August 6, 2005

what is normal? what is love? what is life? what happens when dysfunction is the norm, hate masks as love and death imitates life?

most days i think that my "life" "love" and "normalcy" are what i have created them to be. they are the self made fantasy in my mind to keep me sane. what is real is that i am still here. what is normal is that i don't want to be.

i want so badly to feel love and to be loved, but i hate him. hate the distance between us. hate the violence he denies exists.

white picket fences and a lush green lawn are not what i craved, but family dinners and laughter, cuddles on the couch after the kids had gone to bed. what i got instead are the vivid pictures of your face in mine with that shark eyed look as you proceed to scream at me how you are going to hurt me. could you feel the fear seething out of my pores?

i feel so much just lingers beneath the surface of my contempt and loathing. there are times i just want to reach out and hold you, but i remember past rejections and don't. i remember all the names you've called me. all the ways you've hurt me.


i yearn for us to have a "good" life, but you don't believe you deserve anything that is "good". i can almost feel the battle within you rage-until it reaches your surface and then is evident for all to see in the wake of destruction you leave.

July 2001

it would be so easy to be like him. to allow myself to be controlled by the anger, allow it to become bitterness and finally to succumb to the banal rage of all that i loathe.

anger is safe, it protects from the pain. the pain is unbearable. daily i must seek out the feelings that make me human. i desperately cling to words, colors, phrases, songs that allow me to feel the things that i once felt. to just feel something other than anger. to feel me.

but who am i?

January 11, 1998

dear James:
i wish i could make you feel the intense, overbearing, crushing sense of pressure i feel everyday. i am like a rat scurrying around to make sure that everything is as perfect as i can make it. the impending explosion is building and nothing i do stops it from coming.

i pray, i try to be "happy" all the time, keep the kids quiet and out of the way, keep the house clean, prepare an acceptable dinner and yet it is never enough to stop the rampage from coming. i guess it's hard for me to face the fact that it's not my problem nor my fault. there needs to be accountability for these actions, a reason, so i will take that on.

then afterwards, i must pick up the pieces and trudge forward. this is the most draining on me. my emotional healing process is slower and slower after each "episode". a piece of me dies every single time and re-grouping more difficult. except by the grace of god am i able to function.

there is no one to talk to about what i think, what i feel, what i am going through except flo. but even this is not enough to heal anymore. i feel a festering emptiness that i cannot fill, a wound that just won't scab. and yet i must smile and go on. always i must go on. i cry in private and do the best i can to live everyday. i have children that need to be cared for. i look to see the good in what i have, but only find a miserable existence.

i feel so alone.
terri