All posts by k

Prose

A Girl Named Carolina

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Carolina Potter might just be the prettiest girl I ever saw.

The first time I laid eyes on her, she was standing at the counter at McGee’s General Store trying to sweet-talk the poor sap behind the counter out of a ice cold Sun Drop.

“Come on, Dale. The old man’ll never miss it. It’s not like he’s gonna go in the cooler and count at the end of the day.”

Day-uhl. Cow-unt. We call that talking country. And there was more country in her talk than I’d ever heard.

She blew a big Pepto Bismol-pink bubble, popped it, then twisted the remnants around her index finger and studied it. She shrugged and stuck it back in her mouth, unimpressed. Continue reading A Girl Named Carolina →

Prose

Everybody Loves A Parade

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Apparently the dead mule is the hallmark of good southern literature. Don’t believe me? A professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill spent the better part of fifty years arriving at that conclusion. He read, analyzed, cataloged and then announced, with great confidence, that a dead mule within the pages was essentially a guarantee of top-notch work. Don’t believe professor Mills? Rick Bragg said it too. In my world that’s proof enough.

Let’s assume for a minute that a story with one live mule is half as good as a story with one dead mule. So one live mule equals half a dead mule. Couldn’t we also agree then, that TWO live mules equal one dead one? By now you probably see where I’m going, right?

My story has two lives mules. Continue reading Everybody Loves A Parade →

Prose

Snapshots

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I’m not sure about everyone else, but the majority of my memories, especially those from my childhood, are like snapshots inside my head.

It takes no effort at all on my part to see clearly the treehouse in front of my dad’s shop at our old house on Savannah Highway. I can’t remember for the life of me how we got up there but the rough edges of the pine planks, dotted with peepholes (which were, in hindsight, not intended to be peepholes; they were simply holes where the pine knots used to be) are clear as the Alabama sky. More effectively, we could peer out the windows by swinging open the small squares of the wall Daddy had carefully cut out and hinged back on. When it came time to properly fortify our little hideout, we slipped our tiny uncoordinated fingers beneath the dark red vinyl straps he had fastened into handles. Continue reading Snapshots →

Addiction, NaBloPoMo: Roots (June 2013)

Are You A (Wo)man of Your Word?

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shadows

If you’ve been following my recent posts, chances are you expect this post to be about J, or addicts in general, and all the promises they make but seldom (if ever) keep. Wrong. I’m trying to make a change in me today.  I’ve spent a lot of time lately reading the writings of others who have been down this road before me, particularly Ron over at An Addict In Our Son’s Bedroom. I am amazed at the strength this family has had to muster over the last few years. A Google search took me to their site and after reading one post, I followed the archives back all the way to the beginning. I’ve been reading for a few days now and am still over a year from the present… and I’ve fought the urge to skip ahead. There’s something very comforting about reading their story; there’s also something very sad about it. Continue reading Are You A (Wo)man of Your Word? →

Life or something like it

Nothing As It Should Be

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My world feels off today. Actually,  my world feels off lately. I think it’s just too much change all clumped up together. J got locked up. I started my new job. Hershey’s gone. My routine is non-existent. I am a big ole Capricorn and I live for the constants in life.

One of the things that I love most about J is that he pushes me to step outside of my routine and enjoy myself once in a while. He was one of the first people to ever give me permission to let go. It’s hard when you grow up the honor student… the eldest child… the predictable one… hard to remember that it’s not just okay to live for today sometimes– it’s actually kind of good for me. Continue reading Nothing As It Should Be →

NaBloPoMo: Roots (June 2013), Relationships

Dear J: It’s Your Turn

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IMG_20120408_071338

So I’m struggling with what to write tonight which is funny because I’ve been so motivated to write lately that I have a list of at least half a dozen entries rolling around in my head… all of them half-written up there and just waiting to be finished up on the keyboard. I’ve been sitting here for over an hour, opening and closing post after post, and just not finding the words. I’m really excited about NaBloPoMo and I love that it’s giving me an excuse to take the time to write every day but I’m taking a minute to remind myself the reason I love to write.

A burden shared is lightened, right? That has always been the reason I write. Tonight my mind and my heart are heavy from the loss of a beloved pet. J is not here and I really need him to be. I feel this overwhelming need to write a positive post about him (it’s one of the drafts I couldn’t finish) because the entries so far on our back story don’t put him in the most favorable light. I feel guilty about that. I want people to understand WHY I love him… why I stay. For now I will just say that he has many, many good qualities and the good far outweighs the bad. But still it’s eating at me… the thinking that someone is reading these posts and judging me. Or even worse, judging him. Continue reading Dear J: It’s Your Turn →

Life or something like it, NaBloPoMo: Roots (June 2013)

My Cat Is Dying

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My cat is dying. My sweet, affectionate, lovable, precious, seventeen-year-old, atypical cat… Her name is Hershey and she has been with me basically my entire adult life… all the way back to when life was as expected.

I’m thirty-nine years old and have no children of the human variety. Hershey is my baby. She was here when I was young and thin and carefree… working my first real job after graduating from college. She was here through a divorce, multiple moves, the entire lifespan of my beloved Jack Russell, Jake and what was, in hindsight, a scary bout with depression. Continue reading My Cat Is Dying →

NaBloPoMo: Roots (June 2013), Relationships

His (Real) Deepest, Darkest Secret

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topsecret

This is a continuation of yesterday’s post titled Park the Car. I’m participating in BlogHer’s NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) and this month’s theme is roots. This series of posts chronicles my relationship with the love of my life, referred to here as J.

J met my parents and my brother that night and he was a hit. Sitting there on the sofa beside my dad he asked, “So… when are you shacking up?” J and I had barely discussed it but I guess the chemistry between us was obvious. And I had not introduced them to anyone I’d dated since I was 19 years old. The only answer dear old Dad got was a coy smile but he knew.

We didn’t drop the bombshell about J’s past on them that night. He made clear that he wanted to tell them himself… not have them find out in any other way. But I wanted to wait. I wanted them to love him first, like I did, so they would understand. Continue reading His (Real) Deepest, Darkest Secret →

Relationships

Park The Car

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gearshifter It took me two dates to love him, three weeks to learn what he called his deepest, darkest secret, five weeks to move in with him and six weeks to learn his (real) deepest, darkest secret.

We were “in liquidation” at work. I managed a retail location for one of the now-defunct movie rental chains. I was working, at minimum, 60 hours a week and on my way to being unemployed. And I had never been happier in my life. A few short weeks earlier I had met a man. And not just any man… the man. I was over-the-moon in love for the first time in fifteen years. I hadn’t quite put my finger on what it was about him yet but I knew he was very different from any other guy I had dated before. Boy did I have that right… Continue reading Park The Car →

Relationships

The dreams

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sleepless

The dreams started about a week ago which is odd because he’d been gone over a month at that point… if I were to psychoanalyze them it would be easy to see that they have all been about abandonment and/or fear of things I cannot control. Big surprise there. To say I have issues with things beyond my control would be an understatement at best. Even so, I’m surprised at the shear terror that has accompanied these nightmares. I wake up with tears streaming down my face. My heart is racing and, having had panic attacks before, acutely aware that I am on the verge of crossing that line. I always sit up, turn on the light and look around the room. But for what? Him, of course. Still half-asleep and equally dazed, still not fully back in the real world I detest so much when he is not in this house with me. I scan the room and it all sinks in. It only takes seconds, really but there are so many thoughts and emotions in those few seconds that it just feels longer. Then I look at his side of the bed… his pillow… the space where his shoulder should be and I take a deep breath, resigning my heart to the truth yet again. I roll over and snuggle up on this pillow, imagining my head on his shoulder– the only place I ever truly rest. I can almost feel his strong arm wrap around me and pull me closer to him… his fingers in my hair… I close my eyes and try to picture his face exactly as it looks from that angle. I can feel the burn as the tears try to start again. I will them back in. It won’t change anything… won’t make me feel better… won’t bring him back.

And now I feel a little guilty because if anyone is actually reading this, they are going to think you have left this life… that you have died. I did not intend to be quite so dramatic but you know how I am when the words start flowing. But I have to defend myself by saying that it’s all true. Every word. And it absolutely feels like I am grieving. I have lost. We both have.

So I close my eyes and pray the sleep comes quickly and that this time there are no nightmares… only the sweet, peaceful sleep of someone who knows what it means to truly love and be loved. And I pray that his dreams are plentiful and just as sweet.

Life or something like it

Revival

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I need to start writing again. I don’t know why I fall in and out of the habit when there are always so many thoughts and words rolling around in my head… This last lapse has been from lack of an internet connection in my home sweet home but I’m thinking it’s time I started figuring out a way to write anyway. It’s not like it’s hard, right? Compose on the laptop whenever I feel like it. Take it to work the next morning and post. Simple enough.

I’m writing this here for all the world to see not because it’s interesting and not because I think anyone is still reading my randomness but because I want it out there in the digital doman… recorded forever… so I’ll really do it.

Stay tuned.

 

-k

Life or something like it, Relationships

New traditions are good, too

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The holidays are all about tradition in my family. We visit one grandmother at one very specific time and the other side of the family at another. We eat the same dinner, play the same games, exchange the same gifts, tell the same stories. There’s something comforting about going into an evening knowing exactly what to expect, I suppose. But what happens when time or distance or circumstances threatens these traditional activities? Continue reading New traditions are good, too →

Life or something like it

Own it

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When I resurrected this blog a few weeks ago, J was less than thrilled. “Why?” he asked. “Who reads it? Who will you be talking to?” You see, as insane as it may sound, we deleted our Facebook accounts a while back. We’ve seen far too many friends and acquaintances lose what appeared to be solid relationships in no small part because of social networking sites and “secret” email accounts. So we decided, for us, the best move was to kill the Facebook accounts. Naturally, when I told him about the blog, he wondered what was up. Continue reading Own it →

Life or something like it

Yesterday Was Monday, Right?

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I’m feeling overwhelmed the last few days… too many people tugging at me. Yesterday was an exercise in self-control from start to finish and I’m not convinced I made it through without failing a couple of times. I tossed it up to the fact that I was tired (my weekend was jam-packed and went by entirely too fast) and it was Monday. I have at least four people trying to tell me what to do on any given work day and, at this point, it’s just too much. None of them have any respect for my time or my schedule and most of them are completely incompetent and lack the mental capacity to direct themselves in their daily activities… much less direct me. Continue reading Yesterday Was Monday, Right? →

Relationships

Just a Technicality

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My significant other, whom I regularly refer to as my husband is, in fact, not technically my husband. We’ve never stood in front of a preacher or a judge and spoken vows; we don’t have an official-looking document from the county making our union legal and we don’t have an album full of staged “candid” photos. But seriously… that’s just a technicality. Continue reading Just a Technicality →

Life or something like it, Relationships

He Was Out There

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Once upon a time, I believed in love. Don’t misinterpret that though… I was never one of those girls who put a pillowcase on her head as a stand-in for a bridal veil. My dolls were my students or my co-workers… never my children. Most everything my parents did in the way of parenting was to ensure I’d grow up smart — not pretty or popular. In spite of all that, somewhere, in the back of my mind, I grew up believing in the fairy tale… true love… what I saw in my parents and grandparents every day. Continue reading He Was Out There →

Life or something like it

Hello, old friend

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So, three years ago tomorrow I stopped blogging. Doing so wasn’t really a conscious decision. My life was, frankly, upside down (or maybe it was inside out) and I was at a loss for what to say/write anymore.

Hold up — Does that say three years? For real? My how things have changed…

Back then, I was living for work, mostly writing about how miserable I was. I was living not exactly with my parents, but extremely adjacent to them. In about 600 square feet. With two cats and a dog. I wasn’t dating. I had pretty much given up on the idea of having a someone. I had no idea where I was going professionally (that term is used very loosely in this context). And personally, I had given up. I hated how I felt and was disgusted with how I looked. I felt used, abused, neglected and overwhelmed. Continue reading Hello, old friend →

Life or something like it

Who keeps moving the goalpost?

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So I’ve had an epiphany of late about why I seem to have such a hard time being content… finding happiness and I thought I’d share.

I listen to a lot of talk radio. My mornings are filled with call-in shrink shows and sometimes one of them strikes a chord with me. The other day this woman was struggling with “never being good enough.” I feel that way all the time. The host asked the caller if it was really that she never felt good enough, or that the goalpost keeps moving. Her answer (the same as mine), “The goalpost keeps moving.”

Continue reading Who keeps moving the goalpost? →