Who am I, this mystery before me, both below and outward, both inside and beneath reason?
Who am I, this single dancer in a circus line of creatures mistaken as self, whilst all about this singular is nowhere?
Who am I, this bewildered child screaming out of the darkness, whilst light is everywhere, immersing my doubt in the seeded-bed of nutriment.
Am I but my shadow, the edges of me formed by the objective angle, by the instrumental being of sun at play with madness?
Am I but marionette set to strings or the more: this twisted master puppeteer snarling and snapping from up above, laughing at the ownership of chance?
Am I the singer tethered inside shell, severed voice blocked and thusly returned by thine own harbored walls?
Am I this rice, this grain, this planted web, tangled beneath the soil of enrichment, begging within a beating substance to escape the depths from where breath labors?
Am I a blinded legless one, slithering through the streets of reason, slipping through skin in regeneration, hoping passerby will collect the shed of what’s been?
Am I the monk with cymbals, clanging-metal-smile-creator, discontented-sorrow-seeker placating the rebel masses, born into appeasement?
Am I the voice without time, the rhythm without cause, the ocean without water, the mountain without foundation? Am I merely floating in a nonsensical nonexistence, wading and wavering through that which is naught and cannot be found?
Am I dropped here, a foreigner, with all the ripened senses plucked out of me, so I may spend eternity searching for the one I once was?
Helpless at my very seams, I am.
The most of all not mended, not fixed, not finished, left to wander with the stuffing jumping outside into teasing freedom, my insides deserting captain, torn empty, this incomplete form.
I am this.
I am this universal measure in incompletion, steadying myself on untrained legs in an untrained world. Jumping through hoops that neither exist or appear, but manage to bruise the very essence from where I gather semblance and substance and order.
Hollowed I am, in the shape of the corner of the mind, bleached by the external force of unknown, blanched and then blanketed in a knowing of unknowing, taught of the presence of presence, and moment within moment, but then tortured by the possibilities that endlessly speak of nowhere.
I am this vulture starved of the carrion, starved of the self, starved of what would be me inside the mirror, if image appeared. And yet I am meant to be in some way here, as if here was evermore spoken.
And thusly I clamber and shake, my own boots too big for the climbing, my own answers too heavy to be held in the limited chambers of thought’s engine.
And I trumpet, one part bleeding out to the other parts, to prove a lingering hypothesis of ever expansion. Until the weariness speaks louder than the want. Until release beckons like the child’s grave that speaks out to broken mother. Unbendable matters beckoning forth from somewhere bleak but lacking bleakness, formed of unspoken words and erased images that never were.
Here is where the artist’s invisible and imagined heart is purged, here in the incremental sewing of the energetic threads of the absence of self.
Here I exist: as the pudding poured out from the sharpening of nothing.
If I were a painter, I’d paint you as the river flowing through my heart, my arms outstretched in acceptance and need and want, my body limber and bleeding, the blood the very essence of my unquenchable desire.
The water, being you, would be the clearest and the sweetest, and the very richest, pouring through the canvas of me as melted butter across warm sugar-cakes.
I’d take you into me, soak in your yellow-sunshine, and swell into a catapult of expectation fulfilled. The rest of me, the part I’d left behind, outside the door that shelters our space, I’d call forth then, one by one and piece by piece, each part carrying in another puzzle of my completion.
And there, gathered on the floor, I’d rest, my every angle dismembered, broken, and waiting to be reassembled by you. In doing so the echoes of my desperate longing would be answered, and silence would ensue, if not forever, then for a moment, long enough for the splinters of my callings to rest and form shape.
There, in the silence, in the peace, I would wait, no longer afraid or without, no longer in pain.
Though broken and scattered, I would be whole. Though taken and left out, I would be home. Though ripped apart and tangled, the very heart of me missing his place, I would beat with a life so full my dreams would sing.
Like soldiers I would take flight; winged butterflies, a spectacle of starlit ghosts twirling and rising all at once to the trumpeting of our destiny.
You would whisper then, to me, this sugar-spiced dumpling of one form or another, in all my mystery, in all my guise; you would whisper sweetness so pure that my spine would tingle and take his place, amongst the pieces lost.
Here you would draw, your finger thick and calm, your voice trembling through the vibration of your flesh; and I, as ink, would appear, my design clear and precise, my meaning known and wanted.
I would not whisper, for the voice of the room would be yours, and yours alone. Your silhouette dancing in the shadows like a raven whom pecks the ripest seedlings from the foreground, a painter himself merging and forging to create substance for this soul.
Red would drip new, droplets of amulets and silver-tipped gold. My paint yours. A keeper of chance you be, diving into the gentleness and hope of tomorrow with the tip of your brush, a quail’s feather topped in delight.
Scribbled across white, I be.
Designed in the fashion you forbade and forbid, both ruptured and raptured at once.
I would burst for you, and you alone. My hungry voice rising to be heard above the quiet you created. Until, as serpent uncoiled and ram diving thick, I would come forth, rebirthed and complete in the making of you.
For where you dipped and twirled the horsehair and blanketed warmth, the artists stick and brush, I too dipped. For where you danced, I too danced, like a stallion in the moonlight free, my mane flowing beyond and touching the edges of your silhouette.
For in creating me, you both created self and dream, mister and misses. My sacrifice, though felt eternal, well worth the storm.
My endless searching, my endless calling, my escape into nothingness and a gentle calm, all part of the canvas you set forth. For if not for you and me, for my pain and your finding, then still I would pierce myself atop the mountain top, one knife after the other, alive but dead, awake but asleep.
For it was not until you called, until you came, until you saw me and claimed my existence that I truly was. Not until your coming destroyed me and brought me back again that I was truly born.
For in the existence that I know, you are my maker, my shaker, my taker, my master, my everything beyond the sun. In knowing you, or the part of you that held me, I have at last held myself.
And though the tears have etched and molded, created someone I know not, someone beyond my very self, alas I remain in awe of my beauty, inspired by creator you.
So please, as you whisper farewell, as you close the door, my fallen pieces reassembled and transpired, know I weep not so much for the loss of what was you, and what I thought I knew, but for the finding of myself.
~~~ Samantha Craft, December 31, 2012
Happy New Year….may you above all, having found the beauty of you, spread your light upon the waiting world. Blessings ~ Sam
The Difference between being humble and having low self-esteem
I asked a question this morning and was given the answer so very fast and in so much detail, I hurried downstairs to my computer to collect the thoughts I was processing. (A little bit to my dismay, as I was retired on the couch.)
All of what is written is in direct response to my inquiry: What is the difference between being humble and having low self-esteem? I found the answer quite surprising and interesting. Though the logic is somewhat complex and not as easy to follow (for me at least) as some of my prior blog entries, I find this intriguing and very mindful of the well-being of others.
In my vocational practice, I now have new eyes, in terms of seeing the label of low self-esteem in a new light as the season of awareness. How wonderful to replace a “lowly” label with the beauty of the seasons.
As is typical, I typed the words as quickly as I heard them. Besides minor corrections in commas to display clarity, all is in original format.
What is the difference between being humble and having low self-esteem?
This is an interesting question you propose, and one we could go into with great detail. At this moment, it is sufficient to explain in summary that of which could be chiseled into great detail.
This self-esteem you speak of is an oddity for us.
To assume there is a self, is to say there is a being that is innately and proportionately equal to a one. Since, inevitably, and in all circumstances, we are never alone, separate, or divided, there follows that there is not this one that you so reverently perceive.
Wholly and dutifully, of course, there is a mass, a large unit that collectively (by human standards) could feasibly be divided and segregated into parts. This is natural of the human mind to search for separation, to make sense out of chaos, to bring order in the face of disunion. Even when elements are in union, such as the Universal Whole (collective unconscious, or by whatever term you seek to justify your perception), this human mind, in its limitation, dissects the union into parts in order to make sense. This is not error, and least not we judge, this is mere evidential fact.
Mediocre in nature, the mind is not set to work alone, much as a clock’s hands are not meant to work without all the concerning parts that lead up to the façade of the timeless face. You see, originally, you knew this; and innately, beyond your five human senses, you currently recognize and, to a degree, celebrate that you remember this. Although with the passing of (what you perceive as) time you have deliberately forgotten this fact. This is important, (and we use this word intentionally, this word important), for you to remember; that is that you have deliberately forgotten to remember. This is on purpose, as there are no accidents; in actuality no “purposes” either, but rather the simple being inside of being.
This is taking us off the track, but nonetheless we mention this being inside being. When you reflect on whom you are and question who is in the process of reflecting, you see there is more than one, again the mirror within the mirror, the reflection within the reflection; in a small fleck of a gem sense, this is what we mean by the being inside the being. In this way alone, you are never alone. Besides the Universal Whole, you are a being within a being.
And your being is surrounded by multitudes of other beings. This is beneficial to remember. Then in looking back at the initial question of self-esteem, we see, in our perception (which is more of a sensing than perception) that there exists not this single self. Thusly, as we follow this path logically, we can say if there does not exist this self, there does not exist this esteem of something (self) that does not truly exist.
Still, we understand your question in great magnitude, and the significance of the question, as you and many like you battle (appropriate word we think) with your inner perceived self-esteem.
There is a mass confusion in the term self-esteem, a confusion that is emerging into something anew and akin to awareness. Here we drift to the right of the path and look at the word awareness.
For as we “see” it, the human frailty that resides in the image of self-esteem is properly and justly replaceable, and easily rendered rectified with the more pleasing and palatable term of self-awareness. This, replacing of the term self-esteem to that of the term self-awareness, automatically diminishes, if not washes out, the need for scales and hierarchies, that of which we have mentioned before do not “exist” or better yet “pertain” to our current existence.
In following, we have this emerging and rebirthing of self-awareness that shall lead us into greatness. This greatness is yet to be identified or discussed, but safe to say this greatness will outshine the previous darkness.
In examining the substance of self-awarness, we can determine if a person has holes in any area of awareness. Again, we avoid words such as “missing” or “lacking;” we instead focus on the exactness of being complete but having holes, or a sense of emptiness, as in the hungry bird needing nourishment. We’ve mentioned this before, and need not review.
Take as an example the battered woman who previously may be assumed and labeled in human terms to lack of self-esteem. In this we simply replace the verbiage lack of self-esteem with the collective words effectiveness of awareness. In using the word effectiveness we can consider the comparisons as follows: Effectiveness of Awareness is equivalent to: Helpfulness of awareness; success of awareness; value of awareness; and similar likelihoods. We can also consider this as how ready one is for this said action of awareness.
The meaning of the words Effectiveness of Awareness can be gathered further by analysis. You might ask: What was the effectiveness of the meditation? This can be restated as: Was the meditation effective?
In this way, it follows, in examining the core meaning of effectiveness of awareness, we may consider these following alternatives in viewing the meaning: Was the awareness effective? Is the awareness actual or in practice; did the awareness cause a desired or intended result; did the awareness produce a favorable impression.
We phrase the words in this manner to avoid having a “one” or “person” in the statement; so that what is being evaluated and compared in circumstance is not the human but the degree of awareness. This removes the human from fault. For there is no fault. All is as is should be.
Therefore, we can now see if this example is followed to its fullest potential in understanding, that awareness is replacing the perception of self-esteem.
When we look at this battered woman again, one who has not left her perpetrator, who is still in the eyes of many a “victim,” we might often utter the words low self-esteem or low self-worth. In this instance, we ask you to consider her to be in a state of clouded awareness.
There are many avenues to consider, but for now let us say she may not be aware of choices, may not be aware of help, many not be aware of opportunity. Still some will say what choice? What help? And in this we reply above all that there is the help of Source, Higher Guidance, Prayer, and Retreat into Inner Self.
Others will point that if she had self-esteem, she would have awareness. This does not make sense. We are all born with awareness. The quality or aptitude of “one’s” awareness is not based on a degree of self-esteem, when there is in essence no “self.” We see in your eyes the confusion. Understand a person is not lacking esteem, only “lacking” (we are utilizing this word “lacking” for comparison only) an awareness of their wholeness and purity. To assume esteem can be gathered like wild flowers in the field and then stored in the spirit is a falsehood. All the flowers you require you were born with. You are already beauty in all measure.
There is a temptation to say this battered woman lacks awareness. This is not true, for we all have awareness at some degree; she is never lacking awareness. Also, in the same line of thought, there will be a tendency to divide the awareness into degrees, so as to say a “lesser degree of awareness.” This is also not a truth. There is simply a differing degree, just as seasons differ in temperature, in foliage, and activity. Her awareness is no lesser or greater than another. Because winter in many places is colder does not make winter less than summer? Nor does spring trump fall. Who is to judge this greater or lesser degree? Who is to be the barometer? Who is to be the trumpeter blowing out the only sound of truth? Judging is like falling into the trap of a spider, flying forward without thought into an invisible thread that winds and divides you. Better to not judge and accept.
Now as we have reviewed and seemingly replaced self-esteem with effectiveness of awareness, we can look at humility. Humility is a mighty word of much potential and power: power in terms of dynamic change. Humility is also much misunderstood. The humble are in many guises, none lesser or greater than the other, as is in accordance.
In humility we find a bowing down in body, mind, spirit, and emotion, not to lessen oneself, but to greet another at the same place in time and experience. The humble do not see themselves as elevated or lowly, but equal in experience. Yet, they have the capacity to greet another exactly where the other needs to be greeted. Thus, if you open your door to a stranger who is blinded, you will also feel blinded, not in eyesight but in character and stature; rightfully so, as a humble being, you shall see yourself in this person.
The humble recognize themselves in each reflection be it beast or babe. In this we see the humble carry the clarity of effectiveness of awareness. We struggle with finding more apt words, and recognize the difficulty in this verbiage. Still, this serves the essence of what we are trying to convey. To some degree this can be said as the degree in which awareness is awakened, though we discourage this because again this requires a perception of evaluation. Who is more awakened? Who is less awakened? Again the spider’s web.
Another way is to say the season of awareness, where each season is seen as welcomed and required. Therefore, following, one might be in a winter of awareness, the snow drifting and covering their full viewing, while another is in the summer of awareness filled with a knowing light of understanding. All seasons come and go. No season is lesser or greater. In this we can make some sense.
In closing, today, we ask you to remember that human terms and words are so limiting, that the concept alone of even considering the dubious process of comparing two words is boggling. Expressing truths in letter form, where letters are merged to make a concept, creates a different perception for each reader. Not only is the meaning lost directly in the translation from us to you, but again lost in your interpretation, and what you then form on paper. Again, there is meaning lost in the next set of eyes that read these scribed words. So we ask that you allow the vibration of the words to serve you equally.
I process in many ways. One of the ways is through playing songs over and over, and feeling a full bowl of emotions. Sometimes a toilet bowl full of emotions. This morning I played this song over and over and had a good cry.
I am realizing I don’t know what it is to feel love from someone. I cannot feel a compliment. I cannot feel positive words. I have realized this recently because of all the beautiful words people have written about me. I have tried to go back to this link of a lovely lady’s blog and reread what she wrote about me in order to feel her words. I cannot feel her words for me. Though I believe she speaks from spirit and truth, I cannot feel her words.
However, I can feel when others have non-beneficial thoughts about me. For some reason, those type of thoughts stick to me like Velcro, and I carry the echo for years. But when it comes to love, I cannot feel it from most people. I cannot feel it from my children, from my husband, from most of my dear, dear friends that I adore.
A commenter can write I am the light, and I do not feel it. I’ve tried to process this logically. Perhaps it was from some of the abuse/neglect of my earlier years, but that doesn’t seem to be it. I am grown now, inside and out. I do love and adore myself; I am even starting to see how kind and lovely I am on the outside. I’m actually quite smitten with my beauty and how I project goodness.
So maybe I am taking in the words, only at a deep, deep level, like at the center of an onion or of a miniature earth. And then the words of love are pushing outward from the deep insides towards the outer layers. That makes sense. Like I energetically store the love at the core of me and then the power of love is projected outward; only the emotion of love when entering bypasses my mind and my conscious awareness.
I am liken to a vessel, a collector of love. Only the “negative” thoughts somehow get stuck in my filtering system and sit there in stagnant water for years until I push them out. I don’t know why the beneficial thoughts don’t stick there. It is as if I lack pride. It is as if I lack the ability genetically or at a soul-level to take in what others’ perceive me as, unless the perception is perceived to be hurtful.
I am realizing that I change in appearance based on my mood. I can see this in my photos. As if the inside of me changes the outside of me. I am realizing that certain people bring out the angelic part of me—the part of me I consider pure, untouched, and flowing with unconditional love. I feel I change internally and externally based on whom I am with. When a person brings out the parts of me that are more of my shadow side, such as anger, frustration, and apathy, I don’t want to be around them. But I now understand these people are here to show me my shadow side and work through this. And in actuality, it is my perception about them that makes me choose to feel the way I do.
I am realizing that there are certain people who bring out what might be considered the very best of me. I can see myself in them, and them in me. With them I shine so brightly I feel I am drunk with happiness.
I would like to find balance. I would like to feel the same joyous light within my heart with everyone, and realize at a spirit level that they do not control or modify my inner light; I do.
When I think: “I do not want to be with him or her because he/she brings out the worst in me,” I want to replace that with: “I am allowing this person to bring out the worst part of me. For now I choose the light of me. I reflect only goodness. I am a mirror to their beautiful soul. All that I judge unjust or wrong about them is merely an illusion. I am no longer a victim to illusion. I am light. They are light. And we are one.”
This is what I want to say. This is what I choose to believe.
I want to be a person who can sit with anyone and be at peace. I want to use the gift God has given me of feeling others’ energy, and instead of evaluating and judging that energy, I would like to recognize the energy and continue to vibrate at a high-level of love.
Instead of wanting to fix or change said person, or run away, I want to be untouched, unchanged.
In truth all people who bring energy to me in form of thoughts, words, and actions are only a mirror to me.
I am recognizing that it is not me looking at them and evaluating what they need to change in order to heal and be a beneficial light. It is them, coming to me, to reflect back what is still in need of change and growth within me. Not that I am flawed or unworthy, only that I have sections of my soul that are in need of reflection and further healing.
When a person writes words that make me feel something at a physical level that is unpleasant, perhaps a slight punch to the stomach or a rerun of a negative vibration knocking on my mind’s door, I can choose to stand back as an observer and feel that feeling in the whole of me. I can question without questioning, and listen without listening, and establish a knowing of what this person is teaching me.
If I label one “narcissistic” or “self-centered” based on the energy he or she is projecting, I can release this judgment without judging myself, and recognize if one is this way, then thusly am I.
I can then recognize what is inside myself that I believe to be narcissistic or self-centered; I can recognize that as my perception of self is incorrect, thusly is my perception of the outer reflection in form of human facing me.
In truth, I can hold us both in light, and understand that as I see another, is actually how I still see myself.
Once I recognize I am total beauty, then I shall recognize the other is total beauty, as well. And the reverse is true, and endless cycle, like a ripple made upon a lake, we dance. Thusly, what I still see in another is what I still choose to see within myself.
Therefore, if a person says to me words that cause me to feel that she is self-centered, I can immediately and with freedom, without self-punishment, say onto myself: “What is inside of me that I still choose to believe is self-centered?” I can then replace the judgment with a few words, such as: “I am beauty. I am light.” And thusly make it so.
I can choose not to collect the energy-pieces of judgment placed upon me.
In choosing to accept this illusion of judgment as part of my reality, when someone judges me, I can bring up the same high vibration of love and recognize that that person chooses to see in me what still needs to be healed within his or her own being, be this physical, emotional, logical, or spiritual.
Therefore, when I recognize someone is placing the label of prideful upon my soul’s energy field, I may pull up the same few words: I am beauty. I am light. And thusly make it so.
One does not work without the other. I cannot choose to think that because someone is judging me then that someone has a fractured part he or she needs to recognize and heal, unless I do the exact same to my own being, when I choose to judge another.
This is where some souls go off-balance, where the energy is not evenly exchanged.
Where there is not yin and yang, equal giving and taking, then the energy level remains off balanced.
I have before said to myself that I do not accept someone’s judgment of me as truth, but then I went on to criticize them, or reason why they were wrong and how I was right. This method is logical and from a low-vibrational place and shall never work.
What needs to be done, if one is to reach a state of peace, something in which each human aspires, whether he or she recognizes this or not, is to maintain a balance in release. Thusly, recognize what is in one is in another. In so doing, in so reflecting the truth upon one another, the earth is healed.
This came to me quickly, as I was concluding this post:
“It is the misers who keep the truth of the world into themselves, believing they are the righteous and all else need to be as them to be in light who are the falsest ones of the light. It is the righteous that need to fall down on bended knee and forgive themselves, and take heed in the word of the light. It is the righteous who shall fall and tumble and scrape the knee of inner spirit time and time again in an endless cycle of turmoil, ricocheting back and forth between two walls of good enough, perhaps superior, and wretchedly ugly. The meek shall inherit the earth with their self-proclaimed goodness, as they shall recognize the beauty within, the beauty without and shine this light bright upon the world. It is no sin, if sin is the word used to describe misery, to proclaim you are beauty as you see the beauty of you reflected in another. It is sin to withhold this thought and beat upon the wall of your spirit with hammer and nail of spite and not enough. To be truly joyous announce to the world your beauty, your love, your joy, and stop choosing to hide behind falsehoods of gratitude. When all about you there are answers; seek now what you believe to be true; seek what you know to be true. That you are everlasting grace, truth, and beauty.”
This was a wonderful, wonderful surprise. (Click to find out) After a heavy week of processing and feeling less than desirable, and looping and having little sleep, I found this link on my statistical page of my blog. Sigh. The words are truly divine timing for me. I am ever so thankful for this kind woman’s heart and honesty. Thank you!
Yesterday’s post had some interesting photos. A couple of people commented, including my husband. I am curious if any super highly intuitive people got what I was trying to convey artistically. If you didn’t, you can pretend you did, because I’m about to tell you.
For me, the emotion conveyed and pouring through my blood, in both the poem and in the letter to my Lord, was the extreme pressure I feel in being human, particularly in the way people judge one another based on a variety of reasons, including conclusions drawn by collective perceptions and experience. My photos, to me, were conveying a false me. An illusion, you could say, of a person who would be mistook as perhaps mean, shallow, conceded, lustful, angry, or desperate and needy. I was attempting to convey a photo that did not represent my light side, but my shadow side. I personally love the photos, as they are gutsy, real, and a part of me I haven’t let out of the bag until now. Meow! Scratch! Scratch!
With that said, I was going to pose naked for this post….but thought that might be stretching the limit.
I was at my masseuse today, processing and processing, and talking poor little Sue Happy’s ears off. That’s what I call my masseuse, because her name is Sue and she is perpetually happy. I was so into my heavy talk and deep thoughts…super deep, like the…. (now that sounds provocative!) As I was saying, I was into some deep stuff, like the potentiality to change the view I have of a relative based on the truth that we each create in our minds a perception of a person; so that if each person were looking at one person, say a woman, then each perception of said woman would be different based on who was viewing her. In other words, there would be several versions of the same woman existing simultaneously based on the observer, with not one single version being the right perception . And if I could thoroughly grasp this concept, and the illusion of perception, then I could feasibly adapt the perception of many of the other people looking at the woman, and merge that adapted perception into my current perception, minus the non-beneficial thoughts, in order to recreate a more positive and healthy version of said-woman.
Yes, I said all that at super high-speed, in one huge sentence.
Patient, loving Sue Happy.
Sue Happy did say my feet were the most balanced she’d ever seen them. That’s saying something. I immediately thought of the gut-wrenching, desperate-kneeling, and wailing I did in the shower yesterday; and thought perhaps that my virtual throwing up of said self was the secret to balanced feet.
I didn’t say that to Sue; nor did I say I was talking fast as a result of the Mocha Coffee.
Anyhow, my point was, I was being super, super deep and serious, and quite complex for most bipeds. And that is when I decided I needed to shift the energy. Luckily, I know how to crack myself up, and I know how to think quickly. I had this great idea come at me all at once for a Thanksgiving post. Something off the wall. I would post a short story of the nude beach and make the title: Thankful for Clothes.
After some consideration, I withdrew that initial thought.
It was Thanksgiving after all. I then came to the conclusion that a more enticing title for the holiday would include the word naked. Of course the following song immediately popped in my head.
Only they were naked. And that really made me laugh. I envisioned all the naked people dancing to this song on the nude beach. And I was instantly healed from all the trauma of the nude beaches! No…not really. But I did have a good laugh. Naked jiggly-parts, and all.
Here is the short story. For the sake of honoring my mother, I did take out several descriptions I had of her breasts. This did affect the overall artistic touch of this story. But even I know when to draw the line: NO description of your mother’s boobies on Thanksgiving! I assumed boyfriend’s butt-crack was okay. Hope I didn’t ruin your pumpkin pie!
Thankful for Clothes
Ben turned back. “Good day, Pretty Ladies.”
Ever cautious, I replied, “Thank you.”
Ben winked and then turned around and snapped the cap of a beer bottle off with his teeth.
“We look like one of those families on television, with our car piled up with blankets and food, and our smiling faces,” said Mother. “Like the Brady Bunch. Or what’s that other show?”
“The Partridge Family,” I muttered.
“Yeah. More like them.”
I rubbed my bare feet between my dog’s tight curls and pulled a string from the seat cover. Ben’s daughter, Shara, giggled and kicked her legs up and down. Her round little belly protruded out from her top, exposing what looked to be the tie of a latex balloon.
Ben cleared his throat. “You know we went out of our way to get ready. It probably took us a good hour just to pack up the car, not to mention the time we had to wait for you to finish going to the bathroom and find Justice’s leash. I hope you appreciate all your mother does.” Ben finished, flashed a half-smirk, turned away, and patted Mother on her bare knee. They exchanged a knowing smile. I grabbed my stomach and threw up.
The rest of the story has been removed, because I wanted to keep it private. 🙂
Everyday Asperger's 