Twisted Minds

As I was doing some spring cleaning over the last few weeks, I stumbled across a short story I wrote for English class in high school.  The date, to be exact, was 12/3/1994.  Upon seeing this story, I remembered sitting at the table writing this story, the creative juices flowing, and probably stressing about whether my teacher would find the story too weird!

The assignment was to write a story that met the following criteria: first person narrator who has a macabre obsession, follow a traditional plot line, and to use the ”Poe Vocabulary”.  Apparently we were studying Poe at this time…I don’t have the copy of the story that was graded, and I have no clue what a traditional plot line is!  The “Poe” words I incorporated are: dismembered, tour-de-force, and vexed.  I don’t usually like criteria like that because it feels as if I am forcing a story to go in a certain direction, and it doesn’t let the story go in it’s own direction.  I suppose it is possible, though, that it helped me shape this story and helped make it what it is.  I feel as if this is still a work in progress, a long way from being “perfect”.  But I’ve got time to work on it.  In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the story!

————-

It’s 1:00 a.m. Who would knock on my door at this hour?

“Open up, Miller!”  I heard a gruff sounding voice call from the other side of the door.  I was scared.  Who the hell was there, I thought as I stumbled through the darkness.  I made it to the door, flipped the switch on the wall, and unlocked the dead bolt.  I opened the door a crack and it strained against the chain of the second lock on the door.  Two uniformed policemen stood in the hallway.  I closed the door and dismantled the chain lock.  What was going on?  I hadn’t done anything wrong, or so I thought at the time.

In fact, looking back, I had done something wrong.  I befriended a young girl.  A young twelve year old girl. She was my student in the fifth grade.  She was older than the other kids in my class because she had been hospitalized for two years and fell behind in her coursework.  Because of her looks, she didn’t have many friends.  She was tall, thin and gangly, and those characteristics combined with her long, straight black hair and dark, dreary eyes put the other students in the school on edge.  When you looked at her, in her eyes, your thoughts turned to the macabre.  But somehow, she was drawn to me and would open up to me about her life.  She would stay after school almost every day and share her thoughts, feelings and emotions with me.  I don’t remember much of what she told me except that during certain times throughout the day, she would have no memory of what she had been doing or how she ended up wherever she would find herself.

So, I let the cops in.  “Are you Jack Miller?” they asked roughly.

“Yes” I replied cautiously, “What’s going on?”

“You are under arrest for the murder of three people, and one attempted murder.”

I was shocked, to say the least.  Three murders?  Me? Under arrest? Oh my! I’ve never killed anyone! “What?” I cried, “How can this be happening?”

“We’ll tell ya at the station.” The gruff sounding cop said as the other policeman put me in handcuffs.

————-

I was sitting in the interrogation room when the detective walked in, with the girl right behind him.  She didn’t look at me.  Her face, though still dreary, looked almost guilty.  Two adults that I later found out were her parents followed her in the door. They had looks of great fear on their faces, but I could see deep hatred in their eyes.

Detective Riley looked at me, “Miller, do you know this young girl?  She says she’s a student in your class, is this true?”

“Yes” I answered confidently.

“Where were you tonight at 10:00 p.m.?” Riley asked,

“Home, watching T.V., I usually watch it to unwind after grading homework.”

“That’s real interesting, ’cause this girl here says you were in her bedroom and attempted.  She managed to get away from you and by the time she alerted her parents, you were gone out her bedroom window.”

“That’s insane, there has to be some kind of misunderstanding!” I cried.  This must be a bad dream…a nightmare!

He didn’t believe me, I knew it.  I had no one that could vouch for me.

“So, you teach this little girl. Do you have access to the addresses of the children you teach?” Riley asked.

“No, but we have access to phone numbers in case we need to call the parents of a student.”

“Have you ever called or gone to this girl’s house?”

“No, I’ve never been there or seen her outside of school.  We just used to talk after school.  We are both lonely people, so we gave each other company.”

“Do you read the newspapers, Miller?”

“No, they are too depressing.”

“Have you heard anything about the person the media has named ‘The Psycho Park Killer’ “?  Riley had a smug smirk on his face as he asked me this question, almost as if he already knew the answers to this line of questioning.

“I’ve heard some talk about him…oh my…please don’t tell me you think I’m a murderer?  That I could do those things to innocent people!”

The Psycho Park Killer was a man who committed three murders. The victims had been strangled and dismembered, limb from limb.  After my outburst, the little girl looked at me with that dark look in her eyes and on her face, and softly said, “We were friends Mr. Miller, why did you try to hurt me?”.  For a moment, she almost looked like a normal 12 year old.

“Me? I would never hurt you!  I am your friend!” I was getting more and more confused by the minute.

Detective Riley told the parents and the little girl to wait outside of the room.  “Jack, we know it’s you. There’s no point denying it.  Bob, escort him to his cell…and don’t be gentle.” I was handcuffed again and escorted from the interrogation room.

Bob certainly wasn’t gentle. He kept asking me why I did it.  I kept telling him I was innocent.  He threw me into the cell and the last thing I remember hearing was the slamming of the cold steel cell door.

————-

“Paul, where’s Ellie? I saw her head to the kitchen when we got home, but she’s not there now.  Have you seen her?” asked a very worried mother.

“No, Marie, I haven’t. Maybe she’s in her room.  Did you check?”

“No, I will now though”. Marie headed up the stairs to look for her daughter.

————-

They won’t find me in my room.  I’m in the basement looking over my keepsakes.  The sharp knife that I used in the murders.  My knife.  The momentos I took from my victims.  I laughed quietly, so they wouldn’t hear me, and find me looking over my trophies and call that horrible hospital again. The story I made up about Mr. Miller was the best.  I’m free.  But I find myself strangely upset that Mr. Miller will be getting all the credit for my hard work.  Can I really just sit back and let him get all the glory…all my glory?

————-

I will tell you what happened after that night.  Jack Miller was put on trial and convicted.  He was sentenced to death.  As I sit here in the electric chair, Jack Miller is gone and I am in his place.  I was always there, I created Jack Miller.  I stayed lurking in the hidden recesses of the mind Jack thought belonged to him. I stayed waiting for the perfect moments to perform my works of art.  Jack never knew about me or the works of art I worked on. My only disappointment is that I only received the credit for three of my creations.  There are so many more that no one knows of…and so many more could have been created!

I will tell you about the little girl.  She thought she had committed the murders.  My murders.  She was crazy.  Sick.  She tried to take all the credit for the atrocities that I alone was responsible for.  Ellie decided she wouldn’t be lonely anymore if she had a lot of attention from the police and the newspapers.  So, she retold the stories that I had told her during our special time after school, putting herself in my place at all the gory, murderous and bloody moments.  I would not allow her crass claim for glory.  The glory should be mine, all mine.

She’s now back in the hospital where she lived before.  She was put there after her parents really saw for the first time the inner working of her twisted mind.  She’ll be locked away in that asylum for a long, long time.

As for me, the doctor said I have split personalities.  I can tell you that is not true.  Jack Miller was a persona I created so I could slip under the radar while I created my masterpieces.  Jack Miller is gone. I am here.  I love killing.  It thrills and excites me.  I’ve become obsessed with it.  But I was never perfect.  Yet, within the next few moments, I shall perform my tour-de-force: my own death.  I will remain vexed at my own imperfection until the exact minute I feel my soul leave my body.

I want to knit the world or My Adventures of Yarn Crawling in 2012

                                             

“I want to knit the world”

That was my answer to a question my husband asked me at our fourth stop on the 2012 North Shore Yarn Crawl.

He had asked me if there was anything that intimidates me when it comes to knitting, if there was one thing that I wanted to make but I was hesitant to try.

So, yes, I want to knit everything that there is to knit in the whole wide world, and that fact intimidates me!  I love knitting. It is very relaxing (most times!) and I am amazed at what can be created just with hands, needles and yarn.

I first learned how to knit with my older sister, Annie.  She had started it, and I was very impressed with the items she had created. One year at Christmas, I believe it was 2009, I was visiting her and her family and she sat down to show me. It didn’t take long before I had caught the bug, and signed up for a beginner knitting class at my local yarn store (LYS), Seed Stitch in Salem, MA.

Andrea was my teacher at Seed Stitch, and between her and Annie, they helped encourage this little flame inside of me to grow bigger each time I picked up my knitting needles and tried something new. I had never before felt that I was specifically talented at anything in particular, so was it possible I had finally found that “thing” that I was good at?

Since I starting knitting, I’ve knitted a lot of scarves, some shawls and a few hats. I have experimented with straight needles made of wood and metal, circular needles (love them!) and have tried, and temporarily put aside, working with double-pointed needles.  I will pick them up again though!

I’ve discovered that I love cables, love knitting in the round, and I like the challenge of knitting patterns. I am definitely intimidated at the thought of progressing onto clothing, however, and I’ve let that intimidation stop me from trying it.

I feel like I need to master knitting as much as possible before tackling a project like a sweater or other types of garments.  My goal for right now with knitting is to try different projects to build my confidence and to eventually prove to myself that I can conquer knitting anything, from a sweater to anything else I may encounter along the way! My main goals for this year’s yarn crawl were to buy something different and unique at each store, keep the total spent under $100 and visit new stores.  I am proud to say that I accomplished all three!  In the past, I had just hit the two I had always gone too, this year I decided to branch out from my comfort level and I am so glad I did!

My journey with yarn and knitting took a bit of a hiatus while I planned my wedding to my wonderful husband who cheerfully joined me at this year’s Yarn Crawl. While he is not a knitter, he supports my knitting and puts up with yarn being all over the house!  So I was very excited to get back in the swing of looking at and purchasing unique and luxury yarns and I thought that this would be a great way to start up again. We had the weekend off of work for our first wedding anniversary, so I had planned to go to six of the stores in the Yarn Crawl. Next year, my goal is to make it to all stores that participate!

For those of you that don’t know what the Yarn Crawl is, visit http://ayarncrawl.com/ and watch for info on next year’s!  There are prizes, you get to meet new and interesting people such as designers and fellow yarn-crawlers,  and it gives you a reason to shop for yarn (as if you needed one) at different stores you may not have been to before!

My first stop was at my favorite yarn store, Seed Stitch (www.seedstitchfineyarn.com). I admit I am a bit biased because I feel this store was an immense help in sparking my love for yarn and all things related to knitting! Besides that, everyone here is so friendly and helpful, I consider myself lucky to have a store like this in my neighborhood. Their displays in the windows and in the store of yarns and finished projects are always so beautiful and inspiring.

                               The sign in the picture says, “Fall in love with yarn all over again”.  Looking at these colors and textures, how could you not??

I was happy to see Courtney, the owner of Seed Stitch, and my teacher, Andrea and caught up with them a bit.  It was like I had never been away for so long. It’s wonderful being welcomed in like an old friend. As busy as they both were, Courtney still took the time to talk to me about a kit I was interested in buying and showed me some pictures of the finished project. I was sold!  I bought a kit that included a pattern for a Stainless Steel Drop Stitch Scarf. You read that right, stainless steel!  I’m so excited to try this out.  I know, another scarf, but this is different for me for two reasons. One being the fact that I’d be knitting with stainless steel (!) and the second being that I have to drop stitches on purpose!  I usually freak out when I drop a stitch, so the fact that I will be dropping them on purpose is a bit exciting and scary all at the same time!  I definitely will not be waiting another year before visiting Seed Stitch again.

                                                                               Here is the “before” of what the stainless steel looks like.

Here is what the Stainless Steel Drop Stitch Scarf should look like when it’s completed.

Our next stop was going to be the three yarn stores in Beverly.  I had been to one before, but two I would be visiting for the first time.

The first Beverly shop was Creative Yarns (www.creativeyarnsbeverly.com).  This was a store I have driven by plenty of times,always on my way to somewhere else, so I was excited to have the time to stop in for a visit. It is a cute yarn store, and was very busy inside. I found an interesting type of yarn, Zoe by Trendsetter Yarns. You can see in the picture below what it looks like before being knitted. My goal is to make some kind of a necklace or bracelet set from it. It’s such a pretty set of colors (I bought the “Montana” color with a touch of sparkle from the gold in it). I haven’t done a lot of knitted jewelery before, so that and the texture of this yarn make this a different type of project for me.

                            Zoe in “Montana” by Trendsetter Yarns. Beautiful color combination, with a touch of gold metallic fiber woven throughout!

The next stop was to The Knit Stitch (www.theknitstitchstore.com) also located in Beverly. They were celebrating their one year anniversary of being open,and my husband and I were gearing up to celebrate our one year wedding anniversary, so we both had a celebration happening! I was a lucky door prize winner and won three skeins of James C. Brett Marble yarn in this pretty variegated blue, green and white. I think this will make a nice, soft blanket and can’t wait to try it out!

Yarn today, soft, warm blanket tomorrow!

While I was here, I saw these gorgeous wooden yarn bowls that I hope to own one of someday! I’m notorious for letting my yarn roll all over the place while I’m knitting and those would definitely prevent that from happening, and very stylishly I might add! Here I ended up buying a tool to help me with choosing colors for my knitting. It is called the color grid. I had seen it on a website while I was surfing the net recently and this was the first time I had seen it in a store.  It is a great tool to help you discover colors that match and contrast for when you are deciding on yarn colors. I can’t wait to try this out my next stop in any of these stores!

I was also happy to meet the employees there, who are very friendly. I inquired about a class that I hadn’t seen anywhere else to date, “The Art of Frogging” and I hope they will hold one in the future!  I tend to just unravel all my progress on a knitted object when I realize that I have made a mistake, and that is one of the things that frustrates me.  I’m hoping to learn the proper way to fix my mistakes without taking out all my hard work and starting over again!  I know that this trip will not have been my last to The Knit Stitch.

Yarns in the Farms (www.yarnsinthefarms.com) was our next stop on the Yarn Crawl.  I love this store.  For a long time, Seed Stitch and Yarns in the Farms were the only two locally owned yarn stores I had visited.  I love them both. They both have a very welcoming, friendly vibe to them. They offer great classes and always have helpful and knowledgeable staff available.

The minute you walk in the door at Yarns in the Farms, you feel like you are transported to another world, one in which you are surrounded by yarn, yarn and more yarn! It’s almost as if the outside world doesn’t exist, and you are just in the presence of one happy yarn-loving family.  I know, it sounds way too good to be true, but it is!

I caught up a bit with Wink and Tink who I hadn’t seen since I last visited their store about a year ago.  This is another store that I need to make visits to more often.  Here I found a fun looking copper-colored yarn, which I can’t seem to find the name and information on.  I came home and wound it into a ball, and seem to have lost the info that came along with it. If anyone reading seems to recognize it, please let me know!  It’s to make a fun scarf (I know, I know!) with size 50 needles.  While a friend gave me a pair of this size needle a while back, I have yet to use them, and using them on this gorgeous ribbon type yarn should be exciting!

I hope someone recognizes this yarn!  If I figure it out, I’ll update this post with the info and a better picture!

.                                                                     On the way out, we couldn’t resist snapping this picture.  How true is this!?

Leaving Beverly, we headed for South Hamilton to Cranberry Fiber Arts (www.cranberryfiberarts.com).  This was another store that I had driven by weekly, yet never had a chance to stop in. I am so glad I made the time during the Crawl to visit! They seemed to have room upon room of yarn to browse through.  They even had some cute little yarn guards, as my husband called them!

                                            

Here I found two yarns I could not resist.  The first is Shibui, a mohair and silk blend. It is so soft, and the helpful employee at the store (I wish I had caught her name!) recommended for me to knit a swirl scarf (pictured below) with it.  Yes, yet another scarf.  What can I say? They are usually enough of a project for you to get comfortable trying out a new pattern or working with a new yarn, so that’s perfect for me, plus, you can never have enough decorative scarves, in my opinion!  They can really dress up an outfit.  I have yet to work with such fine, delicate yarn, so this should be an experience!

                                                           

This is the Shibui yarn in the Graphite color.                    This is what I will make with this beautiful mohair/silk blend.

The second yarn I bought from Cranberry Fiber Arts is Cristallo, pictured below, and I will be using it to make the Ithacowl pattern that came with the purchase of the yarn.  I really appreciated it coming with a pattern, as well as the helpfulness of a recommended pattern.  Too many times I have  bought yarn that I love and can’t wait to use, only to have the hardest time finding a pattern to go with it.  I am happy to know that I won’t have that problem with either of the yarns purchased here. This will be my first cowl and the first time ever working with yarn that has fun sequins in it!

                                   

Cristallo in Aqua                                                    Ithacowl – my soon-to-be first cowl!

Our last stop, and the furthest away, was at Coveted Yarns in Gloucester (www.covetedyarn.com).  Thanks to my typical way of not completely paying attention to things, I brought us to Main Street, not East Main Street. There is a big difference! Getting lost in Gloucester is not a bad thing by any means because it is so beautiful, however, as fun as getting lost is, this was cutting into my yarn shopping time!  Once we found the store, I knew it was going to be an instant favorite!

More friendly staff, and more seemingly endless amounts of yarn!  There were so many finished projects displayed, most of which I wanted to buy the yarn for and start knitting right away! Thankfully my hubby was there and he reminded me of my goal of spending under $100, not over. There is this yarn I have been “coveting” (get it!?  ha ha…) forever.It is called Deep Water by Blue Heron Yarns.  I have no idea what I will make with it, but it’s beautiful.  Anyone who knows me knows that I love sparkle, and this has a metallic thread added to it that seems to come out of nowhere in the yarn, and always makes me think of a beautiful starry night over the water.  If anyone has any suggestions, let me know!  I bought just one skein of it which is 570 yards.

At the register, I happened to come across what I think is the coolest thing! It’s a bar of soap hand wrapped in soft wool. They had different options for scents, but I chose one of my favorites, Lavender.  According to the directions, as you wash, the water will felt the wool turning it into a loofah of sorts. How awesome is that, and what more can a hard-working knitter deserve after all this shopping and knitting?  I can’t wait to try this out, and my friends and family should be warned that they may be getting some of these as presents someday!

                                                                                      The soap covered in soft wool…so amazingly soft!

To wrap up the story of my 2012 Yarn Crawl adventure, I had an amazing time discovering new yarns and new patterns.  I will most likely be doing future blog posts on the specific projects themselves to share with everyone how I’m doing on each of them.  I’m already looking forward to the North Shore Yarn Crawl of 2013!

I want to thank all the shops that were involved in the 2012 North Shore Yarn Crawl, but particularly the shops I made it to: Seed Stitch Fine Yarn, Yarns in the Farms, Coveted Yarns, The Knit Stitch, Cranberry Fine arts and Creative Yarns. Your staff, yarn selection, pattern information, displays, creativity and inspiration are all amazing, and I love how every shop was a yarn adventure in itself!  You made my Yarn Crawl the best ever, here’s to next year!

In the meantime, I’d love to read about any adventures in knitting anyone reading this has had!

Thanks for reading!

The Terrible Misfortune

If I knew then what I know now, I would have cared less about what others thought of me.  I would have always listened to my gut instincts and I would have lived my life to the fullest.

On the day of the terrible misfortune, I was taking my usual walk home from work when two young children walked by me eating ice cream cones.  It was such a hot summer day that my throat seemed to be crying out for one of the cold, refreshing cones.  Vanilla was always my favorite flavor.  I could see myself ordering the cone from the waitress, and beginning to continue my walk home.  Then I remembered how I’d feel when people see me walking down the street eating, my belly leading the way.  I knew they’d be thinking that I am a gluttonous pig who should not be eating anything except a salad and especially not this delicious, cold ice cream cone.  I walked past the ice cream shop too ashamed to have the scenario in my head play out in real life.

As I walked on, two teenagers on roller blades rolled past, laughing and they seemed not to have a care in the world.  I had always wanted to learn to roller blade, it seems like a great way to have fun and start to get back into shape.  However, I just couldn’t deal with the embarrassment of being given the look from everyone who walked by, the look of “what does that fat guy think he is doing on roller blades?”.  I had always assumed the worst in strangers, I don’t know why, I’d done it as long as I could remember.  It was one more part of myself that I despised.  I’d have liked to be one of those people who could go outside and do whatever they wanted without thinking or caring about other people’s thoughts or opinions.  If I could have found a way to get over my self-consciousness and be more carefree, I would have had a much more fun and exciting life.

When I arrived home, that familiar feeling, that sick to my stomach feeling, returned the minute I saw Marie in the kitchen.  My thoughts went to the late night phone calls I’ve overheard from my wife to him.  The part of me that I had assumed was paranoia, made me think she was having an affair.  That turned out to be the truth, and if I had investigated that feeling further, if I had listened to my gut instead of just writing it off, things would not have gone as badly as they did.

There were, of course, other things that should have made me suspicious of her, but I had overlooked those as well.  There was the receipt from the gun shop in town for a handgun.  If we didn’t live in Bow, NH, I probably would have been more worried.  My wife was an avid hunter, having learned to hunt from her father.  She was always adding new guns to her collection.  The thing that had caused me the most pain, and had hurt my marriage the most, were the love letters I found.  I found them in the attic while searching for some clothes and items to donate to the local elementary school’s bazaar.  The letters seemed to be written by Marie to her childhood sweetheart, Mark, and there were letters in reply from Mark.  Why did she have both sets of letters?  It seems the letters had been brought together, and put here for safe keeping, but why?

The letters Marie had written talked of how much she loved Mark, and always had.  If it wasn’t for “that one mistake of a night” and the pregnancy that came from it, she would have married him instead of me.  That was so painful to read.  I knew the night Marie and I got together was shortly after Mark had left for college, and Marie had seemed to think things between them wouldn’t work out, but I had truly loved Marie since the minute I met her.  I knew she loved Mark, but I thought I had become enough for her.  Reading those letters had almost killed me, but because I love Marie and couldn’t imagine living without her, I left the letters, I thought they looked undisturbed, and kept my discovery to myself.

Looking back, my life would have been much more fulfilling if I had followed through on a few things.  First, I would have finished high school.  I have always wanted to be a lawyer, but when Marie became pregnant, I dropped out and got a job as a garage mechanic.  As everyone always says, I always meant to go back to school, but life got in the way.  I had always dreamed of having a lot of children, at least four or five.  When Marie got pregnant, I was scared, but happy.  Thirty years ago times were different, most pregnant young women didn’t have abortions, and some couples still did what they thought was right, which was to get married and raise the child together.  That’s the road Marie and I chose, and I thought we’d go on to have a large, happy family.  Unfortunately, Marie and I lost our baby.  There was never any reason given for it happening, it just happened.  Marie always said she was too heartbroken to try to have another child.

So there I was, home from work with that sick feeling back in the pit of my stomach, staring at Marie in the kitchen.  I saw the pile of familiar letters on the table, I guess I hadn’t been careful enough when I put them back.  Marie was facing me, with the gun in her hand.  I went in and shut the door.  What did I have to lose now?  My “great” job changing oil and rotating tires?  I have no children, few friends, and the woman I loved never loved me back.  I had taken a few steps towards her, “Marie…” I never got to finish my sentence.  I had just wanted her to know that I always loved her.  As the bullets hit me one after another, I heard nothing, but saw a different life I could have had flash before my eyes.  I saw children running in the yard, happy to see me home from work, a loving wife coming out the door to greet me.  We’d make dinner together, help the children with their homework, and tuck them into bed together.  Oh, what a different life I could have had.

In the end, as I look back at all the different aspects of my life, I regret a lot of the decisions I made.  My thoughts are full of “should-haves”:  I should have learned to roller blade, I should have had that ice cream cone, I should have listened to my gut and I definitely should have realized that one person does not make my life worth living, I do.  I should have left after I found the letters.  If I did, I’d be alive, I’d have gained some self-respect, I’d have a chance to go to law school, and have a new chance at love and a happy life.  If I did leave, I wouldn’t have to look down and see Marie and Mark living a happy life together, sharing a bed I paid for in the house I bought.  What a different life we all could have had.

My Resignation Letter to Myself

After having a conversation with a very important person in my life (referred to as VIP from here on out.  I know, so very original!), I came to a new revelation.

If you read my previous blog, you will know that I am working on changing some habits, both physically and emotionally.  After reading The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown, I realized that I could be brave enough to change these habits, I just had no idea how to do it.

VIP told me the story of when she resigned from a job she held.  She hadn’t been happy and needed to make a choice to do something to make her happy in her chosen career.  As she wrote a one line email to her boss resigning from her job, she felt a sense or relief and calm.  She was telling me then how everything started to fall into place and she knew she had made the right choice. It dawned on me during this conversation that I should write myself a resignation letter, resigning from all the old habits I am looking to leave behind.  After all, once you submit a resignation letter, it’s usually very difficult to take it back.  Of course, if I just submitted this resignation letter to myself I know I couldn’t be the one to hold myself accountable for following through with the resignation of these habits.  I am the queen of letting myself off the hook for things I know I need to do but don’t.  This is where my blog comes in.  I am submitting this resignation letter to my friends, family and “strangers” who will be reading this.  If I don’t follow through with these things, I’ll know, but it will also be obvious in my writings as well.

Before I get to writing about the specific habits I need to leave behind, you need to know some of my history.  I am about to share some very personal information here, so if you want to stop reading, there won’t be any hard feelings!  Some of you may not want to know the things I am about to write about.

Growing up, I was a kid you’d consider fearless.  I’d do and try anything!  I truly felt like the world was my oyster.  I heard of bad things happening to people on the news and in the soap operas my mother watched, but I was completely sure that bad things didn’t happen to people in real life (the news just never seemed like real life to me), they especially didn’t happen to people in my life, and they most especially didn’t happen to me.

Unfortunately, when I was fifteen years old, the world I lived in was shattered.  While I was on vacation with my mother and little sister, I was forced into a situation that I had no control over, and where I was not given a choice.  I was raped.  It turned out that bad things did happen to people in real life, they did happen to people in my life and they especially did happen to me.  Unknowingly, from that point on, I started to “live in the darkness of fear”, to quote a very wise Eleanor Brown.  Subconsciously, I felt that I was the one at fault, regardless of the fact that I was a 15-year-old child and he was a 21-year-old “man”.  I told myself that I had made a bad choice by trusting this individual, but as it turns out, I didn’t make the bad choice; he did.  It just took me seventeen and a half years to realize that.  Seventeen and a half years of letting life happen to me, instead of continuing to happen to life the way I had as a child.  Seventeen and a half years of not making choices out of fear, because I thought I had made a bad choice one time, and I thought that bad choice had destroyed me.  But I survived.  His bad choice didn’t destroy me.

The first habit I need to change has to do with choices.  I can make choices!  The first choice I am working on making is to no longer “live in the darkness of fear”.  I have been very afraid of life for as long as I can remember since being raped, almost forgetting that I was once a fearless kid.  One perfect example of this is the anxiety and fear I feel when my husband leaves the house.  I am practically frozen in fear that something horrible will happen and he won’t come back home.  Outwardly, you probably wouldn’t know I am feeling this way, but internally I’m a mess waiting for the second I get a text that he is on his way home or I hear his keys in the door.  These fears are mostly unfounded, but they do stem from events I have experienced in my past.  Living in fear is in fact living in darkness.  It can be very lonely, even with a loving husband, great friends and a wonderful family.  If you keep people at a safe distance, and something happens to them, then maybe it won’t hurt as much.  What a lonely, sad defense mechanism.

I have many things I am currently working through, and “excusing” things away based on the fact that this happened to me, or that happened to me, or I wasn’t taught this or that, just isn’t working.  Regardless of why I am the way I am, I need to make the changes based on what I am capable of today.  So, as scary as this thought is, there’s no going back!

The second habit I need to change is to stop living in the past and live in the present.  When I was 16, my father, also my best friend, was diagnosed with COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, www.copd.com). He had smoked since he was a teenager, and when I was a kid I had always asked him to stop.  I guess smoking was a habit he couldn’t break, until he was diagnosed with this disease that is.  He lived his life to the fullest, not knowing how much longer he would live. He was always an inspiration to me.  I never have had a good relationship with my mother (that’s a blog for another time!) and my Dad and I were always very close.  It never seemed like anyone ever understood me the way that he did.

At the age of 19, when I decided to tell my parents that I had been raped and ask them for their help to see a counselor, I went to talk to my mother first.  She was laying down having recently gone to bed.  Her reply to me was one of anger.  How dare I wake her up to tell her something like this?  She needed her sleep after all.  She rolled away from me.  I had wanted her to come with me downstairs to tell my Dad .  As close as he and I were, how does a daughter tell her father something like this?  I had no idea how to tell him this.  I will never forget her reaction, or his.  He was sitting in his recliner, watching Jay Leno or David Letterman (the one detail I’m fuzzy on).  I was crying, and I sat on the arm of the couch next to his chair, and told him what had happened.  He held me so tight.  He told  me that he knew something had happened, that he knew I came back from that vacation a different person.  He thought it was normal teenage stuff, but somewhere deep down he had known it was something else. My Dad just held me and let me cry.  He was there for me.  He was always just what I needed.

My dad passed away on January 31, 2003.  I wasn’t ready.  I was 24, my younger sister and I lived in our childhood home with him.  Our parents had divorced and my mother had remarried and moved out-of-state.  I had no idea what to do with this big house. I wasn’t ready for him to die, I needed my Dad.  He had always been there for me.  I didn’t, and sometimes still don’t, know how to live without him.  On some level, I feel that my father was taken away from me unexpectedly.  Even when you know someone has a terminal illness, I don’t think you are ever prepared for them to actually die.  Nine years later, I still sometimes feel like he died just yesterday.  I still find it hard to see any positivity in his passing.  I don’t want him to be in any pain or discomfort, but I want him here with me. I want him here to meet my husband, and our future children, I want him here with my sisters and to meet his grandchildren.  I know this is where he would choose to be too.  He loved his family so much.  Because of this, I am not really surprised that I am afraid of losing my husband in some unexpected way.  He has so many of my father’s positive traits and he is the first man I have loved as much as my Dad.  Living in constant fear of losing him based on what I have lost in the past doesn’t help either of us.

This was some heavy history to share in just my second blog.  I think that for my sake and for my readers’ sake, this resignation letter will be best delivered in sections.  I don’t want this blog post to be viewed as a “downer”.  I feel that writing all this down is a way for me to heal and come to terms with things that I have experienced.  It’s a way for me to set these experiences free, and move on.  A way for me to realize that I don’t have to hold onto it anymore.  I have always felt that being raped was the elephant in the room, so to speak.  Do I tell, do I not tell?  Now it doesn’t matter.  I am choosing to no longer give it that kind of power.  No matter what, these experiences are always going to be there, but I don’t have to continue to let them define my life anymore.  I will always be a rape survivor, and I will always miss my Dad.  There comes a time when you have to let go of the past so that you don’t stay stuck there anymore.  It’s time for me to move into the present and be excited and happy for what the future will bring!  Everyone has their pasts, and everyone has a choice about letting their past be in control of their present.

Today, I am choosing to make choices and to live in the present.  I resign from avoiding making choices in my life and from living in the past.  I’m making the choice to step out of the darkness of fear and move into the light of hope.

Sisters: Then and Now; aka Letting Go of the Past and Learning how to Live in the Present

I should be banned for borrowing books from libraries.  It’s a fact in my life that I have kept more library books than I have returned.  I feel like there should be wanted posters of me in every library across the country.  This is not a fact that I am proud of by any means, but it is a fact nonetheless.

I used to go through these phases where my nose could hardly be kept out of a book for any extended length of time, and then I’d have these dry spells where I wouldn’t pick up a book for months.  Regardless, I’ve had a love of reading since I was a child. 

I’m a fan of keeping the actual copies of the books I have read; especially the good ones that I feel have become a part of me.  There is something about the journey you take when reading a good book.  That book, to me, becomes like an old friend you’ve shared too much with to let go.  I used to feel that returning a treasured friend to the library and buying a new version of the same book to add to my home library would be an insult!  It would feel like trying to replace my irreplaceable, valued and dear friend.  What kind of a person could do such a thing?  That is not a good excuse, but it is one of my reasons for not being a good borrower of books, until now!  The other reason is pure laziness (hey, at least I’m honest!).

This blog entry is not about why I should have returned the books I borrowed, it’s more about a transformation of me becoming a honest book borrowing citizen of the U.S.A!

My amazing husband bought me a Kindle, the one gift I had wanted for Christmas.  Soon after receiving it, I discovered that you can borrow Kindle books from the public library.  It seemed like a wonderful idea, even though the thought produced some anxiety in me almost immediately, my track record being what it is.  Then I relaxed, I can handle this, I told myself.  I signed up, successfully, for the privilege to be given a second (or twentieth) chance.

After some browsing, I checked out two books, and the race was on!  I had to read them both in 14 days.  I finished the first book, Echoes by Maeve Binchy, in about 4 days.  It was an interesting story, but without feeling any real attachment to it, I returned it to the library immediately (aren’t you proud?).  The fact that “returning” a Kindle book is done with a mere press of a button certainly helps with that!  No running out in the cold for this lady!

I now started to read The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown.  I was drawn to this story about three sisters coming back home to help care for their sick mother.  Their father is a college professor who is a Shakespeare buff.  Such a Shakespeare enthusiast in fact, that he named all three of his daughters after women from the works of the English poet.  I connected with these women who are around my age (30’s and late 20’s) because I am one of three sisters, and am named after a woman in a Shakespeare play.  This book opened my eyes to what it is like to be the oldest daughter, the youngest daughter, and it held a mirror up for me to see that I am not the only middle child to feel how I do.  I am very grateful my sisters and I are not being brought together over a sick parent at this stage in our lives, especially considering we have been there and done that.  I found myself, however, longing for interactions with them similar to the ones the sisters had in this book.  It was as if they were finally learning who each other really were while at the same time figuring out who they themselves are.

Speaking for myself and not my sisters, I am still trying to figure out who I am.  I am working on forgiving myself for my past mistakes (of which there are many!) and trying to live my life for the present and the future instead of living with my head buried in the past.  This book is a huge help sending me in the right direction.  It has me starting to think of my sisters as the women they are now, and not as the “kids” they were then.  They are each married, one with three amazing children.  I am sure they have both changed in ways that I haven’t opened my eyes to seeing because to me they are still, on some level, the sisters I knew growing up.  I know that I am a very different person than I was when I was growing up, so I have to believe that they are also.  I wonder how they view me.  Do they still see me as that punky, unusual, kid, or the punky, unusual woman I’ve become?  I am excited to work on getting to know them for the women they are now, not continuing to believe they are still the same person I have a stagnant image of from our childhood.

As I touched upon earlier, I have been trying to work through some things in regards to my life.  A big question I have been having is, when do you become an adult?  Is it something that just happens?  Is it a choice you make?  Are we ever really adults, or does society just categorize you as one once you reach a certain age or milestone?  What is an adult anyway!? I do not feel like an adult, but maybe someone on the outside looking in thinks of me as one.  Do the people I view as adults feel like an adult, or do they feel like I do?  Are they wondering if and when it will happen for them?  One of the sisters in the book, Cordy, is feeling similarly when she is having a discussion with a friend and says the following, “What I mean is, I still feel like me.  It’s not like I wake up and think, I am a responsible adult.  I just look in the mirror and see myself.  The same stupid person I’ve been looking at for years.”  Not that I think I am stupid, but how often do you find yourself wondering how this author got in your head and wrote what you were feeling, or put into words your thoughts, before you even knew they were your thoughts or feelings?  It doesn’t happen to me that often, that’s for sure.

This book also gave me a much needed reminder that it’s ok to make mistakes.  As the mother in the book says to one of her daughters who is dwelling on her past mistakes at that moment, “Oh honey, we’re all fuckups in our own special ways.”  Ha!  I love the honesty in that statement!  Father Aidan, an important character in the book, tells Bean, the middle sister, “There are times in our lives when we have to realize our past is precisely what it is, and we cannot change it.  But we can change the story we tell ourselves about it, and by doing that, we can change the future.”  Wow, how powerful an idea is that?  These words were definitely something that I needed to read, and I hope they may help someone else too.

Lastly, the older sister, Rose, has a thought after a pivotal moment in her life, “And she could continue to exist in the darkness of fear, or she could tend and coax the seed of hope inside of her.”  Pretty amazing I thought.  I feel like I have been living, to an extent, in the darkness of my fears.  I feel the seed of hope though,  it’s always there.  It just needs me to tend to it, and coax it to grow stronger. 

This isn’t just about the library books anymore, although this one will be returned and I will buy a hard copy to add to my collection, this is about making positive changes on the road to getting to know me, getting to know my sisters and figuring out this whole adult thing, whatever that is.

So, was this a good book?  Some critics seem to think so, and for this being Eleanor Brown’s first novel, it is a bestseller, so average readers must agree as well.  My answer is an admittedly biased yes.  This book has changed me in a way I can’t change back from.