I'm Not Crazy

~11~ Pain is just weakness leaving the body...

Heaven is in the palm of my hand and it's waiting here for you.
What am I supposed to do with a childhood tragedy?
If I close my eyes forever, will it all remain unchanged?
If I close my eyes forever, will it all just fade away?

Close My Eyes Forever ~ Ozzy Osbourne, Lita Ford

😈😈😈

On the drive back to the House of Crazy, what is now my so-called home, we don't really talk much. Instead, the radio goes on her favorite classic 80's Poprock station. So I rest my head against the seatbelt strap, with my hand out the window feeling the dry wind rushing past as I watch the road ahead. My mother is not the best driver in the dark, as she refuses to admit the truth...that she needs glasses for her night blindness. So I have always had to play co-pilot for her since I was old enough to scream "Watch out car!"

Driving thru the semi-deserted roads back to the Madhouse, the dry wind breezing thru my hair feels so good. I eye the old oak trees sitting way out in the high brown drought grass. As we slip around the back of Mt. Diablo back towards Hillsdale, I think I remember that tree and driving past here before. Coming over the ridge the first time and looking down into the terraced valley below. I remember thinking that this place looked so dead and dry compared to San Diego. But now it just feels so alive to me...and I'm the one that feels so dead inside. Funny how so many things can change in only a year?

It was also on that fateful drive north from my old life, that I realized that my mother had pretty much checked out of being a mother, and started being my best friend instead. I didn't hold it against her at the time, because she really needed a best friend to help her get through the death of my father. I don't want to be one of those kids that trash their mothers and blame them for all their problems. Like not being there, when they really needed them to step up during the worst time in their lives? Because Best Friends like us don't do that to each other.

As far as friends go, we are very different from each other in almost every way imaginable. Where I am about as plain as plain can be. She is startlingly cute, with a pleasant laugh and bright smile that always reaches her sparkling green eyes. Where she is bubbly, excitable and fun to be around ...I am about as exciting as an ice cube on a rainy day. Whereas I have always been told I was pretty smart, testing above my grade level. My mother is... well ...a pretty fun person to be around. I think the only characteristic we share in common is that we both are in mourning, she just wears her pain a lot better.

In the military mojo, they say that pain has a purpose...that it's just weakness leaving the body. But I am starting to think that you never really forget all those painful memories. That they don't ever leave, but go somewhere down deep inside of you and stick to the sole of your soul. Where they wait patiently festering, until the day you least need them. Then they bubble up like parking lot tar on a hot day, and mire you in a hell of your own making.

Truth us I didn't cry a whole lot after my father died, but not because I didn't love him enough. I think the reason I didn't cry is that my dad had pretty much prepared me since I was five for the possibility of his death. My dad was a big believer in being honest, even with a child. He explained to me that his duty was a dangerous one, but that it was important to keep us safe from those who would seek to hurt our country, and of course me and my mother. When he told me this, I thought it was the most heroic thing I had ever heard, and I worshiped him all the more for his sacrifices on my behalf.

He also told me that it was okay to cry in private if I had to, but it was better to keep things inside if I could. To put a brave face on in the face of adversity. I loved my father the hero, so I become an expert at suppressing my feelings. I guess looking back on it that advice, it might have had some unintended consequences in my case. Because I became so skilled at suppressing pain, I even forgot I was there any more.