Day 343 - Countess of Death
2018 Mere weeks before Christmas, Clayton is killed with a gun to his head. He is only 29. He is preceeded in death by a bajillion people because my people are counters of death. His obituary names names that most people in my own family don't even know.
2015 I finally pull the plug on my marriage. It was only on life support anyway.
2014 My faith in god groans out its last agonizing gutteral cry of anger and defeat under the skillful blade of Calvinistic disembowelment. The last pastor I exposed my wounds to, asked me why I was demanding so much from god. Because if he is who he claims to be, he should fucking come through, you asshole.
2011 Seven feet of Canadian snow melt surges through our North Dakota home and community.
2008 I get married in Korea...for reasons of faith only. Oh, and also for the baby that we made in less than 3 weeks of knowing each other before he decided he just wanted to be friends. It was a marriage founded on so much faith that I should be inducted into the Idiot's Hall of Faith. After all, he sat with me before a chaplain and brutally dissected all the reasons why he didn't love me and didn't want to marry me. And yet, when he had this momentary lapse of shame and chagrin, I took it as a "sign from God"...and..."God could and would work all things together for good." It was the day of Clayton's 20th birthday when we went to the U.S. embassy in Seoul to do the legal paperwork for joint taxes.
2004 I've ruined my relationship with Clayton and wrestled him into the juvy system with my tough love. I've called my dad in New Mexico for help with my brother, but he responds only with bitterness and irritation, telling me that we just create this drama with Clayton. Eventually, Clayton ends up with Delbert in New Mexico, but he's back and forth between the two states for awhile and lands in a Kansas jail around 18 years old. I don't even remember why. I join the military and escape again. I've embarrassed myself countless times for love and friendship and family...and I don't fit in Kansas. I'm a wild thieving gypsy who just takes advantage of these generous-hearted prairie purists.
2002 I am at the height of my righteousness. I've coldly severed all ties with N. And I decide to rescue my 14 yr. old brother from parental neglect after the divorce and also the trauma of the car accident. I forcefully talk my sorrow-sick mom into moving her 4-ton collection of stuff to Kansas where I've already run to try to escape my own grief. I am certain of what I am doing....so certain that I have no idea what I'm really doing. Mom says not to feel this regret in hindsight...because she had a "sign from God" that this was the right thing to do, that Clayton would be lost forever if she didn't get him out of Greene County. Interesting that God got Clayton out of Greene County only to lose him in New Mexico...
2000 I end my fake non-dating relationship with N and sacrifice my simple humanity on the altar of perfection and god vows...first major depression, first real thoughts that I can't do this anymore...my parents divorce...I move to Kansas...Amber dies....and N is there again, but not really there either. He shows up for me, but he also shows up with his own interests in mind.
I've tried.
I try to tell the story differently.
I try to remember all the good, usual stuff that happened in between.
I try to make it matter as much as the bad stuff seems too.
The mesmerizing prairie thunderstorms, the many "answered prayers," the humor in all the dating snafus...and even the not-so-bad times when my marriage was just normal.
But it feels like I only ever got a few years down the road and another major hit would come.
Until only the crises are the markers for my life...
Am I over-reacting?
Just feeling sorry for myself?
Poor me...everyone else has a fucked up life too, you know.
So I turn these questions on myself.
Maybe I am creating this.
Maybe I am focusing only on the bad.
Maybe I have a shitload of bad karma to work out.
Maybe I actually do deserve this - fuck you, John Calvin.
Maybe all of my pleadings to god for mercy, grace, forgiveness, and redemption are nothing but wishful thinking on a fairytale star, just hoping that magic sky daddy can bail me out of my own Darwinian exercise in "what's the worst that could happen?"...
2015 I finally pull the plug on my marriage. It was only on life support anyway.
2014 My faith in god groans out its last agonizing gutteral cry of anger and defeat under the skillful blade of Calvinistic disembowelment. The last pastor I exposed my wounds to, asked me why I was demanding so much from god. Because if he is who he claims to be, he should fucking come through, you asshole.
2011 Seven feet of Canadian snow melt surges through our North Dakota home and community.
2008 I get married in Korea...for reasons of faith only. Oh, and also for the baby that we made in less than 3 weeks of knowing each other before he decided he just wanted to be friends. It was a marriage founded on so much faith that I should be inducted into the Idiot's Hall of Faith. After all, he sat with me before a chaplain and brutally dissected all the reasons why he didn't love me and didn't want to marry me. And yet, when he had this momentary lapse of shame and chagrin, I took it as a "sign from God"...and..."God could and would work all things together for good." It was the day of Clayton's 20th birthday when we went to the U.S. embassy in Seoul to do the legal paperwork for joint taxes.
2004 I've ruined my relationship with Clayton and wrestled him into the juvy system with my tough love. I've called my dad in New Mexico for help with my brother, but he responds only with bitterness and irritation, telling me that we just create this drama with Clayton. Eventually, Clayton ends up with Delbert in New Mexico, but he's back and forth between the two states for awhile and lands in a Kansas jail around 18 years old. I don't even remember why. I join the military and escape again. I've embarrassed myself countless times for love and friendship and family...and I don't fit in Kansas. I'm a wild thieving gypsy who just takes advantage of these generous-hearted prairie purists.
2002 I am at the height of my righteousness. I've coldly severed all ties with N. And I decide to rescue my 14 yr. old brother from parental neglect after the divorce and also the trauma of the car accident. I forcefully talk my sorrow-sick mom into moving her 4-ton collection of stuff to Kansas where I've already run to try to escape my own grief. I am certain of what I am doing....so certain that I have no idea what I'm really doing. Mom says not to feel this regret in hindsight...because she had a "sign from God" that this was the right thing to do, that Clayton would be lost forever if she didn't get him out of Greene County. Interesting that God got Clayton out of Greene County only to lose him in New Mexico...
2000 I end my fake non-dating relationship with N and sacrifice my simple humanity on the altar of perfection and god vows...first major depression, first real thoughts that I can't do this anymore...my parents divorce...I move to Kansas...Amber dies....and N is there again, but not really there either. He shows up for me, but he also shows up with his own interests in mind.
It is the year of culmination and collapse, of exploding and imploding.
And I've never recovered since.
I try to tell the story differently.
I try to remember all the good, usual stuff that happened in between.
I try to make it matter as much as the bad stuff seems too.
The mesmerizing prairie thunderstorms, the many "answered prayers," the humor in all the dating snafus...and even the not-so-bad times when my marriage was just normal.
But it feels like I only ever got a few years down the road and another major hit would come.
Until only the crises are the markers for my life...
Am I over-reacting?
Just feeling sorry for myself?
Poor me...everyone else has a fucked up life too, you know.
So I turn these questions on myself.
Maybe I am creating this.
Maybe I am focusing only on the bad.
Maybe I have a shitload of bad karma to work out.
Maybe I actually do deserve this - fuck you, John Calvin.
Maybe all of my pleadings to god for mercy, grace, forgiveness, and redemption are nothing but wishful thinking on a fairytale star, just hoping that magic sky daddy can bail me out of my own Darwinian exercise in "what's the worst that could happen?"...
Or maybe I am just
a countess of death and destruction...
...from a long line of death counters.
