Touching the Nightmare

I've spent an unprecedented and unexpected amount of time alone in recent months.

Pandemic aside, travelling for 122 days with only my dog and cat as traveling

companions (no offense Zoey and Marz), provided seemingly endless hours for

me to get inside my own head.  The thoughts and memories that revealed themselves when given the time and space to surface, were too often, terrifying and ugly. Yet it is these memories that so deeply define who I am and how I see the world. I tried to be brave and allow myself to remember what I have pushed so deeply inside.

    

I considered how I intend to euthanize myself rather than linger. Will I recognize when that time is?

I regretted that I didn't do more to find a way for Mom to keep her cat. 

I more fully realize, now, how the smaller our world becomes, the more important our

pets are.The only form of physical touch I receive on a regular basis anymore is from my animals.

I took that one tangible comfort away from Mom when I removed Gus.

I bravely allowed myself to recall how she would scream from the other room for us to come help when Dad was beating her. Why did I remain frozen in the bedroom? Never once did I come to her aid. Never once did I stand between her and Dad. Instead, I always did as he said: I took Lydia to our room, closed the door, turned on the TV and made "damn sure" we stayed there.

Every time.

I remembered how, once the physical fighting stopped, he'd hide her glasses and teeth. He was constantly afraid of her leaving him. She would stay in bed all day the next day. Often with her head under the pillow. Toothless and blind.

I forgot this little tidbit about their fights until this summer, when one stretch of road, or tree, or overlook, or something, brought it all back in technicolor. The furniture. The smells. Bowman Biscuit (later, Keebler) was a short walk from home. Every afternoon my ramshackle, blue collar neighborhood was filled with the luscious scent of baking bread and cookies. But I digress…     

I remembered her screams. The sounds of breaking glass, chairs falling, Mom being shoved against the wall, or thrown to the floor. The light and shadow filling our darkened bedroom from the old black and white TV. Lydia on the bunk below me, silent. Me in the bunk above, feeling my insides turn a little sick.  

These are the sorts of memories that come back to me when I’m left inside my own head.