#broken self

The floor fell some more while I was trying to carry out an arm load of heavy books. The plank under me shot out under the house snd down I went. My first thought was “Wow! I didn’t drop the books!!!” Then it was”Ow!!!” That sting/bite on my arm was already huge and swollen, freakish so the arm looks like Popeye or something. So what did I hit???? My arm! Naturally. Oh, I got a few bruises too, but all the gear I wear on my feet/ankles helped protect me.

Mom looked down at me in surprise, when she came after hearing my cursing. Why was she shocked? I’ve been telling her that could happen at any time andit is only going to get worse. That’s why I won’t let her go into my room to help there. Too dangerous. But if she wants to help, the rest of the house has to go too and the living room is 90% her, Pop and my grandparents....but she’d rather read and ask if I’m ready to take a load to her house every half hour. Mom says she isn’t trying to rush me. I tell her I’m not rushing because of her, I’m racing the floor....

At the same time, the house is like archeology, all in layers. I’ve reached ancient times...the back corner bookcases. My most cherished childhood books. The remains if the Carl Barks duck comics Pop had as a boy and gave me when I was little. The Haunted New England book he read to me as bedtime stories, to Mom’s horror, full of moody photos. A notebook I’d carried everywhere in school, like a lifeline with the story I was writing, sketches for costumes , etc ( I wrote on the front “personal -Do NOT read, but if you do, don’t ever tell anyone, especially me!!!!!”) The book Ms Magazine put out reprinting Wonder Woman comics my parents gave me at 4 or 5 and Mom taped together for me when it started to fall apart. Liza Lou and the Yeller Belly Swamp!!!! Pop read that once with his own annotations that were so hilarious we all falling over laughing, Mom included, while he stayed straight faced. (And he had a point...maybe the mother WAS trying to kill the girl!) He never would read it again, but it is a favorite memory for all of us. Piles of albums of fading photos (where DID we get them printed???? Terrible fading on some recent one!) My first copy of Alice in Wonderland,  the book I picked to be my first “real” book the day I pulled that science book off Pop’s shelf and realized that I could look up any word I didn’t understand, and look up any word in the definition....I could read ANYTHING. Stuart Little ,read next, that  inspired six year old me to make a matchbox bed for Staurt next to mine. There is so much, and most of it connects too deeply.

I keep remembering that little girl. The younger she was the brighter she was. Little Stephanie was smart, imaginitive, brave, kind, funny...I mean she was pretty amazing. I think I love her and she breaks my heart.  I’m none of the things I was at four. Bit by bit I let it all go. I’m not really her anymore. I hate the adult Stephanie so much. How did this happen?

******sigh********