Cabin Fever
As my mind rattled like a ball for a baby. I think to myself, when I choose the people around me I succeed. WHEN I CHOOSE I SUCCEED. To my own accord I will have what I need. It will not be by suffering or desperation that I will get what I need, no. It will be because I have already worked through the motions of what I have to go through. But when people around you are playing games and you didn’t choose who is around you natively, you chose them because you’re in desperation; you may be mad at yourself when it goes wayward. And it did. As I sit shopping for a right-hand splint. The one that separates the fingers so that the swelling in the joints is minimized. I think to myself, the way I think is not how someone else thinks. Had I not been talked to like I was I would have gotten up and left. Left that nursing home and that conversation that was less than exciting about a place to live. But it was that conversation that made me stop. And say, ‘sleep baby’. And so, I slept. And I wept. Because I didn’t want to blow up at the person in their face and say things I knew I didn’t mean, or I knew would hurt them.
It was cold last year in November. I had a couple thousand in the bank saved up. And irritated as fuck at the lack of progression in things. Let alone people. Let alone myself.
I had called asking if the apartment was for rent. And asked my specifics. Stated my regards to what I require. No drop ceiling. I have done a ceiling before and was not interested in dealing with mold. I told him why I was even in this area. And maybe unbeknownst to him, I elaborated so that he knew. In clear form. It wasn’t because I sat in my mind and chose this place. It was because certain things in my life were fucked with. Certain freedoms. Certain rights. And whether I responded in anger or not didn’t matter. What did matter was that I was working in a nursing home with bones creaking around residents I held so much love for in my heart and I needed reprieve. A place for me to lay my head. A place for my children to lay theirs. A place for my family and friends to come and experience my sense of peace.
As I think in my heart, mind, body and soul; but don’t repeat (but would say to my incoming guests)
“If you want to relax and have a beer, you can. If you want to go out back and jump in the trampoline you can. If you want to come and spend a day with the kids and many more friends and family and need to crash there is an 8 person tent is what’s been on my mind since 2021. It was just the desire to infiltrate my peace that was around me that affected my executing my plans, I felt.”
‘Maybe it’s the men you choose’ he said. Formulating in mild conversation to elude to the apartment being for rent still. And then I’m thinking to myself ‘Why the fuck would I want it?’
I remember saying something that was a separatist comment ‘I am fine thank you. If mothers raised their sons right I wouldn’t have this issue with a man like that in the first place.’ Taking into consideration if a man pays only attention to the fact that treating a girl ‘nice’ will get him whatever he wants; what does he make of a woman that affords him nothing but the opportunity to be in front of a woman that’s ‘real’?
I am not here for your shit either way. And you know what shit I’m talking about so why fuck around? Don’t treat me like I have to take responsibility for your actions. Then as a matter of fact in a community result to the adage that I must take accountability for my own actions. In a result of you declining your responsibilities to mind your own business when it doesn’t concern you; it affects others. Especially when your care and concern isn’t regarded in good form for them initially. I take to consideration the fact that I must take accountability twice. For my own failure as a result of the world around me crumbling and for crumbling as a result of the world built around me. When in fact if you go back to the original statement, the world you build around you without those you choose (that have no benefit to you) out of desperation will be fine. But when you must choose out of desperation, you must take accountability for both crumbling factors. Let that sink in. It’s double failure for one action. Of course some would say
’If you had chosen better’
And I say of course that too. But if a community had stepped in to raise better ad well. And do I take accountability for both of those failures as they relate to my own failures? Don’t disregard the fact that the more backup plans that I have that don’t work out, the more reasons I have to sit back and blame myself even further. I mean, by the time I’m done with you and the rant; I may have 8 reasons to be mad at ME. Not you.
I digress. And regard in the right to choose. To Freeform your life the way you want to. Just as you would with plaster of Paris. Making what mold you wish. But when you step in, you fuck up the artwork. And it no longer looks like art to me.
Cabin fever in the heart. There is nowhere near enough firewood to burn the fire in this heart. The chords of the heart let alone the cords of wood aren’t strumming the same tune. What did you miss? The point. Simple respect when it comes to a human life.
Point taken,
’There aren’t words to explain how sorry I am.’ could be a response.
‘I already know that. Greed isn’t synonymous with Good.’ is likely what I would say.
Starting with the nothingness that someone feels when they don’t understand the world you live in. The world you create for yourself. In your mind. On your face. In your heart. Are the words that describe your pain. Your joy. How could they be rewritten for another purpose? By another person? They can’t. Targeted measures of inadequate training in how to respect the faith someone has in themselves to get out of a hard position and place in life. As if they are a snail that doesn’t know how to seek out safe elevation in life. Could it not be in their nature to seek out happiness at the pace of a snail or sloth? It can. And what you see is the slowness. Not the preparation. Not the strategy.
It is in the same form that my mannerisms remind you of a typical homeless person that is reaching to substances to save them. Their mental. Their soul. And yet I don’t. I barely reach for Rylenol in pain. It’s motion memory. And a forgetfulness of who I am. A belief that I can do more with more. That I can do better if I have better around me. So I mask to conform.
‘Let’s play with the heights they want to reach. They are too slow. They don’t know their worth.’
At 5:28 pm I saw 3 sparrows fly. And by the time I had stood up they were gone. The sky a brutal mixture of blue and gray. It was something to feel the rain coming. But nothing to fear. It is coming alright. Maybe when we all go to sleep and forget this day. Is it pain for some and joy for others.
XOXO,
El’Aundra
