Conversations With My Grandfather.

With the edge of my boot, I kicked up a cloud of red dirt. I hadn’t yet decided whether I wanted to sit or stand. But I had a lot to say.

I paced a few steps and found a stump. Looking left and then right, I surveyed my surroundings. Sure that I was really alone, I took a seat on top of it.

The sun was beating down on my back, neutralizing the cool breeze that drew goosebumps on my skin. And I breathed deep, letting the tears I’d held at bay all day fall lazily down my face.

“You know, I thought I had everything under control back then…” I trailed off thinking about last summer. The darkest season of my life. “Life was going like I wanted. I had everything like I wanted it. I had it all figured out.” My laugh is bitter. And pathetic.

My voice carries more anger than I intended. “I wasn’t ready. I know you were… I know you were. But I wasn’t… What am I suppose to do with you now?”

With the back of my sleeve, I swipe at my running nose.

“I’ve made a lovely mess, don’t you think?” With that, fresh hot tears stream down their previously made paths.

Oh, the mess I’d made. I knew it. I knew he knew it, too. Somewhere, he knew it.

The nightmares, the panic attacks, the sudden move to Chattanooga, the divorce, the fights with dad, the inability to find a job, the inability to take what’s left of my life and redraft, revise.

If life were as easy as rearranging words on a page…

And the thought of facing death. Again. And so soon.

I look towards the empty patch of ground I’m talking to, “It’s selfish, right?” I nod my head. Because, whether he would ever tell me or not, I know it’s true.

Life is what it is. And when it’s time to let go. You let go.

In theory.

But watching her, everyday, withering slowly away. A slow fade. The smell of death in the air, suffocating my soul and making it hard to breathe.

That tired look in her eyes that mirrors that look I saw in his. The color’s different. But the weariness is the same.

I sense the landslide coming. And I’m gasping for my last few remaining breaths before it buries me.

Again.

“I never really let you go… Now, I’m suppose to be ready to do it all over again..?” It came out as a sob.

I couldn’t tell you truthfully if I was crying for myself and my life or the thought of burying my grandmother.

Or for Pawpaw.

As I sit and stare at the rock that now stands as the reminder that he once lived, I decide that I despise it. And I despise those fake flowers that make it look like someone’s pretending it’s a coffee table, which needs to be adorned.

But I stand and walk over to pick up a fallen flower. As I stick it back into the immovable rock vase, I find it funny.

An everlasting vase for flowers, real or fake, that will wither and bend and blow away with the wind.

Like an everlasting gravestone for a soul that is not tethered to it. But a soul that I still feel on Sunday afternoons, and when looking at my dad’s face, or when hearing my Nannie’s laughter.

Absent mindedly I pat his gravestone, as I slowly begin to back away.

I wipe my face as I walk back to my car, ready to be gone. But I hear his voice, “You don’t have to come here to feel me, Armandy.”

“Yeah, I know, Pawpaw. I feel you everywhere.”

Well Honey, I Met the Neighbors.

I woke up super early this morning. Even with all this Benadryl I’m taking for my allergies, I’m still having trouble sleeping all the way through the night.

Ya… I’m drooling all over myself and my eyes are glazed like a Krispy Kreme but I can’t go to sleep.

…Makes plenty of sense to me.

Anyways, so what’s with the title of this bloggy? Well, I woke up around sixish something and laid in bed contemplating food.

Or really, contemplating my lack there of.

When I remember that my mother had packed a box for me of random food from her house that she wasn’t gonna use. And it was sitting in the backseat of my car.

But it’s freezing this morning, just in case any of you out there hadn’t noticed… My toes are still ice.

So I cannot will myself out from under my warm covers, even at the protesting of my (very) empty pansa.

Not until 7:30 ish anyways. I grabbed my keys and threw on my hideous Tennessee sweatshirt and my boots and head for my car.

The box wasn’t all that heavy or big. But trying to maneuver the heavy glass door to the apartment building back open, with said box in hand, was proving to be difficult.

When I finally managed to slid my boot between the small opening and kick it open, I kicked too hard. Because when the door swung back shut, it knocked me clear down the stairs.

So here we go… Me and my box of food go flying down the stairs with more than enough racket to wake the dead.

In China.

When me and my box and its strewn contents come to a stop, I begin frantically tossing food back in the box in hopes that I could dash back inside my apartment before any of my neighbors came out to see me… Sprawled out on the floor, in my pj’s and boots, with some massive crazy pillow hair.

(Cue laughter.)

When I look up, two doors are open with people peeking out. And there’s another woman looking down at me from the upper floor, over the railing.

“You want some help down there?” She asks so loud. Her voice carried all the way to the end of the hall, I’m sure.

I don’t quite know the intensity of the shade of red I turned, but I tell you what, my ears were so hot, I could feel the waves of heat as they rolled.

Mortally embarrassed to have had such a large audience to my clutziness and sense of fashion so early in the morning, I waved her off. “Thank you, but I’ll be fine.”

With my head down, I get my box packed and back in my apartment.

So… That was fun. (Insert sarcasm.) Until I discovered we didn’t have one clean spoon in the apartment with which to eat my oatmeal.

And the only utensil I find that could remotely work was a spatula thingy majig…



And since I’m sleep deprived…



And… Possibly losing some sanity…?



Now… To find a J.O.B.

No, really. Why are you laughing?

Dun, Dun, Dun... And the Verdict Is?

Good morning! Oh how I hate thee, Tuesday… Let me count the ways.

Bah.

Anyways, today is a rather important day for me. It was the day I had set for me to either have a job by, or be making plans to return to Calhoun and help the roommates find someone to take over my part of the rent.

And even having to think about returning to Calhoun makes my head hurt. It’s strange because my whole childhood, all I can remember is wanting to return there. And now all I want is to get out.

So, do I have a job? No. Am I moving back to Calhoun?

Well (slight cringe), it looks that way. But the day is not over yet! I’m keeping my (appartently useless) fingers crossed that there may still be the slightest chance that I will get a call about a job today.

And if not, well it’s adios Chattanooga for me. And hello to, well, you know who you are.

I Think I Thought I Had This...

What was I thinking?

No scratch that. I don't believe I even was.

And now I'm looking at the massive amount of crow I'm about to have to eat. I'm getting heartburn just thinking about it...

"Don't you think it's time you just pack it up and come back home?" My mother asked me tonight.

Of course, I can't survive forever up here with no job. But it's painful to swallow the thought of having to turn back around and go home.

And it doesn't mean finding a job is going to be any easier in my hometown. Jobs are scarce period.

Not just here in Chatt.

But I'm digging my fingers into the cliff's edge and hanging on. I'm not ready to throw in the towel. And if it becomes necessary, I don't know that I'll have the ability.

I can hear my father now... "I told you so. I told you, you should've listen to me..."

But you know what's worse than the possiblity of moving back in with the rents?

Going back to the one place where everyone knows every skeleton in my closet. They think they know me. So they judge me.

It's like putting on a show, playing a part, reading from a script, when you live in a small town.

Becuase if you were to say the wrong something to someone who knew someone and they told that someone and it got back to another someone, you're screwed.

Living with your head constantly over your shoulder is exhausting. Better watch your step because you're always being watched.

Because in a place like that, people need something, someone, to talk about.

And those skeletons in my closet are quite amusing to some.