The Real LJ Idol-A Glitch In The World
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She stared at the blinking cursor, where should she start? Norah Jones was playing softly in the background, her children laughed in the other room. She took a moment to procrastinate, clicking on random songs in her Itunes. Adele? Too deep. Aretha Franklin? Too soulful. Abba? Too disco-y. What the hell is a Vladmir Horowitz and how did it get in there? She double clicked the song and sighed as a Bach-ish musician pounded elevator music on a piano. She stared at her blank page. It stared back at her. Why couldn’t she start this story?
Because she was afraid.
She knew what she needed to write but she didn't want to, it hurt. But sooner or later you have to tell the end of the story and she was nearing the end.
And so, like any artist afraid of a blank canvas, she painted the first stroke…
I am a glitch….no that’s not a misspelling.
If you’ve followed my story up until now you’ve seen a glimpse of the life I left behind. I was destined to lie, to cheat, to steal, to break your heart. I was taught early that love was a slap in the face, a broken promise, being woken up in the middle of the night by screaming, fighting people and told in the morning that it was your fault.
People were never important; it was who could do what for you that mattered. Sleep your way to the top; discard them when they’ve outlived their usefulness. Cruelty is mandatory, it’s a cruel old world and only the strong survive. Look out for yourself, no one else is going to.
Hatred and anger, that was the way.
And at an early age I realized that something was wrong with me.
I would not be them.
I always felt like I knew something they didn’t. They thought that I was too damned soft and they were going to scourge it from me one way or the other.
I remember one time walking home from the bus stop in the middle of winter. We were living in the country at the time, in a small trailer park community in the middle of nowhere surrounded by farms. I had made my way through a shortcut I found between two of the smaller homes and was striding past a metal fence when I heard a trembling meow. I thought it was my imagination at first, no cats worth their salt would be out in that weather, then I heard it again a tiny meow muffled by the drifts of snow. I bent down and felt along the bottom of the fence, my gloved fingers starting to freeze from the contact with the icy cold. I felt a small breathing lump! I put both hands around it and pulled and up came a tiny orange and white striped kitten. I don’t know if it had been a late litter or how the small thing had come to be but it was freezing and it clung to my coat with a desperation only suffering animals seem to contain. I bundled it as tightly as I could and ran home.
You can probably guess what happened. My family was going to teach me a lesson. I argued, I pleaded, I was hit over and over as I begged for the baby’s life. I was finally forced to put it in the unroofed dog house in our backyard where we all knew it would die. Suffer and die. I tried to bundle it, I brought blankets and warm milk that froze almost the moment we went out into the night air. I brought food. I put together a makeshift roof using random items from our shed. But I knew, and they knew. I stayed up late into the night and listened to it cry, cry for me to save it. And I listened when it stopped crying. I woke up early the next morning and dug a hole in our backyard through the ice and the snow, deep in the cold ground. I tore my gloves, bloodied my fingers. I kept it in the blankets I had bundled it in. I didn’t mark the grave but to this day I could find it if I needed to. They patted my shoulders, told me it was all for the best. It wouldn’t have survived anyway; I had to learn that I couldn’t save everybody, best to learn it early. I had to look out for myself, stop trying to be a bleeding heart and toughen up. It was just a kitten after all, it wasn’t important.
That was the day I knew I was a glitch, different….because my heart was broken and all I could feel was the pain of its blue eyes as I washed the blood and dirt from my nails and prayed that it would forgive me for not being able to save it.
Years later my daughter Mary brought me a small flea eaten, wormy, starving, half dead black and white kitten she found roaming lost and alone near our house. His ribs were showing, his ears were full of mites, he was covered in bugs of various kinds, he had a sinus infection, eye infection and was having trouble breathing. With tears in her eyes she begged me to take him in, save him Mom.
His name is Willis; he weighs about 25 pounds now. He knows how to sit and roll over and he’s Mary’s best friend.
They didn’t cure the thing that was wrong with me.
She put her head down on the desk and cried. She hated that memory, it hurt. A lot of her memories hurt but wasn’t that what writing was about? Digging deep into yourself, pulling out everything you had and sharing them so others would understand? The door to the bedroom opened quietly, she felt Bill’s calming hand on her shoulder. “Okay babe? Need to talk about it?” She shook her head and smiled up at him, “I’m fine, this is just…it’s hard but I’m okay I need to do this.” He kissed her forehead, stroked the red curls, “K. I’m here if you need me.”
When the door opened again she could hear her kids laughing in the background and the sounds of “Dad! Dad! C’mere you have to see this!” Traces of last nights pot roast still lingered in the air, the furnace hummed merrily and her own cat, Ozma, purred loudly as she re-curled herself in the blankets on the bed.
She smiled to herself; she knew how she was going to finish it. It was right there in front of her. The past was always going to hurt, every time she remembered it. But writing it down helped. And her life was so different now.
My life is so different now. I’d like to say that I’m a completely different person, and in some ways I am. I’m happier. But I’m still a glitch, still not what I was supposed to be.
And they, those people from my past, aren’t the only ones who think so.
Who am I? If you've been here before you know part of me. I don’t feel hatred. I forgive everyone. I am completely at peace with myself and everyone around me. I am probably the most ridiculously peace loving person on the planet.
And someday it will probably get me killed, so I'm told. Isn't that the path for anyone who won't fight back?
The world, people, they seem so angry. And really sad. They want a fight; they want to hurt somebody else because they’re hurting. They want a reason, a justification, for their hostility towards others. And it makes them even angrier to have some short, round, Southern voiced, red-headed woman smile at them, hug them and tell them they are loved anyway. Or to have that same person, who they just made cry, shake her head sadly and simply walk away. It’s confuses people, it’s not right, it’s not normal.
It’s a glitch in the world.
I’m a glitch in the world.
Sometimes it hurts, almost more than I can bear. But more often I’m grateful and blessed to be able to see things, see life, in a way few people can. And to love in a way few people will.
I am one with my brokenness.
She reread what she wrote. She realized she made herself sound like a pariah, but sometimes that’s how she felt, alone, outcast. And yet, she was happy, even when she was at her loneliest. If being an outsider was the price she had to pay for the joy in her heart, she was willing to pay it. Besides, she thought, she was never really completely alone.
She hit the Save button, turned off her computer and opened the bedroom door to the sound of her family’s laughter.
Thank you to roina_arwen and beldarzfixon for the beta reads and feedback!
She stared at the blinking cursor, where should she start? Norah Jones was playing softly in the background, her children laughed in the other room. She took a moment to procrastinate, clicking on random songs in her Itunes. Adele? Too deep. Aretha Franklin? Too soulful. Abba? Too disco-y. What the hell is a Vladmir Horowitz and how did it get in there? She double clicked the song and sighed as a Bach-ish musician pounded elevator music on a piano. She stared at her blank page. It stared back at her. Why couldn’t she start this story?
Because she was afraid.
She knew what she needed to write but she didn't want to, it hurt. But sooner or later you have to tell the end of the story and she was nearing the end.
And so, like any artist afraid of a blank canvas, she painted the first stroke…
I am a glitch….no that’s not a misspelling.
If you’ve followed my story up until now you’ve seen a glimpse of the life I left behind. I was destined to lie, to cheat, to steal, to break your heart. I was taught early that love was a slap in the face, a broken promise, being woken up in the middle of the night by screaming, fighting people and told in the morning that it was your fault.
People were never important; it was who could do what for you that mattered. Sleep your way to the top; discard them when they’ve outlived their usefulness. Cruelty is mandatory, it’s a cruel old world and only the strong survive. Look out for yourself, no one else is going to.
Hatred and anger, that was the way.
And at an early age I realized that something was wrong with me.
I would not be them.
I always felt like I knew something they didn’t. They thought that I was too damned soft and they were going to scourge it from me one way or the other.
I remember one time walking home from the bus stop in the middle of winter. We were living in the country at the time, in a small trailer park community in the middle of nowhere surrounded by farms. I had made my way through a shortcut I found between two of the smaller homes and was striding past a metal fence when I heard a trembling meow. I thought it was my imagination at first, no cats worth their salt would be out in that weather, then I heard it again a tiny meow muffled by the drifts of snow. I bent down and felt along the bottom of the fence, my gloved fingers starting to freeze from the contact with the icy cold. I felt a small breathing lump! I put both hands around it and pulled and up came a tiny orange and white striped kitten. I don’t know if it had been a late litter or how the small thing had come to be but it was freezing and it clung to my coat with a desperation only suffering animals seem to contain. I bundled it as tightly as I could and ran home.
You can probably guess what happened. My family was going to teach me a lesson. I argued, I pleaded, I was hit over and over as I begged for the baby’s life. I was finally forced to put it in the unroofed dog house in our backyard where we all knew it would die. Suffer and die. I tried to bundle it, I brought blankets and warm milk that froze almost the moment we went out into the night air. I brought food. I put together a makeshift roof using random items from our shed. But I knew, and they knew. I stayed up late into the night and listened to it cry, cry for me to save it. And I listened when it stopped crying. I woke up early the next morning and dug a hole in our backyard through the ice and the snow, deep in the cold ground. I tore my gloves, bloodied my fingers. I kept it in the blankets I had bundled it in. I didn’t mark the grave but to this day I could find it if I needed to. They patted my shoulders, told me it was all for the best. It wouldn’t have survived anyway; I had to learn that I couldn’t save everybody, best to learn it early. I had to look out for myself, stop trying to be a bleeding heart and toughen up. It was just a kitten after all, it wasn’t important.
That was the day I knew I was a glitch, different….because my heart was broken and all I could feel was the pain of its blue eyes as I washed the blood and dirt from my nails and prayed that it would forgive me for not being able to save it.
Years later my daughter Mary brought me a small flea eaten, wormy, starving, half dead black and white kitten she found roaming lost and alone near our house. His ribs were showing, his ears were full of mites, he was covered in bugs of various kinds, he had a sinus infection, eye infection and was having trouble breathing. With tears in her eyes she begged me to take him in, save him Mom.
His name is Willis; he weighs about 25 pounds now. He knows how to sit and roll over and he’s Mary’s best friend.
They didn’t cure the thing that was wrong with me.
She put her head down on the desk and cried. She hated that memory, it hurt. A lot of her memories hurt but wasn’t that what writing was about? Digging deep into yourself, pulling out everything you had and sharing them so others would understand? The door to the bedroom opened quietly, she felt Bill’s calming hand on her shoulder. “Okay babe? Need to talk about it?” She shook her head and smiled up at him, “I’m fine, this is just…it’s hard but I’m okay I need to do this.” He kissed her forehead, stroked the red curls, “K. I’m here if you need me.”
When the door opened again she could hear her kids laughing in the background and the sounds of “Dad! Dad! C’mere you have to see this!” Traces of last nights pot roast still lingered in the air, the furnace hummed merrily and her own cat, Ozma, purred loudly as she re-curled herself in the blankets on the bed.
She smiled to herself; she knew how she was going to finish it. It was right there in front of her. The past was always going to hurt, every time she remembered it. But writing it down helped. And her life was so different now.
My life is so different now. I’d like to say that I’m a completely different person, and in some ways I am. I’m happier. But I’m still a glitch, still not what I was supposed to be.
And they, those people from my past, aren’t the only ones who think so.
Who am I? If you've been here before you know part of me. I don’t feel hatred. I forgive everyone. I am completely at peace with myself and everyone around me. I am probably the most ridiculously peace loving person on the planet.
And someday it will probably get me killed, so I'm told. Isn't that the path for anyone who won't fight back?
The world, people, they seem so angry. And really sad. They want a fight; they want to hurt somebody else because they’re hurting. They want a reason, a justification, for their hostility towards others. And it makes them even angrier to have some short, round, Southern voiced, red-headed woman smile at them, hug them and tell them they are loved anyway. Or to have that same person, who they just made cry, shake her head sadly and simply walk away. It’s confuses people, it’s not right, it’s not normal.
It’s a glitch in the world.
I’m a glitch in the world.
Sometimes it hurts, almost more than I can bear. But more often I’m grateful and blessed to be able to see things, see life, in a way few people can. And to love in a way few people will.
I am one with my brokenness.
She reread what she wrote. She realized she made herself sound like a pariah, but sometimes that’s how she felt, alone, outcast. And yet, she was happy, even when she was at her loneliest. If being an outsider was the price she had to pay for the joy in her heart, she was willing to pay it. Besides, she thought, she was never really completely alone.
She hit the Save button, turned off her computer and opened the bedroom door to the sound of her family’s laughter.
Thank you to roina_arwen and beldarzfixon for the beta reads and feedback!