139

2008

Winter

So that was it and this is how it went...

I had to confess about George and to the messages to Gavin on the computer. I also was told not to ever engage in fun parties again. I was interrogated after Sunday service for engaging in fun parties. I was placed in a chair front of the whole church while the elders surrounded me and spoke down to me. They spoke in tongues...our secret language while they paced back and forth round me laying hard hands on me...pushing the darkness out.

The youth minister did not tell of my alter ego online but someone else told the pastor's wife. She approached me after service one day and whispered the name Lee Ann into my ear. I asked her what she knew and she said all of it. I cried my eyes out right there in front of the whole congregation. I remember Gavin looking on in curiosity while I cried. I was told that I could never be the right one for Gavin even if I wasn't married because Gavin was a virgin and he was looking for someone who was also a virgin. I was hurt by this...so deeply hurt and felt as if I weren't good enough. All of Gavin's friends avoided me and shunned me as if I had some sickness and this drove the knife in deeper still. I was asked to stop singing with the group and I could no longer teach sunday school to the small children. Darla hated me too....she cried during one whole church service and I assume she thought the profile name was stolen from her middle name. But that was not so. Tracey moved out of town and divorced Darla's brother. I felt horrible and was oddly comforted by my husband. He had agreed to try and make our marriage work and never to speak to Mechelle again. But I was growing bitter...more bitter by the second.

And what did Venum get for his continuous infidelity? A three page letter of agreement to never ever cheat again. Yes, the church made him sign this little agreement and all was forgiven. And what of Gavin's friends toward Venum. They still talked to him, still hugged him and seemed to not treat him any differently. He started reading his bible again and all was well.

I tried to hug Gavin once more after the whole ordeal and he just cringed when i put my arms round him. Then when i pulled away he seemed shocked and terrified. I was still curious about him and so I went to his page just to see if anything was being said about the happeneing. ONe of his friends from chruch asked him what it felt like to have a stalker. The statement hurt so badly that I cannot describe just how badly it hurt. It was like the world would have been so much better without someone like me in it...despite all that I had been through...to the world, I was the enemy.

 I wanted to give up.... I really really just wanted to die.

And I would have made that happen if not for the interferance of the church.




2009

Winter

I waited until Venum was asleep and I started to search the cabinet for pills. I had recently cleaned out many bottles of unused pain killers and so it was hard to find anything to take. I grabbed bottles and drank their contents...cough syrups and other liquid tylenols and advils. I found myself growing sleeping and sometimes fell asleep searching for enough liquids to end it all. That was also pathetic. I was intent on cutting my wrists the right way...up and down but every time I had the opportunity, someone would interrupt me....my children, the church or the phone. I found some pills and dropped half of them down the toilet while drunkenly trying to end it all through a haze of vodka and gin. I grew angry and so I thought of a new way.

I would drink all the bleach that I had and then if that didn't work, I would just walk into traffic...I knew that had to do it for me...had to be enough. Surely this time, I could be successful at something. But then that was the day that I recieved a visitor.. a stranger. I was sitting on the porch with the jug of bleach at my feet. I was trying to work up the courage to do it ...to finally end it all. The kids were away at their aunts that week and so I had it set up perfectly. That is when the car swerved onto the side of the road and skidded to a halt. A little girl got out from the passenger side and ran up to me.

"Maam, can you help me? " she was almost crying. "something is wrong with my mommy."

I ran down the hill and looked inside the car. The woman was gasping and her face was pale white. "hello, what is wrong?"

"I ...I ...can't breath well.....I think...I ...I am having a h...heart attack." she stopped talking then and held her chest with one hand.

I told her to be very still and then I called an ambulance. I waited with the woman until the ambulance arrived and then I walked back up to the house. I stared at the bleach jug and put it back in the kitchen by the washing machine. I guess I had a reason to live for the day.

I decided to worry about suicide on another day. I suddenly had the urge to live long enough to make sure the lady survived.

I didn't understand yet how life worked...at that moment, I became curious about it all.


2009

 Winter

I spent more and more time on the Triond site and met many friends there. One of my first friends was Fegger, then the second was BullMuse. Then I met Bo. I loved these three men with an unconditional love, you see. They were there...whenever I needed them, basically. They were great and wonderful people whom I shared things with that I haven't shared with others. And then there was Drew. Drew was something different altogether...something familiar and yet horrible. I knew Drew as an enemy at first because he criticized my work with a ruthless hatred. He was honest and as you know, the truth is so ugly at times.

And so, I would devote so much of my time to Drew and to describe the effect he had upon my life...a strange and unexpected influence and yet a companion to part of me. Drew was someone's other...and I was aware of exactly what he was from the beginning. But, in my curiosity, my head would spin with trying to figure out whose other he was. Bo knew first and so Bo shared his knowledge with me. Bo was always smarter than any of us ever knew and it took a long time to figure it out. But Bo observed these 'creatures' in the night...these writers and Bo knew their secrets in his observations. My guess of Drew's identity was way off and so Bo corrected me. And when Bo corrected me, I realized over time that he was right...and that made me love Drew all the more...because I loved all of Drew...not just as being an Other....I loved the part that he showed to the world..and it was an unconditional love...one that would never be broken over time and over space. *smiles*

Fegger was like a father to me...he protected me from Drew's attacks. He helped me with my writing and basically stood for me when others would not. He and Drew were my first Triond loves. Fegger was like the Batman to Drew's joker...in my opinion and observation. I loved them both...but in different ways entirely. Fegger also respected Bo as well and Bo then created the Pirate Bo Jack movement on the triond forum. Such members as Pablina, Stephen Cardiff and Casey joined in on th pirate movement and soon it got way out of hand. I made comments here and there and then I would take a break for a while. I couldn't have my computer at work and so I only had the night to converse with my friends of the Triond Forest. After a while, I grew tired of Triond and so I stepped away from the forum for a while.


The garden.

Spring

2009

My father was a green thumb and could grow anything. I thought that maybe I had this gift as well and so I decided to try my hand at gardening. I told Venum what I was interested in this past time and he burned off the area for my garden and tilled it. He seemed to be doing things for me and seemed to be a good husband. I got along with him as well as I could always in silent fear of what was to come next. But i was glad that he helped me because I went about planting and fertilizing my crops and seeds...in which I did all this on my own and was told by Venum that he was not the least bit interested in doing any more of the garden. The rest was up to me. And that was okay by me as well. I doted on my garden as if it were my lover...I talked to the seeds and quietly raked the dirt from the crop to see how well they were growing. I would hear Venum's friends come by from work and talke to him. I might look around at them and smile then I would go back to talking to my crops. They found me insane, I am sure, but I cared not. I looked at them as if they were the crazy ones and then I would laugh.

As night fell down upon us, Spirit would come out and sing to the crops, dancing down the rows and flitting through the trees at the edge of the yard. She loved the new birth and so did Anna. Anna stood at the edge of the yard with her arms dangling down beside her. Her beautiful freckled face woudl beam with pride and then she would turn and walk back into the darkness. As I walked back toward the house, I would feel them both re-enter my mind and hum some strange tune to each other. For that time, my others found harmony with each other...and with me.


2009

Venum was going to be leaving for over seas duty within the next month and so we all planned a trip to Gatlinburg. We found a huge cabin in the mountains between Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge and invited my aunt, my brother and Venum's mother to go on the trip with us. My brother was upset because of some descrepancy at work that might cause him his job and so he was in bad need of a vacation. Problem was, he would have to wait a whole week to find out whether he was fired or not.
I put in my vacation request at work and after submitted all the proof that I needed, the boss let me take the week off for my vacation. I was to work the rest of the week and then I would be leaving for vacation.


Gatlinburg

We all rented a van and left for the mountains. We stayed in a three story cabin which offered bar, pool table and hot tub. We went to view all of the attractions in the mountains including the trails, the parks and the shopping areas. We ate at various restaurants and candy shops. I remember buying so much candy that my stomach hurt from eating the treats. The kids loved the trip and didn't want to leave to come home.

Venum went skiing as he always did when we went to Gatlinburg and this time Damian got to ski as well. The ladies shopped and played video games while waiting on the guys to finish skiing. Allen played games with the little ones too.

The views in the mountains were spectacular and I caught myself wanting to move there. I noticed that everytime that I go somewhere far away, I never want to come back to Mississippi. I guess I just always have this urge to get away from everythign that I know and just...start over.

The trip is foggy in my mind leaving little for me to remember. I somehow seem to remember fighting with Venum more than anything. I grew weary of the relationship but felt guilty because he was soon leaving for Iraq. I knew that it was terrible to feel anger towards him when he was leaving but it is jsut the way it is. Nothing can change how you feel just by forcing a change....it cannot be done...not for honor, not for mercy and not for godliness. Sometimes the heart just hardens that way and it is almost impossible to change things at all.


2009

Spring

The week before Venum left, I was taking an additional couple of days off from work. The last week I was at work, something happened. Bama, the housekeeper, had always been my friend despite her drinking and heavy drug use. I had given her things including money, food and other things that helped her. Even during her worst episode, I had been there for her. One time, she was plannig on destroying some rooms in the hotel because she was mad at the boss and I grabbed hold of her and hugged her tight telling her that I loved her. She calmed down and then went to do her job. I always thought that I could have that effect on her...but I was wrong.

When Bama's sister died, she grew very angry. I had prayed and prayed for her sister so many times. I told her that her sister would be okay...but unknown to me...I lied. Her sister passed away anyway and she had requested time to go to her sister's funeral. The boss had okayed the time off but the third shift worker called her in anyway. Bama came in the lobby when I was on duty and she was ranting and raving. She even started to call me a bitch and then commanded me to call the boss because she was angry. I told her that I wasn't going to call him if she continued to call me a bitch. This only made her angrier and she started to throw things at me. I couldn't take much more of the abuse so I went around the counter to grab hold of her as I had done before. But this time when I grabbed her and tried to hug her, she slapped me. I grabbed her hand and then she slapped me again. Before I knew it, I had snatched Bama's sunglasses off her face to see if she had been drinking. She was definitley under the effects of alcohol. She  then shoved me out of the way and then I let her go. I just couldn't hit her because I needed my job and so I called the boss to report what had happened. I hated to do it but she was screaming about tearing up the rooms and she would not longer listen to me.
I was informed to write a statement about what had happened during the week that I was off on my extended vacation and to bring it to the hotel for the other shift worker. I assumed that i had all week to write the statement. Bama was immediately fired.

When I went to turn in my statement they told me that I was laid off until they could decide whether to fire me or not. I couldn't understand because I didn't even hit Bama. I was told that Bama said that I hit her and the whole occurance happend in the blind spot of the room. We had cameras but the cameras did not even pick up the fight. It was all so unbelievable. But I had no choice but to wait.
I called at the end of the week to see if I still had a job and the boss said that I would have to wait a little longer. I found out by another source that he had already put an advertisement for my position in the paper and so I went to file for unemployment under the fact that I had been laid off which I had. After a couple of weeks, I was awarded with unemployment  checks. Venum had already left for Iraq and I had to send him an email letting him know that I lost my job. He was not happy but there was nothing that I could do about it but look for something else. Meanwhile, I recieved my unemployment and used my "allowance' that Venum had alloted me through his military pay. It was enough to survive and so I concentrated on my gardening and hanging out on Triond with my writer friends.