Hello, I’m Spinning

I’m not ok. It’s taken a long time to admit to myself. Holly has been gone seven years.

It makes sense to admit it here. Where the wind howls around the dust-filled corners of this blog from lack of new words. Perhaps no one will read this. Do people even have blogs anymore? I don’t care. I’ve always written for myself.

I’m spinning. I have no coping mechanisms. I’ve been “saving” old books or buying depending on your perspective. But I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. No recreational drugs– too risky for me. I don’t drive my car recklessly or gamble. I guess maybe I’ve been overeating, that was my mother’s thing. But it’s more like the sedentary life is killing me. 

I don’t have “faith.” To me, I mean that I no longer live my life as if I need or believe in God. I’ve always been exceptionally hard on myself but this truth seems especially important to admit for some reason: My life is secular. I have not entered a church in more than a year before that it was before Covid. I have no relationship with discipleship. That’s just a church word for mentoring done by someone spiritually wise with someone who is less so but yearns to be worthy.

Unless you count my bookshelves and the authors who speak loudly and profoundly. The same goes for the influence of friends. Na da. Even my lovely partner is silent with me. I’m fairly convinced he loathes me, for I have felt angry, sullen, and isolated. I’m so judgemental that my adult son pointed it out to me more than once; I’ve embarrassed him. That humiliated me but in the best way. In the way that your heart knows already and wants to do better.   I tried a rubber band to stop my mouth, at least so that he wouldn’t hear what a terrible person I’d become.  This was hard to stick with. That snap hurts! Plus, what do I do with my head which won’t stop criticizing me? I lost my sister (a different sister than Holly) because she couldn’t hear my sarcasm, anger, and meanness any longer. She walked out of my life. I probably deserved it. It’s my penance for turning into my dad when I’m around her. I can’t say her name because her final straw was my talking about us on Facebook.

I miss my parents. I never realized I’d miss them when they were dead. I think I hated my parents my whole life. There were many reasons, simplified it was for the control. And the neglect. “Emotional whiplash for breakfast, honey?” Lack of trust to make decisions, any decisions, from what to wear to what or if I’d attend college, to whether I could date a Black friend, have a lesbian roommate, or move overseas. I was not to: Be unique. Or be original.  Because there was a ” right way” to think,  to be, to believe, to live. 

Pick, pick, pick. Criticism. Correction. Outrage. Disappointment.  I’m fairly certain the only thing my father was proud of me for was the Urbana job. For my mother, it was marrying Tom. He’s “A good man” by which she meant not a controlling, angry, abusive bastard like my father. And I was a good mother, she thought.  But I was an alcoholic and workaholic, and I barely remember when my kids were little because of it– like her and my father.  I’ll never forgive myself.

So why do I miss them I wonder? Because childhood would bring Holly back to life. And I would protect her this time.