memoir

was blind, but now i’m free

~ GennaClaire ~ 12 Comments
two young girls in matching easter dresses
My sister and I wearing matching dresses on Easter morning, holding chicks from our baskets

Growing up, on the Saturday before Easter, I’d sleep with sponge rollers in my soft, blonde hair. It was awful. Like having rocks for pillows.

My mom would let me pick out a new dress from Penney’s or Uptons to wear on Easter Sunday. Sometimes a matching bonnet. Other times an oversized bow. My favorite Easter dress was a white fluffy number with a full skirt decorated with purple ribbons. There were tiny bells sewn into the inside hem, so I jingled softly when I walked.

We’d take family photos on the front porch before going to the early service. It was one of my favorite times to be at church. We sang hymns you didn’t hear the rest of the year. Lord of the Dance. The Easter Song. Morning Has Broken. Because He Lives.

There was always a warmth to Easter.  Sunlight poured through the stained glass windows.  The sanctuary, adorned with white lilies and rich purple tapestries. And even if you didn’t make it to church all year, you showed up on Easter Sunday.

That’s because it’s a day for redemption.

Because a year’s gone by and we’ve screwed up. We’ve done wrong. We’re failed and flawed. But on that day, on Easter Sunday, we’re reminded that we’re free.

And so we wear white and we wake up early and we slick back our hair and shine our shoes and we pile into church. And as we sing those hymns, as the organ plays and the choir sings, we let the sweet notes of grace and glory wash over us.

It’s a beautiful feeling.  When the burdens fall from your shoulders, the shackles from your ankles. When the weight you’ve been carrying is lifted gently away.

Easter reminds us how beautiful it is. To be forgiven. To be loved. To be set free. Forever.

a girl broke my heart

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It was a girl named Katie who first broke my heart.

She wasn’t the one I loved, I guess. Not in the diamond rings and white dresses and ‘till death do us part’ kind of way.

I loved her the way any unassuming 16-year-old loves a friend. With commitment and endlessness and simplicity, I suppose. I loved her in a ‘I hope you’ll hold my bouquet and adjust my train one day’ kind of way.

We celebrated the middle of March each year by buying each other a gift. We laughed at jokes that no one else found funny. We slept on each other’s floors on the weekends. Stayed up until all hours of the morning telling secrets and believing the world was ours.

And I told her things I thought only she could understand – the way I felt about the boy I was seeing. That I adored him. That he was consuming me. That I thought he was the one. That I finally felt ready to have sex with him. That I completely lost myself in the euphoria of him.

I told her those things. All those things. Every last moment. Every detail.

Those were the things I thought only she would understand.

She did understand.

Only later did I realize just how well.

I went away for school and left the two of them together. The boy I loved more than anything and the girl I trusted with everything.

And they found each other.

And they forgot about me.

Time came and did the best it could to heal, but I still cannot think of the gruesome details without wanting to buckle over and vomit.

The two of them fucking in the back of his small green pick-up. Pulled over in Hurt Road Park, judged by only little league fields and empty concession stands. How many times did he pull away there with me as only the faintest reality suffocated in the back of the his head? Or hers?

For a while I was so sure he broke my heart. I thought it was he who shredded me up inside.

But years later, I’ve long forgotten him. Him and his selfishness and his perfection. His opinions and his qualifications. I never quite got a hold of him. He was always just out of reach

But I remember her. That girl, the one whose breasts he groped and kissed – that was my best friend. The brown eyes he stared into once told me I could trust them with all my secrets. The dark curls he wrapped his fingers around, I pinned them in an up-do for her prom. I pulled them out of her face for her own father’s funeral.

What a fool I was to fall for her.

Sure, it hurt that he would do that to me, but boys break hearts. I knew every moment of that relationship that he was going crush me.

But your friends, they’re supposed to be the ones who pick the shattered pieces of you off the ground. Not the ones holding the sledgehammer.

It was my best friend Katie who pulled the trigger and walked away. It was my best friend Katie who dug the knife in my back then twisted it around. It was my best friend Katie who first broke my heart.

enjoy the show

~ GennaClaire ~ Leave a comment
Turner Field in Atlanta Gerogia
Turner Field, Atlanta, GA

I was raised on baseball. Each year, my Dad would take me to a handful of Braves games at Fulton County Stadium. Sometimes we’d make a day of it, visiting The Varsity or the World of Coke on the way.

We’d park in one of the $10 gravel lots a few blocks from the ballpark. And while we strolled by walls of graffiti toward the stadium, Dad would look at me wide-eyed with a smile and jokingly say, “Did you remember to bring the tickets?”

We sat in the upper deck, along the third base line. He would sing with enthusiasm to “Centerfield” while the team warmed up. Put me in coach! I’m ready to play today…

During those nine innings, he showed me how to score a game. We talked balls and strikes and outs. Curve balls and sinkers and sliders. Bunts and steals and double plays. I loved learning all the intricacies of baseball. Like it was a secret only meant for he and I to share.

We’d wave foam tomahawks in the air as the sun beat down on us. We’d eat boiled peanuts and soft serve ice cream out of plastic Braves helmets.

I was always restless and full of energy. By the bottom of the third, I’d be squirming in my seat. And we’d be walking the length of the stadium after the sixth.

We’d stay the whole game even if there was no hope for Atlanta to come back. We’d stay until all that was left was empty plastic cups and peanut shells.

To this day, every time I watch Atlanta play on TV, it’s like I can almost smell the hot dogs, the fresh-cut grass. Feel the roar of the crowd, the thickness of the southern air.

I’ll call my dad whenever something exciting happens. And for a moment, it’s like we’re back there together. Just enjoying The Show.

i’m yours

~ GennaClaire ~ Leave a comment

“I’m yours.” That’s what she wanted to say to him. I have been ever since we sat and spoke together. Ever since we moved past hello’s and harmless flirtation.

That first real conversation that was slightly deeper than superficial, when I caught a casual glimpse at the depth of you, the beauty of your spirit, the kindness trapped behind weary eyes. The strength earned from being a survivor. I was yours just then.
But I cannot say it. I cannot utter those two words. I would be condemned to you, you with too many monsters to take on love. Too many ghosts haunting you, too many burdens to bear. You can barely keep your head above water. The weight of this might sink you all together.

a toast to failed plans

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On that particular New Years Eve, they dressed up in pressed collars and stiletto heels and waited in line in the cobblestone streets to get inside. But the line did not move as the clock ticked on toward midnight. So they abandoned their plan, grabbed a frozen pizza and a bottle of champagne and headed back to the apartment.

They spent the rest of the night sitting on the carpet in front of the television, sipping bubbles, holding hands and watching the East Coast celebrate from Nashville to New York.

She knew then, with absolute certainty, it was going to be a good year.

love heals all wounds

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The worst part is never when something terrible happens. It’s the first time you wake up afterwards.

After my heart broke, I cried until my body ran out of tears, literally dried up my emotional well. And then I sat in my bed, knees clutched to my chest, eyes open wide – staring at nothing – and rocked. Back and forth. For hours.

I suppose at some point my conscious numbness conceded to my body and I fell asleep.

It’s waking up that’s the worst. The moment you think maybe that was just a dream, then slowly process that it wasn’t. And the realization is stabbing. And choking. As if someone is taking your insides and wringing them out like a washcloth.

But on that morning, when I woke up in my college apartment, the walls were covered with words. Words of hope. Quotes I loved. My sweet roommate snuck into my room before I woke up and filled that place of sadness with kindness and friendship and concern.

I don’t remember all of them, but I remember the largest, written in bright green across the middle of my mirror.

This too shall pass.

And despite my bloodshot eyes and knotted stomach and heavy heart, I could not help but smile.

(Image source: Modern Hepburn on Tumblr)

to dad

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When I was a little girl with polka dot bows and Velcro shoes, I always knew when the hydrangea bushes, lining the side of our little blue house, would bloom. Every year, it was late May or early June. My dad told me they were blooming just for me – to wish me happy birthday.

Now every time I see those big round clusters of violet and blue flowers, I can’t help but think of him. And how he taught me to appreciate the world around me and wonder at its beauty.

(Image source: Better Homes and Gardens.)