From the Diary of Liz Jackson ...
Date ___________
How strange, really. To be sitting here like this. Once, Jethro and I were in Serbia and I looked at him and said "I'll never ..."
He cut me off. "Never say Never, Jenny. Never say Never."
A lifetime ago, with a different name, a different life, a different world. Sitting on a porch while we waited for the world to come crashing down all for the purpose of catching a terrorist. If only I'd known then how it isn't terrorists we need really to fear but our own selves. Cliche, perhaps. But still valid. The terrorists have always been there - be it with arrows or guns or bombs or drugs in the middle of the night. If I'd known then, I might have walked away from all of it, changed up my five-point-plan. I was so fucking determined to rule the world that I never stopped and asked myself if what I was doing was just as detrimental to the world as what these terrorists were doing.
Never say never? Sometimes you have to. Back then, I never stopped to listen to the voices of my better angels.
A while back, I forced myself to stop and listen. A while back, my heart was broken.
I knew better with her. I knew better because she is me. Because in her eyes I saw every single choice I made myself and I saw the route I'd have gone if the world hadn't crashed around my shoulders. I saw the determination to rule the world. I still see it every time our eyes meet across a Skype screen or every time we are face to face. She has her plan. Work. Husband. Children. Ruling of the world. Somehow she got the world to accept her coming back. Somehow she has stood tall among the bullets that fly. Somehow. And had I been there, I too would have stood tall. I would have created that world for myself. I've no reason to be angry, no reason to be bitter, and once my tears subsided I came to realize that my frustrations at her were only in fact frustrations for myself. I came to wonder if what we love about each other is not simply our love for each other, but also that life we could have led had something gone just slightly differently. For her, the peace. For me, the chase. Sides of the same coin. Remembrances that life for us was woven in choices made twenty years ago. Forever we will be friends, sisters more than lovers - though I do not regret those few days when we could have made the choice to be more. Forever we are a piece of the other. And I do not think that I could have opened my heart the way that I have without what she gave me.
And so I have this new world, this new heart, and it is a heart that includes a daughter. How strange. I once thought Jaime would be that daughter and she is, but from a distance. The God-Child. The reminder that my heart is and will always be not completely my own. And when I see her I hold her so tightly because she is that next life, that heart, that soul. But in the short time I've had Lindsey at my side, she has become that daughter to me. Her mother is more than half a heart to my own but a reality. A reminder that we are not only supposed to love, but we can love as well. That illness does not mean an end. That pride is something we are allowed, but only in small doses. It wasn't until Catherine that I realized it was not fear but instead pride keeping me from love. I used to think I was scared to let people see my deterioration. Now I know that I was too prideful of who I portray myself to be. Strong. Independent. Refusing the help I know I need. There was some sense of glory in it. It's stupid, really. I'm healthier since I've allowed that bit of pride to slip away.
My only heartbreak is that yet again, I am with someone who can't be here all the time. It's easy to let the pride rise in those moments. It's easy to forget that in all of this, I don't always have to be the woman I used to think I wanted to be.
How strange, really. To be sitting here like this. Once, Jethro and I were in Serbia and I looked at him and said "I'll never ..."
He cut me off. "Never say Never, Jenny. Never say Never."
A lifetime ago, with a different name, a different life, a different world. Sitting on a porch while we waited for the world to come crashing down all for the purpose of catching a terrorist. If only I'd known then how it isn't terrorists we need really to fear but our own selves. Cliche, perhaps. But still valid. The terrorists have always been there - be it with arrows or guns or bombs or drugs in the middle of the night. If I'd known then, I might have walked away from all of it, changed up my five-point-plan. I was so fucking determined to rule the world that I never stopped and asked myself if what I was doing was just as detrimental to the world as what these terrorists were doing.
Never say never? Sometimes you have to. Back then, I never stopped to listen to the voices of my better angels.
A while back, I forced myself to stop and listen. A while back, my heart was broken.
I knew better with her. I knew better because she is me. Because in her eyes I saw every single choice I made myself and I saw the route I'd have gone if the world hadn't crashed around my shoulders. I saw the determination to rule the world. I still see it every time our eyes meet across a Skype screen or every time we are face to face. She has her plan. Work. Husband. Children. Ruling of the world. Somehow she got the world to accept her coming back. Somehow she has stood tall among the bullets that fly. Somehow. And had I been there, I too would have stood tall. I would have created that world for myself. I've no reason to be angry, no reason to be bitter, and once my tears subsided I came to realize that my frustrations at her were only in fact frustrations for myself. I came to wonder if what we love about each other is not simply our love for each other, but also that life we could have led had something gone just slightly differently. For her, the peace. For me, the chase. Sides of the same coin. Remembrances that life for us was woven in choices made twenty years ago. Forever we will be friends, sisters more than lovers - though I do not regret those few days when we could have made the choice to be more. Forever we are a piece of the other. And I do not think that I could have opened my heart the way that I have without what she gave me.
And so I have this new world, this new heart, and it is a heart that includes a daughter. How strange. I once thought Jaime would be that daughter and she is, but from a distance. The God-Child. The reminder that my heart is and will always be not completely my own. And when I see her I hold her so tightly because she is that next life, that heart, that soul. But in the short time I've had Lindsey at my side, she has become that daughter to me. Her mother is more than half a heart to my own but a reality. A reminder that we are not only supposed to love, but we can love as well. That illness does not mean an end. That pride is something we are allowed, but only in small doses. It wasn't until Catherine that I realized it was not fear but instead pride keeping me from love. I used to think I was scared to let people see my deterioration. Now I know that I was too prideful of who I portray myself to be. Strong. Independent. Refusing the help I know I need. There was some sense of glory in it. It's stupid, really. I'm healthier since I've allowed that bit of pride to slip away.
My only heartbreak is that yet again, I am with someone who can't be here all the time. It's easy to let the pride rise in those moments. It's easy to forget that in all of this, I don't always have to be the woman I used to think I wanted to be.