I had planned on tidying my room tonight. Somehow that plan faded into the
laziness which epitomizes my days of late. Of how late? Of not that late at all … It’s coming up on
Friday now. Technically past
Thursday. Just short of a day from being a week away from when a man
forced me to have sex with him
against my will.
Put so bluntly down, it seems the furthest away from having an impact on my life. But it could. It could fuck me with disease. Define me in illness. Etch and stretch my body in pregnancy. Of course, I’ve taken what precautions I can. After the fact.
And then? Well, if time shows me lacking in physical scars – well then ! Then I’m home free, scott-free, off to be … Yeah. Getting away with it. Coz I can’t not feel that that’s what it’s like. Coz I can’t not feel that it’s really my fault. Hmmm.
Of course, anyone will say “No, Edel, it isn’t!” And they’ll say “How could it be?” And they’ll try and comfort me and not realize that I know.
When I was 12 and Mini got hit by the car she was chasing up our driveway – then, as now, I knew it was my fault. And as I sat and held her, with blood from my nose mixing with hers in the gravel, I cried. For I had let her out. We used to always let her out. But I had let her out, particularly this time, because I did not trust the man who had called to the door. And nor did she. And she got killed chasing his car. And I knew it was my fault.
I got away with it then though. With the same sickening feeling of guilt and falsity as I feel now.
It’s a little further into a technical Friday now. I really am going to have to tidy this bedroom soon. But, I’m held in the ever fattening inertia I’ve been succumbing to of late. How late is late?
Maybe I’ve always been this spoiled child – desperate for someone to pick me up when I fall from running foolishly. Who’ll pick me up this time? “Well it ain’t me babe.” I’m not so sure I can get away with fooling the world into giving me such an easy time of things. I’m not even really sure that the world is really fooled by me. Maybe it just lets me get away with the big things in exchange for the little things. I’m not so sure it’s not the other way ‘round, though.
You know what? I’m kind of scared to tidy my room. I kind of like living in this limbo state of not quite having moved in. Staying as the eternal guest – a visitor to life. Ha! I kind of like that notion – being a visitor, not only to this country, but in the very context of my own life.
So … it is now 6 days since that dreamlike event. My bruises are faded, my body feels stable. It is now 3 days until I find out my first test results. (“It is now 16 or 17 years since I first saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at the Palace in Versailles.”) Here’s to hoping I get away with it.
I still need to tidy my room though.