On Letting Go

The assignment? Write a letter to the girl who torpedoed me last year with her SUV, to write the damn thing and burn it. The order came on Wednesday, yet here I sit, on Saturday night, the task as-yet undone. I've begun it in my head, something like this:

Dear stupid bitch who effed up my life, (not really, that magically appeared when I started typing)

A year has passed since the day you hit me, the trauma that keeps on 'giving'.

I still can't believe you rear-ended me, in my two day-old Benz, nor worse, the insane way that you did it. When I tell the story, I get a dumbfounded look, and the typical reply of:

"You what?"

Eyebrows raised in still-astonished (and disgusted) agreement, I will repeat the bizarre, "I was hit from behind while driving down the road doing the speed limit."

"YOU WERE WHAT?" unfailingly comes the screech.

Yes, really. I was driving the speed limit, minding my own business, happy and satisfied, humming. After five months of arduous searching, I was finally in the perfect car. Then you happened along, barreling down the road (with a child in your belly no less!) not looking at where your 'missile' was headed. You endangered our lives, and for what? Were you texting? Reaching for something? Digging in your purse? 

Whatever you were doing, girl, damn you. Just. Damn you. You certainly damned me.

Do you understand that what you did was careless? It was dangerous, and negligent, and all sorts of stupid. You hurt me, and likely hurt you and your unborn baby. Does your jaw and face ache so deeply that you can't eat or think? Do you hobble from hip pain? Do your hands go numb when you're driving?

Do you think about the woman (ME!) that you hurt?

A less-enlightened me would say: I hate you and wish you harm. Yet how can I despise you, without despising me? I can't and I don't, though my body still carries the pain, and the poker-hot sear of anger.

I only hope that you learned a lesson and will never again endanger another life. This is my prayer. For you. And for me. May we be healed of any and all injuries - physical, mental, emotional and spiritual - that were sustained as a result of that ill-fated whack/attack.

Finally, may this letter mark the turning point from which I/we walk forward free: of restriction and pain, anger and blame, invisibility and unimportance and any remnants left nagging or undone.

Bygones.

And so it is. It is done. Thank you, God.

I will burn this letter, yes. But not in to obscurity. In to infamy. On my blog. For the record. For prosperity. But most of all, for the healing. Mine. Hers. And anyone else's who might happen along here and need it.

Let it go, dear body. Let the bitter, venomous outrage drain away, Master psyche. Let it go. To nothingness. And beyond. Let it go. It is gone.

In place is the memory of calm. And reason. And the deep, strong will to heal.

~ Olivia J. Herrell

No More Boxes

Another round of deaths have torn through my life: a cousin, once-close, and a friend, once a close party-buddy. We all ran in the same circle, lifetimes ago.

A third, his wife, passed sooner, when I was in California, a full seven years ago. In typing this now, I realize she departed the same year as my mother and step-father. The year my life fell apart.

In the midst of all this, I sit in my latest tomb, petrifying.

I am lost in a world that doesn't fit me, one I left thirty years ago, out-grown, even then. There is charm, but also an underbelly of stagnation, a community unwilling to let go of its past.

I go about my days, seeing patients, talking to friends and family, writing in a journal about things that don't matter. Extraneous observations. Nothing vital or earth-shaking. The same fluff and dross, day upon day.

I miss the diversity of big city living, the melting-pot of thinkers from around the world. I feel locked in a box. Once more.

Wherever I go, another box awaits, a line of code that keeps me scrambling through The Land of Empty Boxes. Each is distinctive, attractive and different from the last. Until it isn't. Restrictive, smothering, dead zones, all. Boxes. Nothing more.

If I must be at the mercy of a universal code, give me circles bubbling from the Master's Source.

No more boxes.

Calling All Readers: Is That You?

Blessed Are The Peace Makers will be ready for fresh eyes by midnight on June 30th. My birthday. It's completion is my present to me.

Yeah. I know. That's ten days. A lot has to happen to get there. But I'm here to tell you. June 30th. It's a-happening.

So here goes.

I need a reader. Well. Readers. An Alpha. Betas.

Is it weird that I don't have a special someone to ask? I don't. A few people have come to mind. Is it weird that most of them are men? I need both.

This is HUGE people. Why?

Not because I have three years invested in this book. Or because my heart and my guts are splashed all over it. Or that my words and my work will be on display in a way they have never been before.

Nor because people might not like it. Or that it might actually suck. Or I might suck.

No, none of those, though each are big in their own right.

It's huge because it's a lot to ask of a reader. It's no small thing reading a 90,000 word manuscript, nor is it trivial giving advice or opinions on the work. Especially if you don't end up liking it.

But I must ask anyway and I do so from the humblest of all positions. Many of my blogger friends have forgotten me. For good reason. Seldom, if ever, do I tiptoe through the Blogverse, and I haven't regularly in a couple of years. I even bailed to Wordpress for a while.

And yet. Here I stand. Asking for help.

Not just any help. Specific help. The novel takes place in the not-too-far-distant future. There is death. Impending destruction. Magic. Shape-shifting. Romance. Explicit sex, some same-gender. Aliens. And other fantastical situations.

By the way. Readers, by definition, are just that. Readers. You don't have to be a writer to be a reader.

So. Whaddya think? Willing to read it?

Yes? Wow! You're a-MAZING! Shoot me an email at droherrell@aol.com or leave a comment below. (If you can't, won't or don't, I still love you. I understand. Believe me, I really do. I'd love to hear your thoughts, either way.

Thanks y'all, YOU ROCK! Olivia J. Herrell