tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31110822196775312842024-03-13T07:03:11.247-04:00I Can't Come to the Phone Right NowShort stories inspired by Facebook postingsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger54125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3111082219677531284.post-81476590606410700502022-09-13T16:58:00.001-04:002022-09-14T09:58:45.439-04:00"This is definitely very cool."<p> Summer held on</p><p>While the leaves experimented changing their colors</p><p>While children filled bus stops with heavy backpacks</p><p>While apples ripened and hung heavy from branches</p><p>And summer held on</p><p>Like lovers terrified of the truths the fading light will bring</p><p>Like parents embracing their children suddenly aware of what time will take</p><p>Like the way one moment can burrow its way into your heart</p><p>And summer held on</p>Meleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559424221338845836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3111082219677531284.post-37981799281475558962022-07-05T07:21:00.001-04:002022-07-05T07:21:26.496-04:00I don't think I'll ever get there.I was at the bus stop. The kids clamoring behind me in the car. Arguing about something. Lunches or how I drove too fast or what pet we should get. I check my phone to see how late the bus is and see the email. You are telling me that a man who has been my mentor and longest lasting relationship outside of family has died. And not in the way you hope the people you love will die.<div><br></div><div>The sound in the SUV seems to fall away as I am flooded with memories of late night phone calls, encouragement, the sharing of dreams, that even with more then 25 years of history we never once were on the same coast at the same time.</div><div><br></div><div>The bus comes and I am alone in the car and I read the email again and again. Life and loss so intertwined. </div>Meleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559424221338845836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3111082219677531284.post-52798820208962899102022-06-06T20:13:00.000-04:002022-06-06T20:13:44.714-04:00"I will always value time over money. I will always value health over work. I will always value experience over wealth."The meeting had not gone well. Terry didn't like conflict and found himself needing to defend a decision that he had not thought was controversial. He was frustrated and had been uncharacteristically quiet as he shared a cab with his co-worker back to the airport. He felt the need to explain to her everything but didn't know where to begin.Meleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559424221338845836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3111082219677531284.post-26538575314591657932021-10-01T21:57:00.010-04:002022-06-06T20:35:00.269-04:00"I just want a friend who will travel with me to other countries ya dig"<p> I am searching for a book in a bookstore which is weird because I have not been a bookstore in so many years. The further I go into the depths of the store the smaller the aisles become. It becomes hard to maneuver and there are stacks of books and cobwebs. But I can not find what I am looking for, no matter how hard I look. I turn a corner and you are there. I know it is you, but I can not make you out. It is though there is light emanating from you and you are blurry and featureless. You should not be here.</p><p>"What are you doing here?" I ask. And the light shifts into what feels like a smile.</p><p>"I miss you." You say and you hold out your hand but I can not reach it. "I'm just not ready to go yet," you say. The light around you flickering.</p><p><br /></p>Meleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559424221338845836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3111082219677531284.post-251336104192664632021-05-18T16:50:00.001-04:002021-05-18T16:50:00.192-04:00"Do you remember that one time when we literally ran into each other at Whole Foods? Let's not let another five years go by before we run into each other again."<p> I was sitting at my dinning room table and the internet had just kicked. My oldest home from school because of a football injury the day before. I had just given him permission to download Fortnite after he had begged me for a solid 6 months. I restarted the router and my phone made the noise it does to tell me I had a Facebook messenger message. It was your sister. She needed my phone number. I gave it to her and she called.</p><p>She told me you were gone. She told me what her mother had found. I asked what I could do and she gave me a list of people to contact. But when I hung up all I could think to do was go and sit next to my son on the couch. He asked me what had happened and I told him. He asked me if I was OK and I said, "No. But I will be. If it is OK with you I am just going to sit here and hug you for a minute." And sat together that Monday morning on the couch. Watching the Fortnite download approach 100%. Me knowing that my life was forever altered by your absence.</p>Meleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559424221338845836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3111082219677531284.post-24180779885585124702021-05-17T10:34:00.032-04:002021-05-17T11:30:32.713-04:00"Wouldn't it be cool to have a cafe in Deering Oaks again?"<p> I am returning my Target cart when I pass you. 25 years since I have seen your face. More then that since we dated in high school. Both of us searching for something to hold on to. I pause for a moment. "Tim," I say. "Hi." You recognize me right away and we exchange the pleasantries of two people who had not shared the history we have. By the time I am back in my car my hands are shaking. I am 14 again and lost in your eyes when I hear a tap on my window. You are standing outside my car holding a cigarette as though no time has passed. I get out and face you.</p><p>"I have wanted to say I'm sorry for so long." You say. I shake my head.</p><p>"There is no need." But you insist. Saying it again and again. Apologizing for all that was said and what wasn't said. We learn that after all these years we live by a mile apart. Both married. Wounds we had both forgotten lay open before us. 10 minutes later we have said goodbye and I start my car and turn for home. The ice cream I bought for the kids surly melting in the trunk. As I pull out of the Target parking lot Another Auld Lang Syne by Dan Folgerberg comes on the radio. Random on any day, but today it brings me to tears. All the things you think you would say to your old lover caught just on the tip of your tongue.</p>Meleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559424221338845836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3111082219677531284.post-77636443533923166182021-05-14T21:55:00.001-04:002021-05-17T11:39:07.236-04:00"Nana and Pa are babysitting at our house (and the kids acted like they were rock stars when the got there) and we are off to dinner with the siblings which doesn't happen nearly as often as it should."<p> Your life was not the stuff made for TV movies were made of, but your death was. You married your college sweetheart on Saturday after a week of torrential rain. The skies clearing and making way for a million stars as we made our way into the reception. You bought a condo, and told me you were pregnant with your daughter at the company Christmas party. Only confessing when you pushed the waiter to know if their were anchovies in the Ceaser Salad and nursing a ginger ale instead of your usual Cape Codder. You brought her to the company picnic that summer, only a few weeks old and we sat together marveling at her while everyone around us ate lobster.</p><p>A few years later we were pregnant at the same time. Me with my first and you with twins. You came to visit when I bought my house, laughing at my lack of furniture. You happily worked as the Office Manager while I fought to climb a ladder that was never achievable. You were content and happy in your life while I always wanted something more.</p><p>You don't ever forget the feeling in your stomach when you get the call that someone you love is gone. Made worse when it is sudden and violent. When they are young. Your life was not the stuff made for TV movies are made of. But it was a good life. Cut short. By your college sweetheart that you married the night the rain stopped.</p>Meleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559424221338845836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3111082219677531284.post-58303379764244847492021-05-13T13:25:00.001-04:002021-05-17T11:40:15.230-04:00"The first wall goes up ..."For James it was always a physical sensation when he started to shut down. When the conversation became too personal. "Was that what holidays were like for you to?" Someone would ask and he would feel a tightness in his chest. A feeling of discomfort in his bowels. He had mastered the lie. "Oh yes." He would say. But he was already gone. Already moved past the conversation and thinking about how to extract himself from the social situation. Sometimes he would pretend his phone vibrated and say he had to take a call. "Excuse me." he would say. "I have to take this." He would drop a $20 on the table that covered more than his share and leave. In the anonymity of street he would be able to breath again. Strangers who didn't have questions passing him without a thought.Meleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559424221338845836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3111082219677531284.post-58219739069132238502020-10-02T10:35:00.022-04:002022-06-06T20:27:43.195-04:00"Who wants to take me to Boston April 10th..."<p> I walk into a waiting room and you are sitting there.</p><p>"I miss you," you say. And I am taken by the fact you are speaking in present tense. The way you used to say it when we would go to long between visits and would exchange text messages. But you have been gone for nearly a year now. You give me a huge hug. The kind you always greeted me with when we would get together, in Boston, in Maine, in New Orleans.</p><p>I sit down next to you and I have a million questions but you are talking so fast. And the room is so full. And I have this sense that you have no idea what has happened. And I am afraid to tell you, because you do not seem sad and I don't want to make you sad. </p><p>The alarm jerks me awake and I am desperate to go back to sleep. To hear your voice and sit by you for just a little longer. </p>Meleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559424221338845836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3111082219677531284.post-78285895445198819572018-07-31T01:00:00.000-04:002018-07-31T13:16:23.697-04:00"Love this. Thanks for posting"Dawn breaks across the room<br />
shattering the darkness like a memory trapped<br />
in the recesses of my heart.<br />
Splinters glow red,<br />
a minefield to walk through.<br />
Away from you.<br />
Or towards.Meleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559424221338845836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3111082219677531284.post-62102901159430473822018-06-13T11:33:00.000-04:002019-11-20T21:29:46.076-05:00"Alright I can get on board with this one"Carol was outside Walmart, loading bags into her car. Her infant still strapped to her chest in a Baby Bjorn. It was mid-morning on a Wednesday, the last week of her maternity leave. She had dropped her oldest daughter at school and then not knowing what to do with herself had driven 40 miles out of town to wander the store. Picking up plates, bags of candy, a box of Lucky Charms. The sound of her phone ringing startled her and she fumbled with the final bag before finding she had stashed her phone in her back pocket instead of in her purse.<br />
<br />
"I just wanted to say that I am sorry." The voice said. The baby asleep on her chest, a voice so familiar it needed no introduction. She had no words. They had spoken since the horrible night a decade ago when he had confessed his affair and she had packed a bag and walked out into the hot summer night. Two months of coach surfing and finally a plane ticket to San Francisco where she had lived the next decade, re-building what he has taken from her.<br />
<br />
<br />Meleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559424221338845836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3111082219677531284.post-74764054499798374092018-05-22T10:13:00.001-04:002018-05-22T10:13:12.390-04:00"It will be the BEST GIRLS NIGHT EVER with lots of swearing and wine."The popular girls grew up and moved away. By the time Jane moved back home to raise her kids there was almost no one left that she had grown up with. She had forgotten how hard it was to meet people and make friends. She finally got to know some other moms when her son started pre-school and sitting in her living room while their kids played outside realized that all the other moms in the class had started a Facebook group to share when things were happening and schedule get togethers.<br />
<br />
Jane felt the feeling in her gut that she remembered from high school. When she was always just on the outside. That even though she thought that she was saying the right things and smiling at the right times she was never welcomed into the inner circle. All the effort she had put in to making connections, all the hope she had held out looking for a group of friends who she could share a glass of wine with solidified into a black rock inside her core. She found herself calling for her son and making an excuse for needing to leave early. As she pulled away from the house she vowed that she would never again seek out relationships from women. She would have to be enough for herself. Pulling herself inward the closer she got to home.Meleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559424221338845836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3111082219677531284.post-56335411913313821212016-09-01T09:55:00.000-04:002016-09-01T12:27:14.825-04:00"I'm not really sure how this hasn't happened to me.""Do you know what giving up feels like?" the fish asked the cat who stood outside the bowl trying to gauge the depth of the water.<br />
"Quiet," said the cat, "I'm doing math." He lifted an orange paw and carefully touched the top of the water in the bowl.<br />
"It is really an awful feeling," said the fish, diving deeper into his bowl. "I look around and see the world, but am constrained by walls I can not see. I will never escape this fish bowl."<br />
"I think I can help you with that," said the cat, dipping his paw deeper into the water.<br />
"Yours is not the kind of help I need," said the fish, swimming inside a plastic sunken ship at the bottom of the bowl.Meleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559424221338845836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3111082219677531284.post-63815624573927636372016-08-18T09:57:00.000-04:002016-08-18T13:17:39.243-04:00"I just discovered they're still doing The Real World on MTv - and it's still super annoying;)"I woke up with all of the conversations we never had lodged in the back of my throat. Dreams of times we never spent and the things we will never do haunting my morning, making reality seemed skewed. It was 1pm before I realized that today we would have celebrated 15 years. That we would have cracked open the bottle of Chateau Margaux that bought on our 5th anniversary and served it with braised New Zealand lamp chops or tender skirt steak cooked with onions. <br />
<br />
There is no option on Facebook to post about the milestones you don't meet. And the bottle of wine was opened years ago. On our last night together, even though at the time we could not call it that, we sat together in the living room of our home. Candles in the fireplace, the spring wind coming through the windows, behind us, stacks of boxes that will need to be loaded into the Penske truck tomorrow. And the wine was young when we opened it, it had needed more time to become the wine it had been created to be. And wasn't it the same with us? That time and patience could have fixed so much.<br />
<br />
I woke up with all of the things that I have left to say to you on the tip of my tongue. The summer wind blowing in my window, just as it had 15 years ago. Wondering if you had saved the bottle...Meleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559424221338845836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3111082219677531284.post-75137614480694784812016-06-05T21:30:00.002-04:002016-06-05T21:30:45.407-04:00"Boom!"I woke out of a dream from a nap gone wrong. Filled with thoughts of a lifetime ago. Wracked with regret and sadness. On the table next to me my phone emitted a quiet beep letting me know that someone was reaching out. My eyes still full of tears I opened the message to find a note from you. You had been thinking about a time when you and I were an us and were compelled to, at the same time I was dreaming of that very moment, to let me know you had been thinking about it too. I held my phone, looking down at the keyboard that had automatically opened waiting for me to type my response. But to respond is to admit to something I can never say out loud. So I deleted the message. Your face from the screen. If only I could also delete the memory.Meleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559424221338845836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3111082219677531284.post-45032118207246848032016-04-15T10:03:00.001-04:002016-04-15T10:03:39.787-04:00"Sign!"Meleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559424221338845836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3111082219677531284.post-44788704998925357272016-04-15T09:56:00.001-04:002019-06-30T08:49:17.729-04:00"Getting ready for a long day of science!!"<p dir="ltr">Morning greets me with her teeth bared. I awake to find myself still running from the demons in my dreams. Not rested or hopeful. A to do list waiting for me that can not be accomplished in one day and so, like always, will spill into tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow until it festers and rots like spilled milk.</p>
Meleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559424221338845836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3111082219677531284.post-5041436535105218592016-04-15T09:54:00.001-04:002019-06-24T10:59:43.979-04:00"I'd rather just make what I'm worth, but this makes a good point:)"<p dir="ltr">I used to chop garlic with woustoff knives and cook it in stainless steel cookware. I braised New Zealand lamb chops with organic mint and paired free range chicken with fancy Italian wine. I set my table with China and crystal and silver. Candelabras and table runners.</p>
Meleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559424221338845836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3111082219677531284.post-35646954727085948732016-04-15T09:16:00.004-04:002016-04-15T09:17:14.772-04:00"friday in the sugarhouse"When we started dating you lived in a ground floor apartment hidden away in Beacon Hill. It had the right address to sound exclusive but was close enough to the Red Line that you could feel the vibrations when it made it s lumbering journey from the deep recesses of the city to the bridge that would take it to Cambridge.<br />
<br />
You invited me over one night when we were just dating and I made the walk that I would make so many times in the next 6 months 20 years later it is still burned in my mind. Out my door at 80 Boylston Street, across the Boston Common on the diagonal. Cross the street where the ducklings from Make Way for Ducklings crossed the street in the famous book. On Charles Street now. Dodge the people who are suppose to live here...the ones with money and power, stop and buy a pack of smokes at the Seven Eleven. Pass the retail stores and the expensive bakery that years later would be my go to breakfast spot. Turn right at Revere street. The road turns sharply up, almost reminiscent of the hills in San Francisco. But it is a short block and and soon as you turn left onto West Cedar the road slopes down again, leading you towards the river and the honking cars of Cambridge Street. At the next block you take another right. Look for the door that has no marking.<br />
<br />
But what I can not remember from that first walk was if I hesitated. If I had made the walk with Matchbox 20's inaugural album blaring in my ears and then upon arriving had been able to feel the consequences of that heavy iron door. If I did, it wasn't long. I still make the walk in my head sometimes. It is spring and I am young and I know you are waiting.Meleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559424221338845836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3111082219677531284.post-79358348623786779852016-03-15T12:42:00.002-04:002016-03-15T12:42:36.596-04:00"Alright everyone get the ides of March quotes/memes out of your systems"We didn't need the help of a seer to predict our beginning or our end. There were so many signs in the beginning that led us to believe we should be together. From those first fated moments in Ithaca, the Monica Lewinsky scandal breaking on TV, wrapped in a hotel quilt staving off the winter air. It was a trip I wasn't suppose to be on, trading an invitation for a weekend away in the Poconos for this trip instead. But for every early easy moment, we would be met by an equally hard road block. The early fights, the fire, the year we didn't speak. So many times that one or both of us could have turned and chosen a different path. And yet we always chose the hard path. The fight to find each other, to stay together, even when we knew it was a futile one. And the sad march to goodbye, through years of memories and moments of hope, that brought us back to the end. To where we started. The only price we paid, was time and our hearts.Meleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559424221338845836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3111082219677531284.post-44100638423688443002016-03-14T14:01:00.001-04:002016-03-14T14:01:49.929-04:00"...and it begins!"I am jealous of the scars that you can see. The ones that you can point to and say, this is from our first Valentines day when a thorn from the roses you bought left an inch long scar on the side of my middle finger. This one was from when the ceramic jewelry box my father gave me when I was eight shattered in my hand, leaving a scar deep enough to need stitches from the top of my right pointer finger all the way to the first knuckle. The one on my chin from the little dog that bit me on Christmas Eve when I was three. Jagged and uneven. The ones that I don't talk about faded and white on the inside of my left wrist. Even those. External. It's the ones that no one can see. The ones that line the inside of my stomach and my heart. That keep me up at night and take my breath away. The ones that will never heal. It is those I want to tell you about.Meleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559424221338845836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3111082219677531284.post-34857395870365902252016-02-18T08:12:00.000-05:002016-02-18T11:46:20.546-05:00"I want to say a joke about Ebola, but you probably wouldn't get it."While working the lab during his masters program Jim was poked through his glove with a needle. The contents of the syringe did not carry any horrible disease or blood or anything(or so they assured him) that could hurt him. But he because obsessed. Focused on illnesses so rare, so localized he could not possible have them. He made them run tests, tracked symptoms and eventually dropped out of the biology program. If he was going to die from some undetectable disease he was going to do on his terms.<br />
<br />
He grew a beard and let his hair get long. Went weeks without leaving his small apartment. His friends, once concerned became distant. No one wanted to hear about rare and fatal diseases all the time and Jim figured it was better that way...since he was a goner anyway.Meleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559424221338845836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3111082219677531284.post-14119270499935029052016-02-16T11:27:00.002-05:002016-02-16T11:27:55.239-05:00"Breathe, Journal, and Treat Yo Self!"I had Eggs Benedict and you laughed at me because I ate the raw sugar meant for the coffee out of the bowl. You sipped your Bloody Mary and read through the Boston Globe. It was a Sunday morning in May and things were about to change. But as the sunlight fought to enter the darkened dinning room we couldn't see it coming. Could only see what was right in front of us. The rich coffee, the flickering candle, the white tablecloth, the breakfast spread before us like a banquet for kings. We ate in silence. The rustling paper, the quiet din of waitstaff clearing tables and preparing for the lunch rush. The morning was ours. A final calm before the storm.Meleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559424221338845836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3111082219677531284.post-89512129740861754302016-02-01T12:21:00.002-05:002016-02-01T12:21:24.015-05:00"Want. So. Hard."We pulled up to the house. For sale sign in the yard. It was an old farm house that sat right up against the road. But the road was amazing. Trees that looked like they belonged in the deep south. Farms all around. Space and sky. We were 30 minutes outside of the city, an hour+ commute during rush hour. But it was quiet. The realtor showed us through the home. Built in the 1800's, dirt floor basement, no heat on the second floor, 5 bedrooms. The barn, ready for animals, the shed, perfect for a workshop. And the yard behind the house, fields as far as the eye could see with thick trees growing on either side to block out the neighbors. I wanted to see us there...fixing up the old kitchen, getting barn cats, grilling in the back yard while the children played. Finishing the basement floor. Painting the chipping exterior.<br />
<br />
But all I saw was work. We worked 10 hour days so when would we make those changes. You were not handy and did not need a workshop and we preferred to keep our cats inside with us. And there were no children. So all we would have would be bedrooms full of empty future hopes, that even as we stood looking up at the beautiful home we knew would never come to be.Meleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559424221338845836noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3111082219677531284.post-65255763846239607762016-01-28T15:19:00.002-05:002016-01-28T15:19:42.801-05:00"Mittens are delicious!"The stone steps are cold beneath me. I can not remember how long I have been sitting here but the light is gone. It is suppose to be spring but the season can't seem to show up. Winter holding on too tight. Is that what I have been doing? Holding too tight to what I was sure I was suppose to be and not allowing something new in? My hands are jammed in my pink coat, headphones on. Home is the next stop. But I know what is waiting for me there. The silence of a life abandoned. The ghosts of movie nights and Survivor finales. Of 7 course meals and pizza deliveries. I work as late as I can, knowing he will be ducking out early. Each of us trying to maximize time. Him with her. And me, anywhere but there.Meleenahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09559424221338845836noreply@blogger.com0