Tag Archives: secrets

Fathers are people

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4/4/12     11:55pm

What does it mean about me that I keep the only framed picture of my dad under a stack of pajamas in a dresser I never open? I just rediscovered it quite by accident. I can’t breathe.

SHAME. What does that mean about me? (crying)

The man never did anything to me. He’s been dead over 10 years. And I hide his picture. There are no pictures in my house, of anyone. Just empty picture frames. In the picture my dad looks happy, healthy. Half-smiling with his siblings. I just wanna hug him. Please, God. Please… Send him back to me. Like last year at jazz. I hear him. Not him healthy. But him.

The picture is of -, Dad, # & Danny. – doesn’t talk to me. Dad is dead. Danny killed himself. And I don’t know how to contact #. She doesn’t seem to hate me. I hated that picture because – sent it to me. But it’s special. The only pic I have of my dad healthy.

I wish he wasn’t a secret. That I could’ve shared my life with him instead of lying. Everything. Fathers are people not secrets. So are daughters. I didn’t want my mom to see the picture so I hid it. Guilt. Shame. Longing.

He’s not real. GET THAT AWAY FROM ME. (pause) Let me be. Please, I don’t want him to see me. I love you, Dad. Back in the drawer now.

I should plaster my walls with pictures. Start making life real.

© Michelle Routhieaux 2012

Writing Towards Happy

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9-6-11     8:03pm

What is happy? What does it mean? What does it look like? I ask myself today.

I’m sitting in Domino’s waiting for a pizza. I don’t even want a pizza today, but Mom does. So we’re here.

Someone asked me at a party recently, after several hours of conversation, “Have you ever been happy?” I paused. “What exactly do you mean?” I asked. He just stared at me. How long does it have to last to count? And what if it goes away? And what kind of question is that anyway? (An awesome one.)

Have I ever been happy?

I remember moments of happy. I know what happy feels like. Largely in part to the two blog posts What does happy feel like? and What makes me smile automatically? I know when I feel happy. I don’t feel it often now.

Which got me thinking. I write a blog called Writing Towards Happy, but I’m not happy and it’s hard to remember what it is. Doesn’t that make me a hypocrite? I sat and thought for awhile and recalled having this discussion before with myself.

The goal is to get to happy, Michelle. You don’t have to be happy now.

Gosh, that’s a relief.

I need to go back and read some of the stuff I posted last year. I think it may unlock some secrets and push me further along. I need to unlock some secrets. They must stop eating me. 

© Michelle Routhieaux 2011

I am not a priest!

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9-6-11     6pm

Email is like being God and hearing prayers every moment of the day. I don’t get to choose whose sending to me. I don’t get to censor what they say. But every moment of every day people are sending things to me.

Sometimes I wonder what possesses people to send things to me. I understand with what I do why people share their stories with me. But some days it baffles me. I get emails with peoples’ life stories. I get text messages full of symptoms and disease. Random people call me up for info and share their deepest darkest secrets. People on the trolley share their secrets with me.

WHY? WHY?
Seriously.

I understand why people share with me. But I am not a priest!

© Michelle Routhieaux 2011

I dabble in the secret things

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9.4.11   10:20pm

I dabble in the secret things.
They are my specialty.
The things one mentions not in light, not in reality.

I dabble in the secret things that make men twist and cry.
The shame that no one talks about that hides within your eye.

I dabble in these things ’cause I have secrets of my own.
They tremble at my footsteps.
They know that they are owned.

But still these secrets eat me, follow into the night.
They fill my soul with worry they might one day see the light.

And so I keep to other’s secrets as my great specialty.
And I hope that no one finds out what is secretly eating me.

© Michelle Routhieaux 2011