..in the land of misfit toys..

i play the part of the porcelain doll, cracked and dirty in a her rumpled dress with no tea left in her cups...

I see things I want, not the usual materials to make my life shinier or prettier - I see things I want to spite my life. To turn it upside down. My life is not perfect, far from it, but I am thankful for what I have in it. I love my family and friends, my job and my hobbies. I love that I have the ability to do things I love. Don't get me wrong.

But there is a perpetual sinking pit in my stomach that inevitably sucks all of those gracious feelings back down and leaves an icy, angry residual in its wake. It's not bitterness or jealousy, it's genuine anger. Inky, violent anger towards things in my life that I had no control over, that I still cannot fix to this day. I try not to assign blame because one person was not wholly responsible for any singular event but was merely another twist in the rope that is hanging my life by the neck.

My aunt died in the summer of '05 after a long, difficult battle with cancer. The night before, my mother called to tell me that I should come home from college, they didn't think she would last much longer, and that the family was coming to say their goodbyes. I started packing my bags to leave immediately but she told me to wait until the morning, that it would be safer to drive after the sun came up. Early that next morning, as I was getting ready to leave, my mother called and told me it was too late, that she was gone. I remember the shock of it, the dizzy, nauseous feeling as I had to sit on the edge of my bed. I never told my mother and I don't think I even admitted it to myself until years later but I was angry with her, I blamed her for my not being able to say goodbye. If she had let me, if she had just trusted me one time to be careful, had just treated me like an adult, I could have been there with her, I could have said goodbye.

Instead, this amazing and complicated and beautiful woman died without ever knowing how sorry I was for not getting to know her better. She never knew how much I loved her, how much I looked up to her. I never got to say I was sorry for not being there for her during her chemo or her divorce or those last few, painful weeks. I regretted that. I regret it still. And that's where my anger lies; she never knew any of it and even to the end, I wasn't there.

Today I have pictures of her in my room, pictures of this woman I can hardly remember but who I find myself becoming more like everyday. She was difficult and stubborn, traits I can't say I lack entirely. But remembering her makes me angry, it reminds me of all the goodbyes I never got to say and the apologies I never got to make.


My life has not been an easy road but it hasn't been as bad as some. I am grateful for what I have and I love what I am. But there are still times when I look at her photograph on my desk and that anger starts snaking its head up through my stomach, snarling and gnawing and snapping it's jaws. All these knots in my rope, all these painful memories that haunt my mind - they are hard to fight and even harder to forget.

But I do not lay blame, I am not bitter; I simply find that, looking around, I can't be alone. In the land of misfit toys, we are all just that...

misfit.