Letters from an angry switch
06:06 Jan 13 2007
Times Read: 648
The Keystone of a bridge is the most vital part. How often do you think about it though? I mean you’re driving along passing from one body of land to another, with complete faith that you will make it to the other side in one piece. It probably never crosses your mind that a single stone holds your life in its hands.
I know that Bridges aren’t built like the used to be anymore, but I am from Cleveland and the have a lot of old bridges there. I think about them often. I feel like that like an old stone bridge sometimes. I will be 25 years old in less than a month. I have lived as a child through two divorces, home schooling myself, overseas missionary trips, suicidal and institutionalized parents, abusive pastors, hateful competitors.
Being thrown out with the trash, insulted for my sexual preferences, spat on for my beliefs, and looked down on for not living up to expectations that were set so high that even God had to get a step stool to reach them.
I have picked myself up by my bootstraps and started over more times than I can recall. I've lived through a fulltime employment without benefits, while taking 20 credit hours of school at the same time, for two years. I have had to pay for everything I ever wanted right down to my first cassette tape, which I got when I was 14. I was nearly 18 before I bought my first CD (in 2000).
I have paid for my own small wedding. Triumphed though three years of marriage (so far), relocations, hurricanes, working two bartending jobs while I was pregnant, pregnancy, bed rest, labor recovery, toddler raising, and that is only skimming the surface. I am so tired sometimes I feel like I should be in an old folk’s home.
Dr. Bob says that I was a “parentified child” and that I still am today. He said the reason I feel so desperate all the time, is because the truth of the matter is that I am old. I have too few child hood memories to sift through and I never having the “wild college years” has left me with a void wear most people have their playtime. He said, I went from being a five year old to a fifty year old. Having a retirement fund, life insurance policies and 529 set up, for my daughter, incase I should keel over from a heart attack.
I haven’t had a “friend” in years. The kids I knew when I was younger have all moved on and I haven’t worked since August of 04. I have been isolated for so long I am having a hard time remembering how to talk to others.
I am ashamed to admit it, but I make sure that when I go grocery shopping to forget nearly half of what I really need so that I can make two trips a week. Why? The cashiers during the day shift are never in a rush and they usually take a few minutes to talk with me.
Yeah, that is the very essence of pathetic.
I have once again had a bit too much wine and have rambled on like a whinny bitch. I swear, I really need to move to the center of a dry county and get rid of the car. I guess everyone feels like this sometimes, maybe even most of the time. I am disconnected so it really is hard to tell.
I may get overwhelmed at times with my day to day, but I never quit. I may not have had it easy so far, but I am hopeful that there is a balance to all of this.
Maybe one of these days I will find something that completes my purpose and fills me with the childlike joy that eluded me when I was young. I know most people try to have their children fill that role. Not me. I know better than that.
If that feeling never comes to me then at least I know I was looking for it and I remained open to the possibilities that it may or may not have carried with it.
When I wake up tomorrow, with a slight hangover, I will fill my role as the Keystone for my family. I will get up make breakfast, and then prepare my daughter for whatever the day brings us.
This won’t make me famous of build me a place in Heaven, but I really don’t need all that. I suppose the pressure of being the Keystone will hold me in place. In return, I will make sure that neither the bridge nor those who travel it ever fail.
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