one box or as many boxes as i could sit and tackle at a time.
today.
today, i pulled up a wooden chair that the owner of the house left behind.
i sat in the wooden chair and began pulling items (of no match or relation) out of this box.
there were a bunch of leaves mixed in to this box, which leads me to believe that this box must have been sitting outdoors at some point for some time to accumulate all these leaves....
i'm pretty sure it would have been on the patio of one of the last 2 apartments i'd lived in.
i can't really remember packing this box, and i don't really know when i did, and it had to have been within the past 2 years, as there were some things from my dad's funeral in there too.
i came across this clear sheet protector (actually it was pink) and it held a few of my report cards from high school and a few sheets of information for a small scholarship i had received and then folded up into a small square in between these papers, rested another.
i pulled it out and unfolded it about 3 or 4 times. they weren't even really straight folds. and there were torn edges. maybe chunks of other parts of the speech were ripped off. maybe she changed her mind at the last minute, but i came across a speech she had written for my high school graduation. and to be entirely honest, i can't even remember the speech being given, or where it was given at, but i vaguely remember the stomach-wrenching feelings associated with the speech. i remember the words coming out of her mouth, with her polished up face and perfectly pieced and placed hair and some sort of black outfit. how do i remember this, but not the speech or where we were, or who even heard the damned thing anyway?
it made me sick.
i read it today and it made me sick.
thanking me for being "everything i wish i could have been."
is that why you have spent your whole life trying to make mine so pleasant?
is this the way you repay me?
i remember the stories of being the strong one.
i remember being the one there when no one else was.
i remember being the one who bought your lies.
yes, i remember those times.
i remember the time you promised you were going to get better for me, because if no one else in the world deserved it, I DID....
you promised me as you lie there in bed, bruised up from your own self destruction sweating and congested from crying so hard.
yes, i remember those images and times in my life soooo vividly.
they are BRANDED into my head.
and shame on me for not knowing how to let those horrible images go.
shame on me for not knowing how to get that damned THUMPING sound out of my head.
that thumping was YOU....
shame on me, for still not knowing how....
how to do anything that i really truly feel.
so i take a step at a time.
i take a breath at a time.
and stare at your face.....
i see your soul.
i see your soul, that i don't even know you can see for yourself.
i shake my head.
i hang my head.
i shake my head.
shame on me.
shame on me.
shame on me.
cut the umbilical cord that i somehow attached to you.
shame on me for feeling the obligation to help you.
but i tried.
i tried the best that i could, and it wasn't enough.
it was never enough.
it will never be enough,
because i will never be able to help a soul who does not care to help themselves.
so cry on the curb about your pain.
about the pain that everyone else has caused YOU.
take a step back and look at the pain and discomfort YOU have caused everyone else....
here i go.
a step at a time.
and as far as your speech,
i know that wasn't for me.
it was for you.
it was so everyone could look at what a sweet person you are, and what a great speech it was....
you know, i still couldn't throw that speech away today....
i'm sure my therapist will enjoy it just as much as i did....
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