New Year, New Place, New Life

Odd feeling, to be typing 2008. My first post of the new year, overdue by a few days I feel, but I will use the excuse that I’ve been working, training, moving and otherwise too busy to tend to the insides of my own head, not that anyone is particularly interested in the madness that resides there besides myself.

No.

That’s not true. You, dear reader, are interested, must be interested in whatever amusement, insight, twist I bring to play on this game we call life, this game-not-game we call love.

Or why would you be here?

It is early morning. I am awake in my newest place, no more moving around, running, running. I have a lease, a for-real lease. Not a day-to-day, week-to-week thing here, a lease. I have space. I have rooms.

Rooms.

Rooms.

All I have in the way of furniture is a bed which is WAAAAYYY too far from the floor and a chair.

My own bed. It is the first bed that is all mine since I was a child. And I can do whatever I like to decorate it, I have no one else I have to please or accommodate in terms of headboard or linen selection. I can pile the pillows and blankets as high as I want. I can hang drapes from the ceiling and twinkling lights, make believe I am looking at stars when I cannot sleep. Make believe I am beautiful in the dim light, small consolation for being alone, make believe.

What woman really believes she is beautiful?

If I am beautiful, then why am I alone?

It is all so much make believe.

So many rooms here, a full kitchen so I can make scones or biscuits or whatever every day if I choose, so much space. So what do I do?

I drag the only other piece of furniture I have into the bedroom, the oversized folding chair and set it in a corner. Once again, I am living in one small space, wrapped as tight to me as possible. I need to make it tight, hold myself with the walls.

There is no one to hold me.

And there are no memories here to hold me.

It is clean, sterile.

The place I’ve been the past six months, had many memories. I came in, it was full of memories. Every stain on the carpet, every cigarette burn on the furniture was its own memory. And I made memories there. I built a life of sorts. I lived there. I was Rapunzel in her tower, standing at the window, listening to the honking cars, a symphony of brake lights, waiting for her lover to climb her plaited hair, wrap her tresses round his hand and kiss her. I was.

I waited so many nights.

Leaving there, yesterday morning, the shadows stand there, taunting me. They walk back and forth, remove glasses from the cupboard, turn the TV around, prop the pillows up, throw the blankets on the floor. I sit on the edge of the bed, my last morning, and watch them. They talk to me, scenes replayed over and over, and the tears come, oh god, the tears come.

I cannot stop crying.

I walk to the window, one last time. Look out at the lights, the morning rush hour traffic. I watch the red lights as I did so many nights when I could not sleep. Watching traffic does not cure insomnia. And it is small comfort to know there are others wandering the streets, restless and alone.

The window sill..... I brush it with my fingertips, trace the shadows on it. Even the window sill has ghosts. I turn, look down on the bed, my home, my workplace, my safe house, my everything these many months. I cannot touch it.

At this point, I should be used to having my guts ripped out. It is not the first time, it is not the last. Vivisection is not unknown to me. I do not need a saber to perform seppuku. My dragon’s claws will rend me and chew my intestines as they spill upon the floor, an unsightly train to my fleshly wedding gown.

I am still crying.

I try not to let the door hit me on the ass as I leave.