The only easy day was yesterday.
(11/28/09)
The only easy day was yesterday. Every day becomes more and more of a challenge and easy is who you used to be.
“Why can’t this be easier?” Is exactly what I keep thinking as I spend another moment laboring over the task at hand. A thousand household duties to accomplish, each and every day. Not one task being less important than that of another. Some might possibly think ‘Ah, the simple life’ to spend day-in and day-out in the shoes of a housewife.
But you must understand I’m not your ordinary run-of-the-mill June Cleaver typical housewife. I may run about with the same old everyday chores keeping up the illusion of simplicity. Watching babes, cleaning rooms, mopping floors, cooking and laundry are just a few of the daily tasks that consume my remaining time here on this green Earth. Each day churning out the same remarkable wit and charm for the neighbors and loved ones as I use my God given talents to keep a household intact.
Little do the loved ones in my life know… the Truth? A Dirty Secret. A long hidden past that I try my best to hide in between dropping off the kiddies and picking up the dry cleaning. This wasn’t always the life for me.
Long before I was here… there was her.
Her? She came before me. The other one. The real mom, wife, housekeeper, the real servant to domesticity and this is her life that I’m living. Her life filled with PTA meetings, Betty Crocker cook-offs, and the weekly Family Church night.
But it’s too late for all the regret of my choice. There’s no turning back. I chose. Her death became my prison. Now I’m trapped in the jar of bells so to speak. And as odd as that sounds, it is the case. Somewhere within my tough unquestioning psyche was a glimmer of sympathy. There was a small piece of compassion resting in my dark soul. Some unnoticed need to resolve a conflict for someone other than myself.
Hope is the feeling of intuition that things won’t always be the same. It’s funny when that’s the truth of the matter.
Has anyone ever told you that you look just like someone else? Well maybe you do. Maybe everyone has a duplicate, a stunt double. There’s some other person that has absolutely no possible connection or relation to you and they are out there living, breathing and wearing you like a mask. To put this quite simply they’re wearing your face. Out there right now masquerading as you only it’s not your life. They are out there living this life that isn’t yours. A life so different and remote from who you are and what you know.
Don’t believe me? Maybe you haven’t had the opportunity to meet them yet. There are billions of people on this earth just hurtling through space. What are the odds that someone looks like you? Pretty slim, but not a completely unthinkable possibility.
There’s something to be said about taking ones own life. What do you do when you’re faced with your own mortality and it begs for its life?
Do you STOP?
Hesitate?
What do you do when you realize that’s you lying on the ground in the puddle of blood?
Your mind wandering as the blood that isn’t yours edges closer to where you stand.
Is it you dying?
You.
In the patent leather Hush Puppies with a responsible heel.
You.
With the button down grey cardigan with matching headband.
You.
Proper pencil skirt with the length falling just below the knee. The sheer absurdity of this square little stranger wearing the same face, same grimace and those damn unmistakable eyes.
You.
How dare you beg for your life?
“Show me!” I growl with outrage and grab the sniveling, bleeding cowardice version of me by the neck pulling upwards. Bleeding. Stubborn. Unmoving. With my gun drawn I motion her upward. “Damn you! Get up! Show me!” I continue to drag the unwilling victim.
Here I am trying to give this bawling sheep a reason to live and she refuses. All the sounds that escape from her are quiet no-no-no’s, but she moves. Can you imagine facing the judge and jury knowing you will be sentencing your own death? To say I could understand this woman’s reluctance, well I can’t because I’m not the one dying.
My injured twin leaves a trail of red spilling behind while we cross the open street toward a khaki colored minivan. Bleeding me points. Inside two babes; one, a boy not much older than a year, the other a small girl near the age of four. Both are crying. This bleeding mess of me whines more unintelligible noise. She’s going to die. It’s too late. I can’t help it. From the size and placement of the wound it’s certain she’ll be dead soon. Falling down the dying me, looks up and continues to reach hysterics. Decipher this noise. Dying. The children will be alone. I understand the noise. She’s afraid for the children. What can I do? Lean down and listen. Listen. For the answers. Listen. The final breathes. Listen. Hope I’m not wrong.
Can we be so different this doppelganger and I? Worlds apart.
As I recline in my chaise sipping a slightly chilled Arnold Palmer, I’m watching the children play beneath the willow tree. In this moment that fateful day seems so long ago. There’s no more death in the children’s life. Or mine. No sad moment of disappointment to get past. No disappointing past to destroy. The children live with a comforting knowledge that they have a Mother. My old life is worlds away. Perhaps I’m better for this change. It often crosses my mind whether I’m an enhanced version of her. Where things different? Keeping up with the illusion certainly is not easy. Do these differences really go unnoticed? Even if they don’t notice, I can’t go back to who I used to be. There are no open spaces to fill and my only role is the one I choose now.
Can a stranger really fall into the cracks and take over so simply without notice? Imagine it. Somewhere out there another person just like you, wearing your face, stepping into those shoes, filling a void where an opening had been revealed. Just like changing their clothes instead now they’re wearing you and it’s the last thing they will ever put on.