Field Notes - wires

Field Notes From the Woods

Day __?

2024

I remembered on Thursday night

I realized I failed to protect her

Because of my own willingness to be in denial 

I must remember to fix this about me

I must remember to not try and change him or another person

The standard expectations so low

Putting our daughter in danger

But my relief over it is what is ruining all of our lives… 

I need to remember that just because it was said does not mean its true

I must remember to make sure I checked for my part in the case it is true

The stony fear

The shut down

The prayers to god

The panic

The lack of embarrassment I have when faced with danger to my child

I called a friend to go into our house, no pride, just needed help, a solution

Once I know she is ok, I fold. I can’t have the rage of what made me call for help

There is no room.

I am in rage at myself for excusing him

I must remember not to excuse

But also I need to remember that its not my job to be like the big grown up doling out excuses because the goal is coexisting?

Well, no. The goal is to feel I matter.

I need to make sure I am also showing him he matters.

I thought I did that often before even thinking about if I did it. 

But, I am experiencing things as me and not him.

I will ask him. 

Why am I angry at him, then? The pardoning I gave him that he never asked for.

I only recently noticed how many forgivenesses had been handed over that were not requested.

He did not say a sorry before I said a forgiveness.

I damn well know how forgiveness works and what I am handing out is not forgiveness but management. I should stop calling it forgiveness. I have been a lot better about using the correct names for things. 

This rush home with the wrong fucking milk. 

The urgency to hold my baby who I heard cry fearfully through the remote monitor on my phone

I could not help 

I wanted to get to her sooner

And say - I am here. I am here. I’ll stay awake and you can sleep. 

When I did get to her

He told me to be not intense, then ‘intense’ became more words more intense than prescribed intensity to me.

I pardoned all that before I was asked for pardon.

So, it is not forgiveness I should say, I’ll stick with pardon until I find the right word.

I swear it’s like a dry drunk.

Needling about ‘intensity’ which by any other name would be ‘relief.’

But to call it relief would mean I was relieved of something and that something would be what he did to cause the part that ended in relief, not something worse.

He requests my silence by using wrong words.

Be silent because a tree is a mushroom.

Shut up because your fear is inconvenient. 

Be smaller because though a fire started - calling for help to have it put out and calling for outside help crossed his comfort.

And see? Look at me now, adding more to the fire with this relief that we shall call ‘intensity.’

I really should know this all already.

He will allow me to scramble while he stares at his new phone

Consideration only if it fits his mood

I preemptively went to solve the wires that came loose and other chords around in the case this happens again.

But, obviously there won’t be that case because how can I ever attend a work event again if from eight miles away I can watch her twist and cry in wires banging his hungover body.

Why does he never wake up even when banged and shaken

I wake up often right before the moment she does

I should make sure that is not a sign I am too intense.

I had to move the cardboard box that contained my mother’s day gift from him.

The gift was a toilet, still sealed in a box 

He started using it as a place to put his stuff after he would come home from work.

I really and I mean this, cannot rightly care about that box or gift or toilet of whatever it is supposed to be in moments I came on the scene too late 

I would have been too late in the worse case

I would have been too late relieved as I am now.

That ‘gift’ is annoying now. It has gotten in the way of regular life.

I stop myself from reading it further. It is not intentional. It’s a box and life takes the lead.

These things happen.

But, do they?

Well I know they do, I also have projects I’ve not started in boxes but I don’t call them gifts.

I have things I’ve not gotten to, but I don’t rage if they are mentioned.

So somewhere in the middle, we are just different. That’s all.

If I am quiet and honest with myself instead of reasoning it away - that heavy brown obstacle containing a fucking toilet that was a necessary house replacement that would have needed to be got with or without a holiday for mother’s is a reminder I stub my toe on that I am maybe worth not much effort. 

I seem to be mildly worth my routine where I move around his words aimed at me and offer pardon with leaving all unsaid and going about my task of making sure I never again need to worry about chords and wires our child was stuck and wrapped in, crying and grabbing at her father’s legs to wake him up as I drove home as fast as I could, watching him stay asleep until I lost service at that bend in the road pretty close to home.

Who I called had arrived and left right before I pulled up. 

His anger spoke before I could.

How dare I intrude and call in an outsider. 

How dare I disrespect his right to sleep through our baby wrapped in chords he slept through.

And why exactly was I stalking him by looking at the baby monitor on my phone when I was supposed to be at work. 

I would have risked a bigger episode of danger that I am now accustomed to avoiding if I had told him that I would much prefer to go and work with peace of mind. 

But, when things that can lead to danger to a baby continue

You do what is needed or second best to needed

And check the live feed to make sure you don’t need to call for backup

Is there someone else I can make mention of this to - this problem where the need for making sure is considered?

Where is the place I can calmly reason out the part of the whole where I don’t have to reason that checking is reasonable after it has turned so routine that to not check would be dangerous.

If I had the freedom to say the logic

I would say

‘Because this is and has been and continues to be so unsafe.'

I don’t say that because pouring gasoline on the fire is stupid when the whole point was to make sure fires were put out.

I’m not so proud to trade relief from one danger in exchange for a new one

I’ve been here a while, I know my way around.

I put on a list that he will call resentments even though I don’t write it down

‘I really want to talk about some of the smaller things but the bigger things keep taking up all the space’

I’m not so unclear that I would bring up the really sweet and soft stuffed puppy precious to her left in the rain outside.

When calls for help and tangled wires were the priority,

But someday, maybe, I would like to ask

Ask in a sweet way, fake and fawning, ask he please care.

I want my life to be about the smaller things.

When I talk to the few others I do about this I always leave out the wires and glass and broken down doors and car keys thrown in the yard and being pinned down.

I talk about the stuffed puppy.

They all know about stuffed puppies left in the rain.

And that is my in - I can use discussion of the puppy and not have to say the other things.

I want to focus on this and not the other things.

Please care that she loves that stuffed puppy and I love it too because she loves it and that is two people who love something.

And you say you love those two people 

So, can you maybe remember to care?

I had nicely asked you several hundred times to remember to care

Maybe if I say it in front of a therapist 

The third party will give him new perspective

Because I know it is not intentional

And hey, sometimes caring just takes practice.

But I did ask that about a rug, a swim suit, bags of scattered trash

And I remember when I did it with a third party there 

I left thinking ‘my god, I must find a book to read about how to fix that I am a nag.’

And I did ask about the other stuffed bunny that was also molded by the elements or the turtle that got cigarette ash on it or the… 

I was directed by a wiser person than me to let people be who they are

I asked her how to do that and still not let precious puppies and bunnies become trash

She told me I can’t. That was one of a million ways I know she was telling me to leave and I simply do not think she understand I can fix this.

But I cannot tell her I can fix it because I know she will tell me I can’t fix it. And she is wrong even though she is really never wrong about these things because she was once me. 

I wish she would stop gently telling me that I cannot stop the stuffed casualties

But I can decide to be somewhere that relief is not an inconvenience and a cover for where ‘I’m sorry’ belongs.

I wish she would not remind me that I can decide to live where stuffed bunnies and puppies are kept well because they don’t live with two keepers - one who does not care and one who does.

Then if one is taken by the elements, I could feel sorry and have a short remorse before life goes on Instead of simply coming to expect they will be taken by elements and not occasional accident. 

Occasional accidents are forgiven before they occur. 

He is forgiven to avoid violence that can hurt humans.

Not just stuffed puppies and bunnies.

I really wish I could say the other things. But I can’t. It is a point of no return once I say it out loud. I tried it once or twice and had to backtrack because I quickly realized saying the other things out loud makes them too unfixable to look at myself and still choose to stay. 

If I say them out loud, they will know I made the bad choices and I won’t have more time to make sure I did all the things to try and fix it.

I looked at my notebooks and flipped open to a page at random after that day. 

Apparently later that night, behind the only still locking door in the house

After she was asleep

I transcribed dictionary definitions of words.

I did this regularly to make sure I was not confused when one word had been traded for another 

I did this to stay in some reality where I knew definitions but needed to double check I was not the problem.

I did this even though when I would find that words traded were really what I’d remembered but the fact checking did not change that I was still the problem or felt that way.

In the notebook I wrote out: 

Consideration- careful not to cause inconvenience or hurt to others, showing careful thought. 

Apparently I was not satisfied by this. The next line; ’definition of consideration in a relationship.’

Below that I had transcribed ‘consideration in relationship (from google)’ - ‘consideration is when a partner thinks about how their behavior affects the other. It is courtesy owed to the commitment. It is not to give all or do everything. It is an action to participate in reciprocal care between two people.’

I noted at the bottom like I was Newton and the apple just fell on my head- 

‘If I am preemptive doing everything and all, I am not giving him a chance to consider!’

And that was good that I negotiated with myself on this because it let me close the book and close the case for the night with a new plan for the next day on how I would make everything better. I would triumphantly make great effort to stop getting in the way of letting him consider by taking his opportunity for it away. Success.

Unfortunately, I did not execute my plan very well. The next night he was holding a glass bottle to my face trying to break it with one bare hand. 

It scared me, but I also wondered why he did not just hit me with it. What was the point of all that threat if he had the bottle in hand and the intention was probably to make me afraid. Why not just break it over my head?

I knew why, but it still made no sense because when I am angry I don’t think things through very well in the moment. 

I knew why because of how many times violence seemed to be so big but weirdly in strategy of avoiding the outcome of a hospital visit or blood, or me being unconscious so I could not put her back down when she woke. 

I can’t assert that for certain, I can only use the collection of the many many times 

And note the pattern and arrive at possibility.

I wonder how scientists turn research into fact. 

That would be a helpful method to use so I could use certainty and not guessing.

And with certainty I could conclude without doubt that I needed to take our child and get the hell out of that house. 

Science or method is much more safe than saying the things out loud which marks a line I don’t yet know how to cross. 

I leave all the time with her and our things, is that not enough for now while I use science and method?

I am keeping her safe, mostly. 

I want her to have her dad and when he is so nice it seems worth it all to see her feel so loved. 

I want him to remember that all this garbage is not the point. The point is this gift of the greatest thing inside this home. Why would anyone hurt or terrorize a greatest gift.

Since it makes no sense I can assume I have not yet found the answer for the fix.