MeliGoesRogue

I did not consider the weight of those words as I hovered over the book now button and yet the words printed on the freshly green aluminum over our heads as the car drives are stinging and causing my breathe to catch in my chest.

The clear blue water rushes the rocks and heads for me as I sit upon it wondering what has been done and what there is left to do.

Therapy she says, perhaps closure. Each kilometer a suture threading my skin, my face contouring with each pull on the taut skin of my very soul.

I loved her so much. She was for such a time the sun and the moon. I was her puppy, depending on her for sustenance love and encouragement. Forgetting her wrongs as quickly as they came by simply not knowing any better.

When we become adults we begin to assign blame for this mis steps in our lives that so often lead to terrible consequences. The only evidence we have are the memories we imprinted all that time ago. Except now the lens we use to view those memories have the rest of our experiences fogging the view. Understanding now the ramifications of what those moments were flood our conscious mind and we begin to shiver at the awakening.

I once heard that our lives our like a recording on a cassette, we cannot simply erase, instead we must rewind and re-record. As the shuttle departed the airport that was once big and now seems a small footprint, the feelings begin to well up within me.

I remembered this road so long ago, so much smaller was I in the front seat barely able to look over the dashboard to see the road beneath our frame.

For so long those memories have had such a hazy film over them. Some part of me has missed them. I have held on to my anger because it was the only way I could reconcile in my heart how those moments which no longer exist would not bury me in sadness.

Traveling has taken and given so much to me and I have realized that all the different grounds which my feet tread are memorialized in my mind with neurological pathways. It is not my sentimentality that brings tears to my eyes as we pass the Cancun sign it is my brain remembering a path it took so many times even if it was so long ago.

I could feel the weight of his little head falling slowly on my arm as his eyes gave way to the rocking of the van and the warmth of his Madina safe at his side. The innocence and dependence in his action reminded me of my vulnerable state as a child coming to this country with my Madina. The tears bursted thru the vault I had locked them in and began to pour down my face. The noise behind me beginning to oscillate as I moved in and out of my memories. Vivid flashbacks of me in that green Volkswagen. Remembering that same trust I had laid bare in that four poster bed for my nap.

Damn this hurts. My memories have gone into sepsis and the only way out is thru, so I wipe the tears as the driver tries to reach for my hand but pulls away before our skin touches. I’m glad he stopped. I don’t want to be touched right now.

In the movies there is this moment where a montage of memories plays for the audience to see. I have that montage running thru my mind. Wandering the Omni hotel by myself and somehow always finding myself at the omelet station~ “Jamon y Queso” I would say in the biggest voice I could muster. Or the summer camp where I learned how good I was at swimming, and remembering how angry the boys were when I would beat them…more I remember were the names they would call me. The Chinese food in Kulkulcan or the stage I strutted down in the gallery below. Fresh squeezed orange juice and questions. All these incredible and painful memories are raveled up and super glued together.

I hope no one is reading this anymore. I hope everyone (aka three people) stopped once they realized this wasn’t about my vacation in Mexico but rather the reprogramming of my mind with Cancun in my view.

I thought I wanted to re-record. But I can’t. I am this woman because of those experiences. I was grown up and old. I was young and innocent.

I am the result of love and obsession of possession and of abandonment.

I hate her because I miss her and I miss the love that was once my sustenance. Where I could have been lost she shined the light on me. But when I grew she couldn’t grow with me and I couldn’t have stayed the 7 year old in awe of every breath she took.

Our relationship left the road that was paved and descended down the road of rocks and sand. Curving and dipping with no warning, the sunlight blocking our view from the danger ahead.

Nearly 15 years since the last time my feet touched that sand. Who is the girl that stood before the expanse of that ocean, what did she see in the big blue that day. I remember that day perfectly, the sound of the ocean, the smell of the sunblock she made me put on before we left the house. The warm embrace of the breeze against my skin.

As I wrote these words my mind wandered to that spot on the very dusty bookshelf and I quickly caught the blue and green. This is what I found within its bookmarks.

I have held Isla Dorada tight to my chest. There are still moments I wonder if that tree I planted as a tiny girl still sits near the lagoon. Does it remember my hands pressing the dirt upon it. I can’t keep going..my eyes are tired and my heart is pleading for rest. I place the album back to collect dust and I cuddle my Tricolor girl and settle for the rising and falling of her chest.