Memory

mem·o·ry/ˈmɛməri/ Show Spelled [mem-uh-ree] Show IPA
noun, plural mem·o·ries.
1. the mental capacity or faculty of retaining and reviving facts, events, impressions, etc., or of recalling or recognizing previous experiences.


Memories come and go as they please. Sometimes we can control them, choose them, choose to ignore them. Other times they come creeping in with out warning and refuse to leave.

In the months since I have writen so much has happened. Loss. I lost my grandmother. The woman in this world that I admired the most. My Nan was one of those people that you couldn't help but love. She was so strong, so warm, she was perfect. She was everything I want to be. I am so thankful that at 3 am on that Sunday night that I was here, at home, in New York when my mother called me and said you need to come to Nan & Pop's, she's had a heart attack. I am so thankful that the last thing she said to me was, "I love you" as Adaline and I walked down the sidewalk and she waved from the porch. That is how I will always remember her. Smiling, full of love, full of life.

Tragedy, and Pain. Those are two things we often forget. Memories we cannot find. Just as I cannot recall the way she looked when we went to her bed side after she passed, to pray, I cannot recall the evil look in his eyes as he held me against the wall by my throat. We cannot choose what we remember, or how we remember someone. Our brain protects us from those things that will hurt us and tear us apart.

Sometimes that is a blessing, sometimes that is a curse.

Tomorrow we have divorce court, in Arkansas. I won't be there. But he will be there with her. I want so badly to hate him, to remember the evil in his eyes, the hateful words he said...the way he hurt me. But all I see at night when I close my eyes is his pleading eyes as he apologized, as he loved me with everything inside of him. I can not taste the iron in my blood as it fills my mouth, I can only taste his soap on his skin. I cannot smell the lavander baby shampoo on my sweet girls head as I read her favorite book to her at night, I can only smell her scalp and the way she eerily smells like him.

In the three precious years of my Adaline's life she has spent more then 20 months with out her father. She barely knows him. Yet she walks with the same exact bounce as he did, she rolls her eyes exactly like he did, when she is trying to make a joke or tell you something she shruggs her shoulders and bugs her eyes EXACTLY like he did. Yet if anyone asks who her Daddy is, she will tell you Pippay is her Dad, not him. On the rare occasion that he decides he would like to skype, she calls him by his first name, not Daddy. As much as I would love to take credit for that, I can't. I didn't encourage her not to call him Daddy, that is a decision she made on her own. At the tender and yet so incredibly intuitive age of three years old she relaizes what a Daddy is. In her world Pippay fills all the criteria of a "Daddy"...he does not.

I do not love him.
I do not miss our life.
I do not want him here.
I do not want to be there.

Yet I cannot help but remember, rember the good times. My Lyshie reminds me of the bad times, and as she does and the mascara runs down my face I cannot bring myself back there. WHY?!? I can feel the hurt in those words, in those memories...I can see myself on her soft brown velvet couch as she colors ornaments with my sweet Adaline, as I call my Daddy and tell him I'm ready to come home. His anger has gotten out of control again, his own guilt for cheating, yet again has come to the surface as physical pain directed towards me. This will be the last time I let him hurt either of us. She will never again walk into the sight of her mother held up against the wall, that is something I can gurantee.

Logically I look around, I look at my life, my Adaline, My family. I am happy. I am loved. I am where I am supposed to be. I have bruises on me from crossfit, or from splitting wood with Daddy all weekend. They are not the marks of ten fingers as they squeezed my writst because the laundry was not done, or because I didn't leave the hose on the flower beds long enough. Why when I look at them do I wish they were the latter.

With everything inside of me I am happier now. Yet I still have this aching feeling. The feeling of failure. The feeling that I failed my daughter. I am a survivor. By surviving I saved my daughter from feeling the same heart break, and having the same bruises I had. My reality with her father is a truth hopefully she will never know, never have to know...because I saved her from that. I know and believe with everything inside of me that I am exactly where I belong, that we are home, that this is family. Why at night when I close my eyes can I only see those pleeding hazel eyes...why can't I remember the taste of iron and the feeling of hands around my throat?

Memories come and go as they please.
We cannot control them.
We cannot choose them.