Morning Memories
Funny the things you think about the first hour you’re awake. The subjects that roll through your mind like a steadily turning film reel.
I thought of the over 500,000 COVID-19 deaths in this country that I would not have dreamed of last year had someone portended the future.
Just about this time last year we were becoming aware of this virus and learning to wear masks.
I thought about how pretty Ivy is as she stood on her hind legs in the kitchen while I prepared her food. My word, that cat is tall!
I thought how much I love this big ball of fur. How she has wrapped her paws around my heart and squeezed it.
And of course there’s my sweet Charlie, who has been through so much with me. Who traveled from Texas with me at a sad time in my life.
He and Abi and me. On toward a new adventure.
Moving Toward Our Future:
I was looking straight ahead and wondering what our future held. Whether I’d be happy in Tulsa. If I would adjust quickly.
I drove with all the memories corralled and spinning through my head. The good times. The bad times. And how the bad times often tinge the good times so that the good times lose their color altogether.
It had taken an immense amount of fortitude to start the ball rolling. Of leaving a tainted and most likely doomed to fail relationship that has both confused and gripped me more than any other.
After not having seen him for ten years during the decade of my thirties, he had contacted me again.
Who Knows Or Will Ever Know:
Maybe I ultimately grabbed onto him. Or he grabbed onto the memory of me. Who will ever know now?
I think what was most confounding to me, what made me want him more than anything else, was the fact that he probably knew me better than I knew myself.
And he seemed to want me anyway.
That compelled me more than the thought that he might love or want me.
The fact that in my twenties he sat three days a week for three years across the desk from me and listened to me retell the entirety of my life.
Or the parts I remembered anyway.
And still he did not run away. He ran toward me instead.
Secrets Have A Way Of Turning On You:
I should have known that the relationship had no true foundation other than the secrets and memories I’d spilled out over time.
Of course there came a time when he turned all those words against me. Used those memories to hurt me.
But instead of providing comforting words as he did all those years ago, he said all the bad things about me were in fact true. That he’d lied.
I think maybe that hurt the most. That he would flip the script like that. And now I would be left wondering. Because he’d been the first person who helped me feel good about myself.
He’d given me hope and a feeling of positivity when depression seemed to rule my life.
But Now He’s Gone:
And now he is dead and gone. But still in my head.
I do not mourn him as I thought I would. Somehow the knowledge that he cannot get inside my head again is a relief. Even though, in some ways, I guess he still does.
I don’t think I ever truly relaxed fully until I knew that he was gone and gone forever. What that says about me I don’t exactly know.
So the questions will remain where the person does not.
You must wonder why I feel compelled to write about him still. And I can only tell you this: I honestly just don’t know.
“Don’t allow someone to treat you poorly just because you’re afraid of losing them.”
― Charles F. Glassman
A kind gyn advised me once to believe nothing a man says and half of what he does. The dynamics of a relationship change with marriage. There are good men. When they become ill the memories can change, too. I hope you all have more good ones to dwell in that bad. It takes time to realize things are not always what they seem. Brenda you did the correct thing despite his difficult it was and chose a good life.
Gentle hugs to you and others that have had to endure that type of behavior and pain.
“I don’t think I ever truly relaxed fully until I knew that he was gone and gone forever.”
You’re word describe exactly how I feel. He can never hurt me physically or mentally again. I’ll never understand how someone can do a complete change of personality and never show any remorse. Stay safe and happy with your girls and your pets. God bless you.
I know what you went through. And how hard it is to make the leap. I’m so proud of you!
Brenda, what this man did to you is shameful. How on earth could someone be so cruel as to turn all of your sadness, sorrow and pain, that you divulged in a medical setting against you. He was evil there is no other word. I am sorry for what he did to you, there is no pain more searing than someone that you love and trust turning the secrets that you told them back on you. I’ve been there myself and it is a pain and scar that never seems to heal. I think it is like they say, there is a thin line between love and hate.
I hope that you find solace now that he is gone and that you know that you are an amazing woman! You are strong, intelligent, funny, giving and more and you raised two beautiful women which is a feat in itself considering that you had no help or guidance.
Thank you for your kind words about my friends passing, to answer your question I do not know if it was Covid. But I too think about the families and the friends of the over 500,000 americans that are gone. The holes life in families and communities because of this terrible virus and the ripples that are still being felt. Enjoy your sweet Ivy and Charlie.
Luckily I have not yet lost someone to COVID-19. I suppose it’s just a matter of time. I sent you an email right after you got your blog redesign. It went to your blog email. I don’t think you got it.
The Bible says in many places our days are numbered. I think it is good that we do not know how many. What this doctor did was against the law. I believe he was cruel m, mean, and ill. It does take courage to overcome that. New memories take time to make. It even takes time to enjoy them.
I can relate to what you are writing! My husband was a charmer when I met him and then quickly became a very different person after we married. He has been dead for 5 years and every day I think about the way he treated me trying to figure why he hurt me so, without justification! After he died I researched why he acted the way he did and discovered he was a narcissist! As you say, you just don’t know why you think about them all the time!
So was my husband. He even told me he had narcissistic personality disorder. At the time I had no idea what that was.