Stacked Up Reasons

Somehow she kept finding excuses not to leave. She excavated them from her underwear drawer, blew dust bunnies off them from underneath the bed. She found them at the bottom of her tea mugs, even borrowing the maintenance mans’ ladder to reach the forbidden depths of the highest kitchen shelves.

One day she couldn’t find anymore. She knew it was coming. She had denied it. It was here and there was nothing else to do BUT face it.

So she started to make her own. Went back to the dust bunnies and molded them into something even cuter (they still made her sneeze). She tried pulling up the sticky-friction-layer from the bottom of the highest kitchen shelves (they were brown for a reason she didn’t want to know). She stacked up all her tea mugs, hoping their configuration would summon up a solid excuse.

She didn’t realize until later that she’d been avoiding her tarot cards. They knew her, stood next to her head every night, witnessed her every fantasy and every sadness. Could not stop her when she wanted to bash her head against a wall (she didn’t, but only by… I don’t even know. The tarot cards don’t know either).

She found excuses and they were bleached by the sunlight. She made excuses and they unknotted themselves at least once a week.

One day there were no more excuses. On that day, a reason showed up.

The next day there was another one. Then another two days after that. The reasons started flowing in. They cam in through the door, out of his mouth, at the lip of her cup. They made themselves at home in her room. Her room was always messy anyway so he didn’t notice them stacking up.

One day the reasons were too high and crashed down into her bed and tear-stained pillow. They were suffocating her, weighed on her, desperately trying to be acknowledged.

fine.

They didn’t hear her, still scrambling to be seen.

Fine.

A couple of them looked her in the eyes and finally felt seen.

FINE.

They paused, not quite believing it was happening.

FINE.

They stood and cheered, only wanted her to finally stand up for herself.

Okay - she said - let’s do this then.

She organized her thoughts

She made a list:

Who: Me

What: Leaving

When: Friday or Monday

Where: from this apartment to parents’ house

How:

• necessities only
• tell my family
• tell my therapist
• tell their therapist
• clothes
• hair products
• lotions I’ve been afraid to wear because of their allergies and didn’t want to make them feel bad about it
• tarot cards (they cheered for her to find her intuition without them. it’s all they wanted from and for her)
• crafts to keep my head and hands sane
• everything else I love: I will live if it gets burned outside on artificial grass

The reasons did not need to help her pack. She knew they were there, and she didn’t them to believe herself anymore. There were no more reasons; there was only a choice and a follow-through. There were no reasons TO follow through; there was only the act.

She did the act. All that’s left for all of them is to live in it.

He didn’t want to. He thinks he can’t. He doesn’t KNOW that he will live in it AND through it.

He didn’t watch the excuses fade away; he didn’t know they were there. He didnt know about the mountain of reasons that had laid on her chest; he wasn’t there to, or perhaps even could have, alleviate the weight. She never knew when he WOULD be available to help alleviate. She decided that was no way to live - to wait for someone else - so she did it herself.

She had wanted to be the focus of someone else’s love. She realized it had to be her. All the advice she gave her friends about being friends to themselves came back to bite her in the ass and leave a hickey.

She is sorry for:

• breaking his heart
• not being brave enough to do it before

She is not sorry for:

• why
• how
• laughing more easily now

• having a better time
• seeing more friends
• enjoying more people
• not taking on his lack of gratitude
• painting
• enjoying being around animals
• being callous
• priortizing herself
• doing what the fuck she wants
• feelin better on mood stablizers
• dancing how she actually enjoys
• singing fucking loudly in the car
• having her own space on the couch
• loving him

Don’t make me sorry for:

• being too nice
• loving you

The reasons left to find others who needed to see them (it keeps them busy). She lives with the consequences of her actions now - completely, wretchedly, loving herself.