I was silent all day yesterday because the mind was in overdrive. Funny how that is. There are some days that are stickier than others. Why is that? Why do I remember everything, every little detail, like it was yesterday? The details are stuck like flies on the fly strips of my mind. Twisting and turning, but never completely shaking loose. I can remember the color of your shirt. The way your boots were left untied. The stillness of the room when it was all over. The heavy door closing with a quiet click. The leaving.
There are four days in September that replay like a movie in my head. Anniversaries of a different kind. They pull me down, wear me out. Curiously, each year my reaction to them is a little different. Some years they are as insane as a Stanley Kubrick film – images and memories too bizarre to handle calmly. I succumb to fits of crying, fits of rage. Other years I am dispassionate and objective, surveying the scenes with a cool eye and a cold heart. It’s not that I don’t care or that I’ve forgotten what these scenes mean to me. I’m just able to turn my head from them a little easier. They can’t touch me.
This year I surrounded myself with distraction. Little Miss Socializer. The Big E with all of its glutinous overloads. Greasy food. Flashing lights. Throngs of people. Crazy carnival music. IM’ing for the first time in three years. TalkTalkTalking on the phone. Sitting down to do nothing. Still, the scenes played out – like a movie half ignored. Something flickering in the background. Even when my past came to visit me I couldn’t admit to the memories. I played dumb and talked about the breakwater, ever repeating ‘you were the only one.’ Because that was what mattered then. Matters still.
Now it’s the day after. The clouds have all blown away. Someone has removed the fly strip, thrown it away for another year. There are other memories to come, but those will be met with predictable ease. I will look them in the eye, recognition comes with a nod and then, then I move on. Strange how the mind works.
~*LunaSea*~ 
You captured the trauma and pain that will haunt many of us for all our lives. It made me hold my breath and be still. It is ok to react differently each year, each day, or even hour to hour. You do what you have to do. Everyone has their own process. It is ever changing.
I am sorry for the hurts you have suffered. The scars that are left to pick at. I am proud of you as I read this and know how hard this was.
Here’s to a good day for you, the first day of Autumn and to the eternal state of healing… xoxoxo
From what I know, on the ourside looking in: each year as that memory surfaces – you have awareness, you are thoughtful, and you experience them rememberance based on where you are at that particular moment in time.
After all, there is no “right way” or “wrong way” for such things to be done. Some things just are …
Time~ “You do what you have to do” You are right! Thanks so much for the support. Your card realllly helped 🙂
Ruth~ “some things just are…”exactly!
I like the exploration of memory as grades of adhesion. Sometimes I get a thought in my head – the silliest thing – that I know will stay with me forever. I’m certain of it. And sometimes it does, which sucks, cause there it is, always. And the older I get the more the memories weigh me down…
“There it is, always.” This reminds me of walking past a mirror but not recognizing your own image and you think, ‘darnnit. there it is again. always!” Sometimes we are our own worst enemies.