LEFT ALONE

"FALLEN IN AND OUT AND IN AND OUT and away from whatever I found, I was still searching for what would make me myself... satisfied with myself. I needed to be satisfied with my choices, satisfied with my environment," the chattering stopped for a moment before returning in a quieted chat within her own mind. While starting over was as easy as walking out the door, the decision was never finalized until after life had begun. Seven times started over. Seven times, life begun, and begun and begun... but I never held on to the life I started. Words flowed emptily into the airspace around her head, "It was easier to leave it all behind." Bone thin pallid arms swung out in demonstration, "...I wasn't made for the cooking and the cleaning, and the working only to turn my pennies over to someone or something else... " A cigarette flung itself across cement pavement, "...wasn't gonna make me happy. I was looking for my self."

She spew the words out as though from a script within her own mind; like something from an award winning film preview then looked up, sneered and threw the gift of baby's first walking shoes and stormed out through the front door slinging more words, "I don't have to," back over her shoulder. She disappeared up the walkway with a freshly lit cigarette passing from hand to mouth and back again like a skinny pale steam engine. It had been an unnecessary interview of sorts; a self interview of things she hadn't a need say.

*

Some fifty feet down the walkway, thought started up once again. "The military took the first part of me and only after it was reparted into the life of his nother woman did it become something serious. It was serious enough that I could not shake the implant... that other woman, out of my way. I could not shake the attention drawn away from me and that wrapped around the first life I'd created. That first man, child and woman scenario that created a world outside of the mandatory school girl lifestyle borne by so many in that first stage of life... that first, a duplicate of the second that caused me to go searching for that first mood, that first affection that embraced me for me; across a long line of past actions. I went back to find what was missing but could not put a finger on the actions that took my first life away. That first life of being loved, cared for and "the thing" important to the someone that gave me reason to be in life. somewhere in that time, it all changed and I could not find the purpose for needing to make a change for something better. No one knew except me and the mate... my husband, that helped to create it. The mate that made me a wife and mother, and now a dependent on his sustenence. I was being fed the residual from what my replacement was lavishing herself within... my replacement and my life under her control. She had my man and my child.That child, the first of six or seven, was the starting mark of love and adulthood. Being married to the man that made her, my child, my first; was a negligible part of BEING THERE. I was proud of that and proud of being a married, desireable woman. It was something my classmates assumed would never happen... the old "least expected to" routine. I had married, moved away, made a child that raised hopes in the heart of my man; and I had been accepted to his military friends group. I was a "Navy Wife." That is... or was, until he came in one night, took his navy everything and left for the ship he was stationed on. When he came home she came with him and I was ushured out. Navy trips usually span time and space with government importance taking their bounty of uniformed souls where it will. What that ship returns with in mind, act and idiom are all a fashion of what was taken in while out in the wilderness of military order. He came home with a would be comerade. She was someone who shared the experience of being gone. They were getting married... as soon as he could "cut me loose." The blonde hair that slung around her shoulders was no real prize as far as I could see... and the heavier weight towed by being his wife should have held a proper gravity with him and with rationale. It did not. He took his things... and her and left. He left me and the red haired doll that had sprung from my loins after so much "love" was shared over so much time. One and two years of love and love making, baby baking and smiles on a Florida beach should have more weight than a ship ride and bellowing megaphones with orders to drop an anchor or pull it up. I did not understand the system he was playing onto and I guess that was what pushed me over. In those first days and months, I thought he would be back. In that time the waiting became filled with tears and drugs to ease the pain of overthinking. In those months of waiting and "friend making" at any and all of the local bars I was accepted by many but cherished by none. I needed to be cherished... but by only that one; and he was not coming back. A letter of divorce arrived in the third month of his leaving. He was really expecting to marry that other woman.

Months of rent backed up on the home we had shared together and I moved in with a friend met over the time I'd waited for his return. We shared space near the home that was written up in his name and my friend covered expenses in exchange for my companionship. When my new friend left on boarding orders as well, I planned a trip back home, loaded up and drove back north in the SUV owned by my new friend. I returned to my mother's home... mom's apartment but was asked to leave because of her "manfriend" feeling insecure with two temporary visiting guests in his one bedroom apartment. We moved out into the street after searching my old hometown for classmates and help from anyone with an idea of how to make it alone... with a kid. With a kid... now in reach of his family, his little one's grandmom, his sister and classmates who would help feel my way back into the marriage and motherhood I rested so well within; I had my way out. I made a plan to make a grandmom trip. That trip to Pennsylvania, and again to Florida, but back again through Illinois to visit grandparents of the all. They were the extensions of my extensions into the world. My visits through each and every onw would serve to validate that I had been, that I existed in every one woman's life and family. After all, she'd have my child to prove it. Something about them all was just so annoying, more annoying than the trying to be within the close walls of my own mother. These mothers of men... grandmothers of my extensions of life were just annoying. Annoying for the foolish doting on a son? Just annoying. always there to correct or over correct the "younger woman." There to help with their unwanted assistance when like any other woman, all I needed was from their son to be the man I needed... not his mama. They were just a side ticket to spend... because they could never get the hint to get out of our way. Let him be the man. And they were all the same.. annoying. They were no better than the every now and then attempt at facing my own mom... another "older woman" who never saw me... never saw me past the eyes of her latest date. I could never stay with any mother and never with any of the men. I'd want my son... or daughter to be so loved. Someone they could be there for and know that they existed to a point. Know that their being there had a reason if only to be loved and give it.

"Why can't you just leave me alone!," I yelled that at one, two, three or more older women that seemed to always be haggling at me about responsibility and images. Them and their unfit sons had already caused irreparable damage to my life. I just wanted to be left alone. I knew I could get this thing right... if they could all just leave me alone. Keep their child, but leave me alone. They were all going to raise my children in my absence.

author's note: This is a story of OBSERVATION of another woman's personal struggle with maintaining her role as a woman in America's world of self expections. The author is not the focus.