What Is In a Little Black Book

It’s all in my little black book. This is where I keep my very thoughts for that day at that very moment. My every dream that I have ever dreamed and my dreams to come. My life story all rolled into one little black book. I have written my whole life and one day I just up and shot it all away. It just hurt too much. So many memories and issues that I just didn’t want to deal with any more. So I threw away my whole life’s past. That was the day I said good-bye. I knew I could never truly get away from the issues but I had to try to find a way to deal with it better. I wanted to be me again. More than anything I wanted to be that person that felt free to show the world who she was.

I quit writing for years. I just couldn’t find that enticement that I always felt before. I always felt that writing was my way of finding a world that I was happiest in. Then one day it just seemed too much for me. I couldn’t seem to give up the past and all it held. So I quit writing. Until one day, I thought maybe, just maybe I could start writing again. I could feel that urge rising within me. Something big in life jolted me into a reality that was me. Who I was began to shine through once again. I had no idea that was what was holding me back. But one Day:

That feeling was coming over me again, that feeling of wanting to write. I decided that maybe I would like to write again. I started jotting down little things, but just not feeling it. So I decided to look through some journals for writing just out of curiosity and one caught my eye. It was a little black book made of leather with the image of a wolf howling at the bay of the moon. It has this really nice brass latch that looks like a tooth which slides into the little brass hole waiting on the other side for it to jab it’s tooth into the opening so that it can seal the words inside shut.

The feel of it in my hands was so comforting. The leather is so soft almost silky feeling and the smell, oh the smell of that old leather fills every sense of my being with comfort and warmth. So I bought it. It took me awhile before I really started doing anything with it. I just looked at it and felt it thinkinking thoughts but not writing them down. As the days began to pass, I started writing more and more until finally the words were flowing out of me again!

My father passed away and I became $20,000 richer. His death has affected me in a big way. He wasn’t a very loving man. He was not a happy man. I don’t think he really knew what love was. He was a mean spirited person who liked to talk about people and not in a nice way. I would watch my father talk so nice to people, which wasn’t very often but at my father as if wondering, “who is this man?” I could hear him talking, but I knew this really was not the real man. My father would be nice in front of the people and turn around and talk so very badly about them. I don't remember him ever saying anything nice about anybody unless they were giving him something that he wanted. But then after he got what he wanted he would just turn around and end up being mean to them too. He was good at driving people away.

I always tried to understand where my father was coming from. I knew a little bit about his background and I thought maybe that was what affected him the way he was. My father came from a poor family where they lived in the hill country. My mom and dad are somehow related. People that live in this part of the country are some what of a cult or I like to call it a Clan. Family is blood, unless you strike against one...then you are shunned from all. Country folk up there aren't too keen on outsiders. Still today when you step into that town, right away you can feel the oddness in the air around you.

My father was a cruel man who liked to play cruel jokes on me. He would say to me, "here hold this spark plug while I pull the rope to see if it's working" I didn't know what he was talking about. I was a little girl! I trusted him and I did what he asked of me. I will never forget the jolt of electricity I felt go through my arm..I felt all of the muscles in my arm just seem to tighten up and it hurt so bad. I think I was only 5, maybe 6 years old. My father would feed me hot peppers and watch me cry in agony. I couldn’t get that burning to stop no matter what I did or tried. And there was my father laughing at me.

This Little Black Book of mine is beginning to take on a whole new life. Within these pages are where I lay my thoughts and dreams once again. For many years I have kept diaries, but none like this one. This one special little black book is where my life truly begins and the old bad times lay behind. This is where my life changes and all for the better.

Today I am ready to write my days thoughts into my little black book and as I write, I remember these memories of my dad.

“Today I received a check in my name for $20,000.00! I am now $20,000.00 richer! Thanks to your death. It’s almost like a final goodbye/farewell to thee. Thank you dad for this that has been bestowed upon me. I plan to use this to make my home a warmer and more comfortable home for me and my family to live in. I can finally get my woodstove to keep us warmer in those long winter months.”

And all along inside my mind, I am thinking, "The Fucking Monster is Dead". This may not seem much to anyone else, but to me it means that I will never have to look at that man and feel shame ever again. When my father died, it was a break in my past. At this point in my life, I realize that this whole event gradually turned me in a direction that left me feeling free. I am home.

The only thing that I thought I was doing in life was simply looking for answers and everybody turned their backs on me. I was shunned for asking too many questions. I was trying to grasp what ever understanding I could out of this life that I was birthed into. I was thrown into the life of a clan and had to fight my way through my whole life feeling shame for not being more like them.

So you see, this little black book and my newly acquired $20,000 is my new beginning. I can be me again.