out of the sky, like love, while the cicadas sing until their membranes are raw with vulnerability.

Covered in soot, the fireman telling me that my dad's ate up corpse was found near the kitchen door, leading to the mudroom. Calmness like fog, calmness like fucking fog.

Once, I stood on the lip of a canyon and brought iron into my lungs.

Things, some things anyhow, make my skull break apart, make my blood a mudslide.

you have been gone too long.

I heard the very last words my dad ever said. And just a few short hours after he said those words, I heard the last sounds my dad ever made.

Five houses down, banging bruises on my fleshy palms, trying to wake my grandparents in the still of the morning, I watched my childhood home burn down. I noticed the flag tear itself away from the pole and float with flames to the summer grass. I watched electrical lines bounce in front of the house with an ironic pep. And, probably 35 seconds before my beautiful papa opened the door to a world of grief, to his shock stricken granddaughter and his dead son, I heard a window break and my dad scream.

My dad's last breath was panicked and rushed and probably full of excruciating pain. I heard it all.

Remembering is funny. Some nights, like right now, everything is at my fingertips. When it plays through my mind, some parts are in fast forward, other things are caught in a silky breeze, slowed and luxuriously articulate. And, my brain will grab random memories and toss them in haphazardly - and I mean, random shit.

Once my dad had a friend over, I think his name was Gary, who tried his hardest to impress me. It almost worked until he broke an egg over our kitchen table trying to do an experiment I'm sure he saw in high school. It doesn't matter, what matters is: he broke the egg over the table in front of my dad who died in that kitchen near that table.

That memory means nothing. And everything.

If you're wondering, I was in the house. I crawled out the back door and ran five houses down.

The last words he said (the ones before the scream):

"I don't know what I'd do without you and your brother."

I'll be goddamned if he'll ever have to find out.

run until we're out of time

Recently, I had a person tell me that I was "quite attractive". Isn't that funny? It's like something I could put on my resume. "Erica Anderson-Senter: finished college with a good GPA, can diffuse difficult social situations and is quite attractive." I thanked the person and quietly noted the formal feel of being not cute, and not hot, but "quite attractive." Fuck it, you guys, I'll take it.

This morning it was cold outside and I overburdened myself with too many things to carry. The most difficult thought I could entertain was how the hell I was going to open the door. As luck would have it, a man was standing near the entrance, so I asked him to help me out. He obliged, but he said he was only doing so because I looked like a nice young woman who voted for Romney. If I had voted for Obama, he beamed with confidence, there's no way he would have opened the door for me. That shit's funny, huh?

Once, when I was six, I got a new baby brother. As the earth would spin, this baby grew up. Tucked in there, between then and now, we had this one shining moment when we jumped hard on my bed in the cold room and sang Farmer in the Dell as loudly as two blonde Andersons could. We sang and jumped and jumped and sang until our feet and throats were bloody with so much love. The moment stayed in time. But, goddamn, how far away.

Once, I overheard my cousin getting beat in her bedroom for not sweeping the floor.

Another time, Monica told me in the gym that daddies pee inside mommies every night. I couldn't handle this, so I ran away crying.

Early, one morning, I watched my childhood home burn to the ground.

Each life composed of tiny, pin-head moments that craft something beautiful. And something awful.

i hope we hold on til the last exit

The swing on my grandparent's porch is moving with the wind. Their dishwasher just gave up on dinner plates and me? I'm up past midnight writing and drinking. There are a handful of things I want to describe in detail, I have nearly 7 poems started (fragments and broken sentences floating around, dying to escape and live and breathe) but alas, words fail the occasion.

Today, I woke up $800 poorer. Someone somewhere landed my identity and paid lots of money for make up and pajamas and shoes. If that bitch only knew what it was like in my identity, she'd apologize. She'd probably say, "oh, you poor, sad girl. Your grandma is broken? And you're deathly alone? And you feel panic everywhere? I'm sorry," she'd say. She might hug me and say that she's had a rough year, too.

But, it's just another thing in this world.

This world.

I Think I'm Cured

It's been a long time. And I'm not going to sugar coat anything, so, be prepared for facts that slice through human bodies easily and without remorse.

Let's start with the basics: life can fuck you up. That seems circular, I know, but go with it. Truths are vague and ever changing and unfair. Existence is hard, because it is, and also because, if we go in and out of it, is it really existing. Okay. Basics covered.

Now, on to the hard-stuff: Remember my grandma who had the health scare? Well, it wasn't over. As it is with life, things only got worse.

She was finally diagnosed with Giant Cell Arteritis. The devastation is, though, she was diagnosed too late by her back-woods physicians. She has lost complete vision in her right eye and approximately 80% in the other. No peripheral. She'll close her good eye and cry about the "gray mud" she sees. "Gray mud" she'll cry - that's all I see. Now, the 20% she has retained is dim. She calls life the "Dark City" - and it wouldn't be so beautiful if it wasn't so shattering. She'll smile and shake her head and cry and convince me that she'll be fine living in the Dark City.

Yesterday morning she woke up and everything was a little dimmer. She began shaking and crying and we admitted her into the hospital again. This time in Indy. (We'll never go back to Ball Memorial in Muncie. Fuck those guys).

Blindness, guys. We are battling an auto-immune disorder that attacks blood flow to the brain- it's already killed one optic nerve and it's trying so hard to slaughter the other.

We're sad. My papa cries and cries when she's not around. She cries and cries when he's not around. We're all dying in the Dark City.

But I suppose we all are.

I will write more about this somewhere, sometime.

Nothing Matters When We're Dancing

When I was seventeen, I was fighting for my life. And I was scrappy in typical 17-year-old ways. Making out with boys in the back of my car, in barns, at stop signs on desolate country roads, on couches, on beds, standing up, on their door steps, in clothes, out of clothes, at parties in fields and so on and so forth. I had about 4 or 5 guys in my rolodex and a boyfriend. I know - despicable. And mostly, I'm not proud.

Haven't you noticed that life is hard? I was learning that shit on the front lines, and quickly. I had one dad to die, one mom to move away, brothers who had to follow and the entire life my little brain knew vanished - fell in between the railroad tracks on it's way out of town. I was (mostly) alone in the world. So, I filled up on fake comfort, tongues and sweaty encounters. And who's to say I didn't enjoy it? Things were fucked up; I was pretty and without a curfew and had a badass Buick. I don't hate it that I learned life like this. Because I had a chance to.

Two 17 year old kids got killed in my hometown on Saturday. They tried to out-run a train.

They tried to out-run a mother fucking train. Kids, you guys, just kids who will never have a chance to find out that life (kind of) evens out as you get older. Grief is coiled in my stomach for their families and for their friends and for the train conductor and for the first responders and for the void my small town will suffer and for the mercilessness of this world. I'm sick. And I'm so sorry.

Sorry.. but also thankful.

I know you've been hurting

The kitchen was quiet tonight - it was me (soggy hands) and tomato stained bowls. My breathing was steady; no explanation - just steady.

Some days that's a little miracle.

And outside, tiny little specks of water hit the window. Quietly.

heavenly shades of night are falling

I know I've said this before, but, guys, I hold grudges. I hold them tenderly, infants I coddle and nurture and help grow, until they're too big. So, then, I put them down on the ground and walk along side them. They become part of who I am. Remember that girl who hurt my feelings by ditching me for the cool group in COLLEGE? I remember her. With disdain.

What about that family who used to sit in my section when I would sling pizzas and beers... the family with the kids who threw macaroni in my face, the family with the kids who minced up straw papers like expensive garlic. I remember them. The kids, okay, that's excusable, right? They're kids. But those grown-ups couldn't rip their fat faces from their iPads and Netbooks long enough to.. well... parent. Those kids are growing up with no hope. Those grown-ups deserve a well-fed grudge. And I'm just the gal for the job.

Okay? Got it? I understand where it comes from. I do. It's lengthy and vulnerable and for another post. But it has everything to do with trying so hard to be the peace-maker as a child and failing - marinating in a world of not being in control. Those things make me miserably hateful to strangers who suck major dick and incredibly devastated/broken-hearted when the people I love can't reciprocate the way I want them to. It seems like peace-making as a child and holding grudges don't go together, but they do. Believe me. Anyway, like I said earlier, that's for another post.

But, coming back to my original point, I hold grudges. But sometimes I don't want to. Sometimes I see things that make me want to be the "water off my back" girl. Sometimes I don't want to bite my nails because I'm so angry I can't do anything else. Sometimes I want to avoid the anxiety I have about confronting this weird toxin. All the time I want to be better. Better and better. But I just don't know how.

And let's be honest, I'm not sure I have the energy to put forth the effort. Especially when these people just don't understand how hard life can be. People fucking die and people fucking hurt and i'm fearful, like, all the goddamn time-- and here you are, nonchalantly allowing your children to throw macaroni in my sad face while I'm just trying to live.

I know. I'm selfish. But I've never claimed to be a good person. 

it's been a really, really messed up week (Guilt, Shame and Pain: take 1)

I've been thinking about doing a series of sorts on this blog. I know some writers who do this kind of thing and seems pretty successful. [Don't read that last sentence and think that I think I'm a successful writer - I just mimic the good ones]. So, I asked a few friends (two, to be exact) - they both thought it was an okay idea; let's give it a go, I thought.

Now, the theme is terrible. I mean, really heart wrenching - but the things I want to write about, I just can't shake 'em. I've tried poems - can't do it. This is it. This is the venue - I know it. I can feel it.

The last thing I want to say, before I intro my poor blogpost to death is this: Don't worry, guys. I've grown up to be a pretty function adult human being. Okay. Guilt, Shame and Pain.

It's tough being in sixth grade. In a new school. With your parent's divorce weighing heavy on everybody's mind. And a new boyfriend for your mom, who happens to also be your dad's sister's ex-husband. Did you catch that? Seriously. Looming step-dad is my ex-uncle. So, yeah, going back to the beginning, being in sixth grade sucks.

It was a time of sassy sarcasm, teeny tiny budding boobs, and really bad skin. My fuck-you attitude was incorrigible, down-right filthy compared to "this time last year", or so I heard people say. But what the hell? Could you blame me? Didn't think so.

I did enjoy reading beauty magazines. Weird, because I was the farthest thing from seventeen magazine that you could find. Honestly. However, it kept me tethered to an idea that things could be fine. I could, maybe one day, be pretty. I could, maybe one day, just focus on boy problems. I could, maybe one day, not worry about every little goddamned thing that I was worrying about. Look at these girls with freckles and teeth without gaps! Normalcy.

One summer day, I read that plunging your mascara brush in and out of the tube to load the brush with mascara was a falsity. IN ACTUALITY, it dried the make-up out! WHAT?! This was a mind-blowing revelation. I told everyone I came in contact with, because, every woman I knew who wore mascara did this very thing! I wanted it to stop. I wanted lots of things in the world to stop - starting with my inner turmoil, but one step at a time, I thought. Let's get this mascara fiasco under control.

Simultaneously, I wasn't speaking to my mother. She was a traitor, as far as I was concerned. New city, new boyfriend (ex-brother-in-law), new house - BUT the same make-up routine. I knew she pumped that mascara brush - I just really, seriously OCD like needed this to end.

One day, in our small white car, I worked up the courage to be a daughter again and just tell her this new thing I learned. I envisioned her taking heed to my words and thanking me for this - boy, won't this save us money - wow! erica, you're becoming a little woman. You know, stuff like that. Turns out, she was hurting beyond control, too, but I didn't know. You know?

I told her.

She made fun of me. I mean, out right. "OH!" she said. "She thinks she knows more about make-up than me" speaking to the new boyfriend.

"Don't *tell* me how to do my make up" directed right at me.

I cried. Very hard for a few minutes. And even more that night.

I come back to that day a lot. More than I should, I suppose.