While I was away.

     This is pretty raw - you may not want to read.
     I know I have been away a while...a lot of deep thinking and soul searching. In a town this small there are not a lot of options for professional assistance. I had to roll up my sleeves, put on my big girl pants, and get to work.
     I still don't sleep much. An hour here an hour there. No off switch on this brain.
     What I have begun to discover, I should have bought stock in a band aide company. I have put band aides over gaping wounds.
     Can't do that anymore. Truth is I have spent the past 4 days finding reasons to not take my own life. Making promises I know I will keep as a means to keep me from hurting myself. I did cut a little.
      An odd thing cutting. It really doesn't hurt. Or physical pain is more bearable than emotional pain. Used a few more band aides.
      I mistook Mommie's bed side request about Aldona Mae. She was not asking me to take care of her - she was warning me. Aldona Mae is filled with a lifetime of anger, hate, vengefulness. Such a waste. When I cracked she was ready with the lead pipe to knock me on my ass and keep me there. I don't know what to do to help her heal. She must heal. Inside, I know there is a gentle soul and a kind heart - I know it.
     Now I have to deal with all the "stuff" I kept in boxes on shelves in closets, under beds, in garages.
     "It's a Wonderful Life" one of my favorite movies. I would like the opportunity Clarence gave George - see what the world would have been had he not been born.
      50 years I have wondered that. Carried that guilt. Had Eva lived and I died - so many lives would have been better - or maybe not. That is how I feel. I wish I had died and Eva had lived. I wish I did not wear that stain.
     You can't help but wonder. What events would have turned out differently. My existence turned a lot of lives into crap. And yes, I believe my existence turned a lot of lives into good.
      What I wonder most - if from that day forward - if my father looked at me and could only see what he lost because I was born. I don't know how a man can look at his little girl with a blood stained night gown after being raped with the barrel of a gun and not want to kill the man who hurt his child. I don't know how he could eat his Cheez-Its, drink his beer while his little girl, with an eight inch gash in her hand, is forced to keep that hand in a bucket of Clorox because she didn't get the clothes off the line before it rained.
     Those are hard things to understand. So I am going to ask my father to meet me. I am going to ask him; If when he looks at me he sees only loss and regret? I am going to ask him how come he chose everyone else? Why not me?
     What do you think he will say? Nothing. He won't say anything - if he keeps to form. His mother, my Little Gram, an angel if ever there was one - she believed the sun rose and set on her son Larry. Always encouraged me to keep him in my life. She knew some, reckon when she went to heaven she knew all.
     Use to be a song on the jukebox at the Tavern Arms Hotel. "Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast." My father with his long strides. Blue jacket, green or brown khakis and those damned green hush puppies - how many times did I feel those shoes kick me in the gut, in my back, in my face?
     What exists in a man, a person, anyone - to commit such acts of pure evil. Hold a gun to your head, chop off the rabbits head, and the foot - keep the foot for good luck. I just killed the rabbit don't reckon his foot was going to be of much luck. A winter hare, pure white, beautiful brown eyes.
     Oh hell I could tell you things that would keep you up at night. All these damned shoe boxes - I kept them closed and put away for a reason. It is too late now. I have to know. I have to touch it all, say it out loud, know someone else knows. My truth and I have to know his truth. Not because of his bitch of a wife or her bastard son! I have to know his truth. Who does he see when he looks at me? Ironic isn't it, my father looks like Little Gram, I look like my father. If you saw a picture of Little Gram at my age today, we are twins. Right down to that crooked front tooth.
     I don't know when I will be back. I don't write this shit for shock value, sympathy, it is purging - this is just my shit. And as George Carlin always said; "You got to take care of your shit."
     Please know I am trying. Self psycho-therapy through blogging is not traditional. That shrink said I wouldn't respond to traditional - I don't know what non-traditional means. So I am going this route.
    You can pray for me. I will pray for you.