This Is Not Going to Be Grammatically Correct Or Pretty

My Fingers feel like Scythes that have been cutting, heedless of the bleed, heedless of the life reaped and they still want to go on, machines.

I woke up this morning, full of frustration, angst, irritation, boredom. I felt stifled, crowded, ashamed. I vowed, as I bid my eyes close though they didn't wish to, as I tossed and turned, as my body bled sweat, that I would wake the next morning and, come what may, I would REAP. I would reap the shadowed objects underneath my bathroom and kitchen sinks.

I put my finger into the heart of my soul and began to stir...but it wasn't enough.

I am high strung and easily stirred and have, for the sake of my child, remained mellow but, as the thought of the piles of things, suspiciously becoming piles of a hoarder, I grew agitaged and, through my laziness, I worked.

I yanked two black garbage bags, non compostable and I ripped open the doors under my kitchen sink and began to throw bottles of toxic cleaners into the bag.

Oh god, I know I should recycle, I know I should but, I have started and fire is blazing and I wilt not stop...Forgive me...forgive me this little bit, as I try to recycle all else, upcycle all else, support local and organic, try, try, try...Oh god, thou knowest I am not perfect but that I try, only thou, only thou...

I went upstairs, hauling black garbage bags and laundry upstairs, closing the baby gate behind me, uttering a brief word of comfort to my Son while my face was set in determination. It took effort to deviate my mind and soul from the path it was determined to set foot upon.

I brought my baby up and, set to work.

I started in the office, smashing Christmas decorations into a box that, if I was feeling anything else, would make me wince. Mark may be unhappy with it but, he did not unpack for Christmas this year and, probably not ever again. The regret will only be mine in the end and that regret will be many layered and peppered with a touch of resentment and an aching sadness that he might never want to heal.

I shoved and hoisted as much as I could into that closet, letting the flames burn as close as I dared to anger. I stepped back to see my handiwork, not to admire a neat and tidy job but, to feel a savory satisfaction that everything was crammed away, hoping that My Husband would feel something that would betray his concrete facade for even a minute. Oh my!

The reality is, I will be the one to pay for my rash actions, as I always have, as I always will. He won't care a whit, at least, he won't show that he does. It is nothing to him when he is not the one to have to delve into the closet, to play the ULTIMATE game of Jenga. No, that would be ME.

I moved on, after the Office was cleared enough and started shoving things that had gathered dust underneath my bathroom cabinets. I did it with glee.

"When was the last time I thought about this aside from wanting to get rid of it? Too long, I say!"

Grab and stuff, grab and stuff, I practiced some restraint but, only a little.

I felt the weight of the world, a part of the weight that had been holding me back and down since I moved into our home, six months pregnant, lift off me.

The Monkey on my back was holding on by the tips and, with my lips pulled back and my eyes alight with purpose, I had no intention of ending anything until I saw that Monkey's ass in the dirt, a look of astonishment and disbelief on it's face.

I pulled more, stuffed more, delved and dug and gutted as much as I dared and...

ENOUGH!

The echo sounded in my ears, whirred and vibrated and halted my frenzied clean. Hand shrouded in black plastic, I looked up, eyes wide and, I realized what it was I was doing.

I was throwing away all that I was, all that I would never return to, with as much abandon as I could withstand.

The black plastic garbage bags were black holes. I was throwing false eyelashes, old makeup, lotion, toxic cleaners, pads, tampons, old nail clippers, bath salts and cotton balls into the void and, I was avoiding the, "Goodbye" because that is what I needed to do.

I had to say, "Goodbye" with zeal with passion with purpose. No hesitation, no grief, no, "well mabye I can use this or someone else can".

Show hands, how many of you would take on someone else's cleaning products, if they were offering them for free?

No, not you?

Me either.

Yep.

Even now, writing about this, hot mess and all, I am not terribly sad. The junk i've thrown into the black holes of plastic bags are RELICS from my former life. I have held onto them long enough, far too long, to grieve and move on.

I scoff at using false eyelashes with smelly and burning eye glue, even if I miss it just a little. I have found that I actually have pretty nice eyelashes and, I might be thirty but, my skin is pretty nice.

I threw away alot of hair products but, I don't need them. I prefer my hair being clean, soft and free.

I was ready to let it all go, even if I feel a touch of sadness about it. It's okay to be sad. I was living one kind of life like a wagon wheel in a rut and then, I took a pregnancy test and, EVERYTHING CHANGED. Thank god it was a measured change!

I refuse to feel guilty about those black bags and what they contain. I NEED to get rid of what is in them and what they are and what they represent. I have hemmed and hawed and thought about recycling and upcycling and using and all of that but, in the end, I JUST NEED TO LET GO.

I can move on, I can move within, I can move toward. All of it, what is in those two black bags/holes, just needs to go and I won't wait, can't wait anymore.

At the last, I want to leave you, the readers who are younger, my age or, older, of a woman who I think greatly of.

We don't say much about it to each other and, even though we may differ, we have quite a bit in common.

Someone told me that this lady, this great lady, once ripped an automatic can opener from it's home under a cabinet, marched over to the sliding glass door in their home and, with words that the story teller cannot recall, hoisted that piece of useless junk outside.

I'm pretty sure that the can opener did not just sit there and rust, I can attest to that because I happen to know the story teller and the teller's subject.

I can also say that this Great Lady, this strong and beautiful woman, had ENOUGH. It wasn't the can opener, the opener was the tipping straw. All that makes her the person that everyone who knows her loves, just couldn't handle that damn can opener or her family bitching about or the bills or the house being dirty or the kids whinning or the Husband and she took all of her frustration and anger that she would never dare use on her loved ones and she yanked that diabolical damn piece of machinery away and threw it out into the yard and walked inside the house with a light step and a forbidding pose and left mouths agape...

What is even more precious and wonderful is that is still her way. Maybe she wishes it was different, like I do but, it is what works and, you know what? Some of us just need to toss things into a black hole in order to let IT go. It doesn't mean we're bad people or that we don't want to recycle or TRY because we do but, we are who we are. We change what we can.

Sometimes, we toss posessed can openers out of a sliding glass door, sometimes we grab handfuls of dusty relics and shove them into plastic bags, sometimes we yell and spew and are the best we can be but, we try. don't we? We do what we need to, what we can, what is best as we know how.