Don't feel you have to read any of the following unless you want to. I'm not wishing to force you at all.

This may not even reach someone, but I do wish to at least try. Is there any such moment of weakness, or an otherwise strange occurrence that you can admit has happened to you, but would never really speak of to others face-to-face for fear of rejection? I suppose the internet does allow some freedom to admitting such things, since for the most part, those who would read the admissions would have no real connection to your otherwise separate life in the real world. That is, of course, unless you allowed them into it in the first place.

I suppose, I just want to let some things out, and this is as good a place as any. No, they're not angst-moments, at least... I hope they aren't after finishing this, but I just want to kick it out and leave it there, rather than holding it in.

1) The Painting
Back when my family was still together, we once lived on a specific street in Memphis. I'm not giving out any more details than that to where it was, but this was one of the times I had my own room. Well, in said room, my dad had allowed me to hang a painting he had done in his earlier years. It was of a deer grazing in a wind-swept meadow. I still remember many of the details to it, too, as there was a log on one side of the rolling hill of grass, and a forest could be seen to the right and the left, nothing but blue sky in the middle behind the grass.

I do not remember the situation that brought this on, but I was lying on my bed, staring off towards the opposite wall where the picture hung. This was when my eyesight wasn't kept in check with glasses, so some things did get blurry often enough. As I stared at the painting, in a rather quiet household, I swore I saw the grass sway in a wind. Granted, there was some distance between where my head laid and the actual painting, and with my poor eyesight, anything was possible. But I swore that the picture had temporarily animated itself, and with it, the deer within and the very grass.

Sadly, I don't remember where the painting is now, but I would honestly love, on a quiet afternoon, to attempt to see beyond the mere paint and canvas and see the living art once again.

2) Terrifying Car Accident
It may not be as terrifying as being in the more serious of cases, where more damage is incurred, but growing up, it was enough. I was about 10 or 11, somewhere in the early double-digits, out with my father. We were just wrapping up fishing and he wanted to give me a try at driving. I was enthusiastic to actually try, and I suppose all kids are until they actually do it. Either way, we switched seats, and he gave me a destination: to drive down the small stretch of road and turn around in the parking lot at the end. It sounds simple, but usually things that sound simple never are.

I found out the hard way that it wasn't simple. I didn't know the workings of the car well enough. He only told me a little, and I'm not sure if I admitted to knowing of what to do or not. Either way, I turned the car on, and what I did afterwards was what messed me up. I held the brake in and shifted it into Drive, but I put too much power on the gas. The car jerked forward and panicked me. Now, the road I was driving on was rather narrow for two people to try and drive down, and on the sides were grass and some rocks. Especially to the right side of the car, there was grass, followed by large rocks near a docking ramp for boats.

The car pulled forward and my hands turned the wheel to the right. The flash of the Tennessee River near the car halted me as I slammed on the brake. We were like two or three feet before the grill of the small car met the river. To this day, I still remember that, and although my fear of actually driving dwindles, that won't be forgotten. I don't remember what happened afterwards on my part, but I do remember getting out of the car and having Dad back it up over the rocks. The car was dinged badly underneath, but it still ran.

3) Goodbye, Mother.
Looking back, I was spoiled, and a bit jealous/disgusted at my mother's choice. After my parents split up, I went with my mother and we moved into this... house that really wasn't meant to be divided the way the home-owner had. It was originally a larger house, but they put a wall to divide it into two to make more money by renting it. I lived with her from then until 2007 or so, when the figurative "s'" began to hit the fan.

My mother was hard-working before and after the divorce, and looking back now, I wasn't at all very helpful of her situation. I should've taken up the torch to try and help her, rather than just continue to leech off of her. But, regardless, she tried relationships with a few others as her way of trying to rekindle her youthful emotions once again. A few times, it didn't work out too well, but I suppose with this one man, she felt that she had to give it not one or two chances, but three.

I don't remember too much about the first two chances, but she had been seeing this guy... I don't remember how she met him. Either way, he wasn't quite the model man to be trying to hook up with. He was shifty-looking, shorter than her, and his former stance in a marriage wasn't too great either. Either way, she saw something in him that made her wish to keep trying, and eventually it began to become a greater presence. I was jealous of him, as I loved my mom and didn't want anyone else to take her. It was wrong of me to think of such a thing, but I know it wasn't right of me to act out as I did. I was hateful and overly expressive of my dislike of the fellow.

This went on for a few months until Father's Day came around. I asked my mom if she would take me down there to spend the day with him, if she would pick me back up the day after. I remember this because it was a Sunday, and she'd have the following day off. She agreed to it and took me down. Well, over the course of the day I spent there, I had a call-back from a job I had applied to, and my mom was a bit late in telling me this. The day passed, and then when the day-after came, I called her to ask her when she was coming to pick me up.

She told me then of the call-back, saying it was for the next day. Only catch to this good news was... she wasn't going to be able to pick me up. She had some last-minute plans with "that man" that took priority over picking me up. I blew up there, yelling at her on the phone. I even went so far as to hang up on her out of disgust. She called me back and said that it wasn't nice of me to do so, but I was still in a bad mood... I'm not sure if I did it again or if I said some rather hurtful things and then she hung up. Either way, the phone call ended again, and some time passed. From there, I received a third phone call from her.

"I've put your things in a bag and thrown it on the front porch," or something to that effect. She had called me to tell me she had thrown me out. My heart felt like it was like glass and breaking apart at the very mention. I sat on the front steps of my dad's house and just cried, contemplating dark thoughts of the nearby busy road... I admit to having had such thoughts before too, which is depressing in itself. However, my dad said he would want me to live with him since there was nowhere else.

Still, now... I wish it didn't come to that situation. I do enjoy and am greatly thankful for what he's done, but it's still making me more of a hindrance than anything to anyone that I cherish as family... I hope this changes come December, but we shall see... Either way, I had to claim my items, so we went to my mom's house. I wasn't going to give her the spare key to the house I had until she let me get the rest of my things, so we had to bring the police into the situation. My father wasn't making it better, and to this day, he and my sister still glares in disgust when we have to pass by her place. I've come to forgive her of what she's done, since I was the cause of it in the first place, but nothing will ever mend the relationship back to the way it was.

That's... pretty much it. I just really needed to get those things out. I don't care if they're personal or not... I just REALLY needed it out.

~ KT