"terri " , continued
Andy and the kids acted like they were on eggshells all that evening . Tiptoeing around and whispering so as not to disturb you .
You appreciate things like that , but inside , you felt that it was too late. The damage was done. You were already "disturbed". Disturbed as in “all the king’s horses…all the king‘s men ” nobody could glue old terri back together again… but you don’t tell anyone that . Not the police . Not the psychologist . Not bob and certainly not andy or your kids. They need to hope that things will return to the way they were . Who was I to tell them that it just wasn’t going to ever happen?
The police arrived the next day to review my original statement . They questioned me on little things , the same points they had asked me about before.
Andy seemed like he was walking on egg shells around them too. They even brought the psychologist with them , but no fbi this day .
The whole time that you’re sitting there listening to their questions and answering them you wonder how many times they’ve done this before . How many scared victims have they questioned ?
And then you happen to catch one of them looking at you , and at first you feel like maybe they don’t believe you , like they’re going through this routine procedure while secretly projecting doubt about you and your story ,your innocence-- when suddenly it hits you.
It’s not you , but it’s just the nature of the job to doubt . They don’t just doubt you --they walk into every situation carrying doubt with them . Wearing it like those drab suits .
On the job --maybe off the job too . They probably had seen and heard enough to doubt human nature itself because they know that at the core we’re all just animals in the house --sitting in the living room waiting for a chance to seep , or leak , or burst out .
That’s how they must see it --and that’s how at first it occurs to you. But then when you make eye contact and looked deeper into their faces and see the intense sadness there , you see words from a larger handwriting at work and you realize that they equally doubt themselves too.
What you see is that they doubt and they fear and they grab at this job desperately hoping for some certainty that’s not really ever there .
How much of what we put absolute faith into is completely imagined . The product of our own minds whistling comforting tunes to get us past the broken bottles and rattling wooden crates in the scary dark alley we must pass on the way home.
But it was more than doubt . Deeper than fear was resignation . Defeat . It was unmistakable --they smelled of it .
Every gesture , every nuance , every glance , every word , every blink of their eye dripped with resignation .
That somewhere , someway , life had grabbed them up by the scruff of the neck and rubbed their nose in it and beat their little tail to the point where you could look in their eyes and see a whipped pup who you knew would never even dream of shitting on the carpet-- ever again .
It was the total resignation that greets you in the eyes of people early Monday morning 6am when they’re too tired to pretend that they like what they do and love where they’re going .
The desperate look when you honestly know you don’t like the way your life is headed , but have no idea of what to do about it --and if you did know --lack the determination needed to successfully do anything.
It’s like ---remembering when you went to the zoo . Maybe you went as a kid , or maybe you went with your own kids . But besides all the disgusting smells that confront you there , one thing you notice that you never forget is looking into the eyes of a predator --maybe a tiger , or a leopard .
The cat is up on a perch sleeping ,or sitting with its eyes closed --trying to block out the view of all the losers in front of him and then --for no reason --that leopard just shoots a look straight through you , or looks at your own child with that intense glare-- like it hadn’t eaten for days and just saw dinner .
From that look --in an instance you can tell what it really is and its intent .
the leopard is a wild animal in a cage . the losers standing outside the cage are tame enough to be let out.
something primal is gone --no leopard cage for them will ever really be needed .
And from just that look you know that even though it is calmly sitting there on its perch surrounded by humans , that this is no pet-- and never could be .
this is still a live predator . A dangerous animal. Not a pup smacked over the head until trained to go on the paper.
Not an eager-to-please tamed mutt licking your hand with all the fight beaten out of it.
The little bank manager , bob , andy , the police and their psychologist , the fbi too --even with all their guns--they could not hide it .
they all had that same whipped look. You clearly saw it .
That’s when you knew that you had changed , because until yesterday you never noticed it before --because it was so prevalent --so commonplace all around you .
Something had turned them into pets --all of them and until yesterday you were one of them too--part of the crowd . one of the team . membership in good standing .
Hell-- up until yesterday , you were trying your best to lick enough hands to upgrade to gold or platinum membership status . But not anymore.
Part of me felt so guilty about the way I was thinking , but at the same time , another part of you just feels so trapped so stifled like the way you would feel if there were no air at all in the room --only the room with 'no air' -- is the life you’ve been building the past 16 years .
I knew I wanted out of the cage. wanted my freedom . But what could I do?
You just can’t announce to your husband and kids that you no longer want to be a family with them anymore. That you were leaving because something has happened yesterday that makes you realize that you’re not happy , that you kept yourself busy all these years chasing this and that goal --chasing your tail -- running the kids to school and picking them up from gymnastics , or math wiz--always busy --always in a hurry because it diverts your attention away from the fact that something’s missing.
the bigger house 'overlooking the golf course' that you never really wanted , was only a nicer diversion to keep you from focusing on the deep sense of betrayal you felt inside .
you want to scream ’What the hell has happened to me ? ’ it wasn’t supposed to be this way --not this deadness inside --like the episode of life you regularly tuned in to , was bribing you --keeping you entertained with nicer and nicer commercials for more expensive things to keep you from noticing that it had nothing else to offer except captivity in nicer and nicer cages .
Don’t get me wrong , I love my kids and always will. I could never , no matter what happened to me , ever look at them like some bitch-mother dog giving last season’s puppies the cold shoulder because her hormones cause her not to recognize them anymore , but I just felt overwhelmed with an urgency that left me not knowing how long I could hold on at being supermom .
I had given and given to everyone else --a loyal cheerleader for everybody else’s team . I wanted to get in the game and play for myself . I wanted something for me before it was too late and I was so old that I couldn’t enjoy it .
I felt ready to explode and even as the days passed and something like normalcy returned to our life and you could hear andy’s other cell phone hidden down in the basement, starting to ring again , underneath the surface the realization was still there and wouldn’t leave you alone-- like somebody on the other side of the mirror staring at you with nothing but scorn, and refusing to go away.
One night , after the house is quiet --the kids are in their rooms asleep and your loving spouse has rolled off of you exhausted --you lay there in the aftermath --in the wet spot --in bed in a quiet house with nothing but the beat of your own heart and the sound of breathing in your ear and you ache inside so bad you can‘t sleep .
You think of all the things you had to do today and you think of how you’ll have to do most of them all over again tomorrow --when you really didn’t want to do any of them today .
You are one day older , one day closer to your grave, and you think about how one more day is gone from you that you will never get back .
you look at the ceiling with tears in your eyes and your insides ache . And you know-- in your bones-- you know that something’s got to give , or you’ll just dry up inside and die. That’s when I decided . That’s when I made up my mind that I simply had to do something for me.
You appreciate things like that , but inside , you felt that it was too late. The damage was done. You were already "disturbed". Disturbed as in “all the king’s horses…all the king‘s men ” nobody could glue old terri back together again… but you don’t tell anyone that . Not the police . Not the psychologist . Not bob and certainly not andy or your kids. They need to hope that things will return to the way they were . Who was I to tell them that it just wasn’t going to ever happen?
The police arrived the next day to review my original statement . They questioned me on little things , the same points they had asked me about before.
Andy seemed like he was walking on egg shells around them too. They even brought the psychologist with them , but no fbi this day .
The whole time that you’re sitting there listening to their questions and answering them you wonder how many times they’ve done this before . How many scared victims have they questioned ?
And then you happen to catch one of them looking at you , and at first you feel like maybe they don’t believe you , like they’re going through this routine procedure while secretly projecting doubt about you and your story ,your innocence-- when suddenly it hits you.
It’s not you , but it’s just the nature of the job to doubt . They don’t just doubt you --they walk into every situation carrying doubt with them . Wearing it like those drab suits .
On the job --maybe off the job too . They probably had seen and heard enough to doubt human nature itself because they know that at the core we’re all just animals in the house --sitting in the living room waiting for a chance to seep , or leak , or burst out .
That’s how they must see it --and that’s how at first it occurs to you. But then when you make eye contact and looked deeper into their faces and see the intense sadness there , you see words from a larger handwriting at work and you realize that they equally doubt themselves too.
What you see is that they doubt and they fear and they grab at this job desperately hoping for some certainty that’s not really ever there .
How much of what we put absolute faith into is completely imagined . The product of our own minds whistling comforting tunes to get us past the broken bottles and rattling wooden crates in the scary dark alley we must pass on the way home.
But it was more than doubt . Deeper than fear was resignation . Defeat . It was unmistakable --they smelled of it .
Every gesture , every nuance , every glance , every word , every blink of their eye dripped with resignation .
That somewhere , someway , life had grabbed them up by the scruff of the neck and rubbed their nose in it and beat their little tail to the point where you could look in their eyes and see a whipped pup who you knew would never even dream of shitting on the carpet-- ever again .
It was the total resignation that greets you in the eyes of people early Monday morning 6am when they’re too tired to pretend that they like what they do and love where they’re going .
The desperate look when you honestly know you don’t like the way your life is headed , but have no idea of what to do about it --and if you did know --lack the determination needed to successfully do anything.
It’s like ---remembering when you went to the zoo . Maybe you went as a kid , or maybe you went with your own kids . But besides all the disgusting smells that confront you there , one thing you notice that you never forget is looking into the eyes of a predator --maybe a tiger , or a leopard .
The cat is up on a perch sleeping ,or sitting with its eyes closed --trying to block out the view of all the losers in front of him and then --for no reason --that leopard just shoots a look straight through you , or looks at your own child with that intense glare-- like it hadn’t eaten for days and just saw dinner .
From that look --in an instance you can tell what it really is and its intent .
the leopard is a wild animal in a cage . the losers standing outside the cage are tame enough to be let out.
something primal is gone --no leopard cage for them will ever really be needed .
And from just that look you know that even though it is calmly sitting there on its perch surrounded by humans , that this is no pet-- and never could be .
this is still a live predator . A dangerous animal. Not a pup smacked over the head until trained to go on the paper.
Not an eager-to-please tamed mutt licking your hand with all the fight beaten out of it.
The little bank manager , bob , andy , the police and their psychologist , the fbi too --even with all their guns--they could not hide it .
they all had that same whipped look. You clearly saw it .
That’s when you knew that you had changed , because until yesterday you never noticed it before --because it was so prevalent --so commonplace all around you .
Something had turned them into pets --all of them and until yesterday you were one of them too--part of the crowd . one of the team . membership in good standing .
Hell-- up until yesterday , you were trying your best to lick enough hands to upgrade to gold or platinum membership status . But not anymore.
Part of me felt so guilty about the way I was thinking , but at the same time , another part of you just feels so trapped so stifled like the way you would feel if there were no air at all in the room --only the room with 'no air' -- is the life you’ve been building the past 16 years .
I knew I wanted out of the cage. wanted my freedom . But what could I do?
You just can’t announce to your husband and kids that you no longer want to be a family with them anymore. That you were leaving because something has happened yesterday that makes you realize that you’re not happy , that you kept yourself busy all these years chasing this and that goal --chasing your tail -- running the kids to school and picking them up from gymnastics , or math wiz--always busy --always in a hurry because it diverts your attention away from the fact that something’s missing.
the bigger house 'overlooking the golf course' that you never really wanted , was only a nicer diversion to keep you from focusing on the deep sense of betrayal you felt inside .
you want to scream ’What the hell has happened to me ? ’ it wasn’t supposed to be this way --not this deadness inside --like the episode of life you regularly tuned in to , was bribing you --keeping you entertained with nicer and nicer commercials for more expensive things to keep you from noticing that it had nothing else to offer except captivity in nicer and nicer cages .
Don’t get me wrong , I love my kids and always will. I could never , no matter what happened to me , ever look at them like some bitch-mother dog giving last season’s puppies the cold shoulder because her hormones cause her not to recognize them anymore , but I just felt overwhelmed with an urgency that left me not knowing how long I could hold on at being supermom .
I had given and given to everyone else --a loyal cheerleader for everybody else’s team . I wanted to get in the game and play for myself . I wanted something for me before it was too late and I was so old that I couldn’t enjoy it .
I felt ready to explode and even as the days passed and something like normalcy returned to our life and you could hear andy’s other cell phone hidden down in the basement, starting to ring again , underneath the surface the realization was still there and wouldn’t leave you alone-- like somebody on the other side of the mirror staring at you with nothing but scorn, and refusing to go away.
One night , after the house is quiet --the kids are in their rooms asleep and your loving spouse has rolled off of you exhausted --you lay there in the aftermath --in the wet spot --in bed in a quiet house with nothing but the beat of your own heart and the sound of breathing in your ear and you ache inside so bad you can‘t sleep .
You think of all the things you had to do today and you think of how you’ll have to do most of them all over again tomorrow --when you really didn’t want to do any of them today .
You are one day older , one day closer to your grave, and you think about how one more day is gone from you that you will never get back .
you look at the ceiling with tears in your eyes and your insides ache . And you know-- in your bones-- you know that something’s got to give , or you’ll just dry up inside and die. That’s when I decided . That’s when I made up my mind that I simply had to do something for me.
posted by dsekou at 5:56 PM
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