the habit of being

I do not think myself ambitious, yet I want to write words that are considered art. As if it is not even enough to be a Writer.

I will get started on this, maybe tomorrow or the next day.

This will be the first thing I have ever published that he will never read, and that is the first step.

When I was pregnant with his child, and we were stranded together and cut off from everything else, we lay next to one another in the dark. He said to me, without any trace of emotion in his voice, that if I chose to keep the baby and one day tracked him down in his perfect life with the woman he loved, trying to get child support, that he would hate me and never forgive me.

If anyone ever got it into their mind to ask me what the worst thing anyone had ever said to me was, I wouldn’t have the slightest hesitation in answering the question.

The really awful thing isn’t that I had to have such things said to me, near daily, for months, whilst I sat around saying I was so sorry and betraying my family and my friends and myself. The awful thing is that even after it was all over, and no one was stranded anymore, I chose to have him in my life.

This will be the first thing I have ever published that he will never read, and that still makes me very, very sad.

* * *

In my new life, I’m going to try to be subtle. I’ll be the kind of girl who writes herself notes and ultimata on pastel colored post-its. I’ll read mostly Tolstoy I’ve already read and I’ll write in my notebook again, or get a whole new one and start over. I won’t expect anything from any one except myself, and if I catch myself starting to expect something, I’ll always have a pink post-it right there to remind me not to.

I’ll also have a note that says no one understands me or loves me like my mother does. Nobody else has that sense of humor but us, and no one else can laugh as much about how my 13 year old brother ironed his jeans for a school dance and how I can’t even think about dancing without getting the whole body equivalent of the face you make when you’re getting your picture taken. Nobody else fully appreciates the endless jokes that can be made about my great grandmother, who has given my mother the same pair of ugly cheap bedroom slippers for Christmas every year since she was 20. Or about the time my grandmother made me corn flakes with watermelon on top. Or the time my grandfather made me try on a swimsuit at a department store and walk out INTO THE STORE in it to show the salesgirl and then I wouldn’t speak to him for the whole rest of the day. Practically all I will ever do in my new life is talk to my mom and laugh.

* * *

I’m reading about a pilgrim, which makes me think of just how awful my whole road trip was, especially compared to how these things usually turn out, when undertaken with the right intention. Like other favorite pilgrims of mine, she speaks of prayer without ceasing, and also about finding inner peace and being to true to your calling. I’d be easily inclined to say that my calling is to write, if only I had some inkling of how I could be of service by doing it.

In my new life, I’ll try to write something uplifting.