heartbreak alley

my relatives have a tendency to visit, dead and alive

one of these days i’ll be posting dogs instead of cats but i need to move and get a dog first.

Nostalgia through senses, ugh - this could be written every day because these feelings are eternal.

i visited my parents before work today. they reside in the house my grandmother resided in. the front porch is parallel with a window she’d sit by in her recliner and peer out like the neighborhood watch. growing up, when she saw it was a family member coming up her steps, she’d yell from her chair now you get on in here and give me some sugar. southern to the core, through and through. and she’d meet us at the front door and it was always, and i mean always, no matter how fragile she became, the best damn hug full of the purest love and unadulterated joy and i hear that voice and i feel that hug every time i visit them.

on my walk, i passed someone smoking a cigarette and chills poured through my body. sometimes, just sometimes, that smell is so perfect and exact to my great grandmother and her kool 100s. i cry instantly almost every god damn time. she was the matriarch of the family. wise words - it was nothing but wise words and wise jokes. occasionally as a kid i’d spend the night on her faux leather couch. she’d wake for her 2am vicodin fix and sit at the breakfast table for an hour or so before heading back to bed. i’d meet her there and sit in the quiet with her. she’d pull out a cigarette from her real leather pouch. i’d watch every movement her aged hands made. i watched the way she brought a cigarette to her lips, the way she’d light it, the way she’d reach for the deck of cards always on the table and the crown royal purple bag full of pennies, the way she’d lay each card as she set up a game of poker for us to play. maybe she’s why i get up so early. i crave the quiet.

someone at work was wearing biosilk - the scent of another grandmother. emotions hit the surface. don’t cry at work. don’t you dare fucking cry at work. i lived with her briefly over a decade ago, but most days it still feels like last week that i was having coffee in her garden as the cats continue to sleep in the window. my time there was special. often lacking motivation to persist and fueled by depression, if i wasn’t in the garden, i was at the ocean. so many classes were skipped as my car inevitably took ocean avenue instead of college boulevard. getting a letter in the mail claiming i was on academic probation was a reality check i needed but not the reality i wanted. no, no. i didn’t need it, but to continue going through the motions of what’s expected, i did need to get my shit together, so i signed the check with scribbles and grew up. goodbye, ocean. but i had her. and her voice with her stories. and her scent with her garden. and her love for life that continues to be my momentum. stop wearing biosilk at work, maria. you’re killing me softly.

i’m crying as i write this and i’m fucking over these constant emotions that are always right there on the surface. it’s now a blurred line that will never be clear and crisp again, and i can feel the tension in my face, radiating through my ears, and the lump in my throat that won’t go away no matter how many gulps of coffee i take. nothing stops.

i smelled my great grandfather in the parking lot. someone’s truck smelled like an auto mechanics shop and it was the epitome of his garage. the smell, the grease, the rust. i can see it all and hear his voice as i breathe it in. he was a logger back in the day, a true lumberjack, and had every tool imaginable, always repairing skidders and forestry machinery of sorts. i may have lingered too long near the truck, but in that moment, i don’t think i cared if i made the guy sitting in it uncomfortable. i’m selfish. i needed it.

I’m going to go watch some garbage tv now. Maybe the new season of rhony or something to get my mind elsewhere.